The Mercy Step by Marcia Hutchinson

 

The Mercy Step by Marcia Hutchinson.

Published 22nd July 2025 by Cassava Republic Press.

From the cover of the book:

Bradford, December 1962.

A precocious Mercy makes her reluctant entrance into the world, torn from the warm embrace of her mother’s womb, to a chaotic household that seems to have no place for her. Her siblings do not understand her, her mother’s attention is given to the Church, and the entire family lives at the whims of her father’s quick temper.

Left to herself, Mercy finds solace in books, her imagination, and the quiet comfort of her faithful toy, Dolly. But escapism has its limits, and as the grip of family, faith and fear threatens to close in, Mercy learns she must act if she wants a different future; one where she is seen, heard, and her family set free.

The Mercy Step is a sharply-witted and tender portrait of a young girl’s quiet rebellion, and her refusal to be broken.

***********

Bradford, 1962. Mercy bursts forth on the world on a cold December day, swapping the peaceful warmth, and safety, of her mother's womb for the unwelcome shock of chaotic family life. Her ever-growing number of siblings seem to have nothing in common with her, her busy mother has little time for one daughter among many, and the household is dominated by the tempestuous moods of a father quick to violence.

Despite the fierce love she feels for her mother, quick witted Mercy learns she cannot rely on her for comfort. Instead she finds solace in books, daydreams, and the presence of her faithful plastic friend, Dolly, and sets herself apart by whiling away the hours in solitude on her favourite step of their damp, draughty Victorian home.

As Mercy grows, her family begins to disintegrate in a blur of abuse, dogma, and fear. If they are to have any kind of chance of real salvation, then she must be the one to 'fix-up' and take it upon herself to find a brighter future.

The Mercy Step is one of those irresistible coming of age stories that sucks you in heart and soul, which makes it very difficult to do justice to in a review. Mercy's voice rings out loud and clear, and it is the sheer strength of her mighty will that leads you through the story, from the days before her birth to the moment she realises she must be the one to dictate her own path... 

Mercy is born one freezing cold winter day, to Windrush generation parents whose vision of a Britain welcoming them with open arms is very quickly dispelled in a perfect storm of shattered illusions and grinding manual labour. The harsh realities of life exacerbate the strain of a dysfunctional marriage over-shadowed by domestic violence, cultural norms, loss, and religious strife, leaving the household constantly on edge. Every heart-rending moment is laid bare through the eyes of wise-beyond-her-years Mercy, as she tries to understand a bewildering world in which the adults around her do not seem to follow the rules of right and wrong. It is a lot for a child to deal with, especially on top of the complicated feelings that come with being a middle child in a family where her mother barely has time to give her the attention she craves.

Hutchinson spares nothing in describing every hard knock Mercy experiences. I shed many tears for her through her weighty trials and tribulations, but she has soul-stirring triumphs too. Mercy's determination not to be defeated by the weight of burdens much too heavy for her small shoulders, and her humorous inner dialogue, make her a force to be reckoned with. I completely adored her.

Mercy stands front and centre of this book, with a story as compelling as any you could wish for in a literary novel. With this comes the obvious talent of a writer who knows how to craft layers of substance around the fictional tale of a small Black girl in 1960's Bradford. Hutchinson allows you to look beyond Mercy's level of understanding to consider a wealth of subject matter connected to time, place, and the issues that faced Windrush families like Mercy's - particularly when it comes to the impact of poverty, racism, and expectation. She skilfully stiches in references to popular culture, the political landscape, and social change throughout, and makes this a heart-felt love letter to libraries too.

This book is mesmerising, holding you entranced from the very first, beautifully descriptive, words to the last. Without a doubt, this is one of my favourite books of 2025.

The Mercy Step is available to buy now in hardcover, ebook and audio formats.

Thank you to Cassava Republic Press for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review, and to FMcM Asscociates for inviting me to join this blog tour.

About the author:

MARCIA HUTCHINSON was born to Windrush generation Jamaican parents in the UK in 1962. She was the first pupil from her comprehensive school to go to Oxford, where she gained an MA in Law. She worked as a lawyer before founding the educational publishing company Primary Colours, which she ran until 2014.

She was awarded an MBE in 2011 for services to Cultural Diversity. Moving to Manchester in 2012, she became a community activist and was eventually elected as a Labour Councillor in 2021. She is now a full-time writer and an active member of the Black Writers' Guild.

She is the co-author with Kate Griffin (under the pseudonym Lila Cain) of the historical fiction novel The Blackbirds of St Giles, which will be published by Simon and Schuster in 2025. The Mercy Step is her literary debut as a solo writer.

 July 2025 Reading Round-Up

A very creditable fourteen books read and reviewed in July, and there are some absolute stunners among them. Click on the photos below to find out what I thought about them!

Getting Away by Kate Sawyer

Hard Copy by Fien Veldman

Seascraper by Benjamin Wood

Come, Tell Me How You Live by Agatha Christie

The Village Cafe In The Loire by Gillian Harvey

Divinity Games by Lou Gilmond

The Heretic Cypher by Murray Bailey

The Jane Austen Insult Guide by Emily Reed

Murder In Mesopotamia by Agatha Christie

Havoc by Rebecca Wait

Seven Recipes For Revolution by Ryan Rose

The Secrets Of Dragonfly Lodge by Rachel Hore

The Mourning Necklace by Kate Foster

Edenglassie by Melissa Lucashenko

More great books coming in August!

Edenglassie by Melissa Lucashenko

 

Edenglassie by Melissa Lucashenko.

Published 3rd July 2025 by Oneworld.

From the cover of the book:

TWO UNFORGETTABLE STORIES. TWO FAMILIES. TWO HUNDRED YEARS OF HISTORY.

1854: When Mulanyin meets the beautiful Nita in Brisbane – or Edenglassie, as it was once briefly known – his community still outnumbers the British settlers. Tensions are simmering just beneath the surface of a fragile peace, but hopes for independence are running high. Yet when colonial unrest tears through the region, Mulanyin's passion for his new bride clashes with his loyalty to a homeland in danger.

Two centuries later, fiery activist Winona meets Dr Johnny when her grandmother Eddie has a serious fall. Winona just wants the obstinate centenarian back on her feet, but a shrewd journalist has other ideas. Eddie becomes a local celebrity, dominating the headlines as 'Queensland's Oldest Aboriginal'.

Her time in the spotlight brings past and present crashing together, the legacy of Nita and Mulanyin's tragic past reaching into Winona and Eddie's lives with consequences they couldn't have predicted.

***********

Brisbane, 1854. Mulanyin meets and falls in love with beautiful Nita, but these are troubled times. While his community outnumbers the British settlers, tensions are high, and when colonial unrest finds him caught between the interests of his bride and his homeland, he faces difficult choices.

Brisbane, 2024. When one-hundred-year old Eddie takes a fall, it brings together her fiery granddaughter Winona and the doctor treating her obstinate grandmother, Dr Johnny. As love blossoms between Winona and Johnny, Eddie finds herself becoming a reluctant celebrity.

In a fascinating dual timeline novel, Lucashenko delves into Australia's troubled colonial past in Brisbane, once known as Edenglassie. The story unfurls in two timelines, the 1850s and 2024, which thrum with similar themes, despite the different backdrops.

Essentially, there are two emotional stories here, which clash together when the tragic past leads to consequences that ripple into the future. As a non-Aussie, what happens is a brutal education about uncomfortable history around the treatment of the country's indigenous population, and they are hard lessons to learn.

The rhythm of the story takes a little while to get going, and you do have to familiarise yourself with the pattern of spoken language, but the characters spark from the page - and once you get a handle on Lucashenko's writing, there is a lot to admire in her whip smart dialogue.

This book is a proper heart-wrencher, and I would find it hard to say I 'enjoyed' it given the heavy dose of darkness and violence that inevitably comes with it, but there are lovely moments of tenderness and a wealth of humour of the pitch black variety that keep you from being overwhelmed.

Powerful and haunting, this is just the kind of book that set you off down a rabbit hole of additional reading...

Edenglassie is available to buy now in paperback, ebook and audio formats.

Thank you to Oneworld for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

About the author:

Melissa Lucashenko is a Goorie (Aboriginal) author of Bundjalung and European heritage. Her first novel was published in 1997 and since then her work has received acclaim in many literary awards. Her sixth novel, Too Much Lip, won the 2019 Miles Franklin Literary Award and the Queensland Premier's Award for a work of State Significance. It was also shortlisted for the Prime Minister's Literary Award for Fiction, the Stella Prize, two Victorian Premier's Literary Awards, two Queensland Literary Awards and two NSW Premier's Literary Awards. Melissa is a Walkley Award winner for her non-fiction, and a founding member of human rights organisation Sisters Inside. She writes about ordinary Australians and the extraordinary lives they lead.

The Mourning Necklace by Kate Foster

 

The Mourning Necklace by Kate Foster.

Published 29th May 2025 by Mantle.

From the cover of the book:

Inspired by an infamous real-life case, The Mourning Necklace is the unforgettable feminist historical novel from the Women's Prize-longlisted author of The Maiden, Kate Foster.

They said I would swing for the crime, and I did . . .

1724. In a tavern just outside Edinburgh, Maggie Dickson’s family drown their sorrows, mourning her death yet relieved she is gone. Shame haunts them. Hanged for the murder of her newborn child, passers-by avert their eyes from her cheap coffin on its rickety cart.

But as her family pray her soul rests in peace, a figure appears at the door.

It is Maggie. She is alive.

Bruised and dazed, Maggie has little time for her family’s questions. All that matters to her is answering this one: will they hang her twice?

***********

Edinburgh, 1724. Maggie Dickson's family are astonished when the last person they are expecting to see walks in the door, Maggie herself. For Maggie has just been hanged for the crime of concealing her pregnancy, and the death of her new born baby, and they have been drowning their sorrows at her wake.

Maggie somehow survived the gallows, but now she faces an uncertain future...

Kate Foster's incredible third novel is a captivating retelling of the story of 'Half Hanged Maggie', a woman who survived a hanging, and became one of Edinburgh's infamous historical characters. Her story is extraordinary, full of themes about poverty, loss, injustice, macabre fascination, public shame, and the sheer strength of character of eighteenth century Scottish women (especially the fishwives of Fisherrrow).

The story begins with Maggie 'returning from the dead', and then goes on to tell a compelling tale about the tragic path that brought the brutal weight of the law down upon her, how she may have survived, and the life she went on to lead. As is her forte, Foster's prose is rich; her plot is imbued with a slow-burn mystery to be solved; and her historical settings are vividly alive with atmospheric details of time and place.

I always adore her female cast members, who are realistically capricious and sympathetic in turn, shining out as living breathing, complicated characters with hopes and dreams that they cling to in distressingly difficult times. Maggie, more than any of Foster's characters before is one that it is easy to forge a connection with, I think. Her desires are so relatable, her aspirations are modest, and her coming of age is deeply moving. My heart was ripped to shreds at Maggie's fate at the mercy of laws which cast grieving women as criminals, and the unfeeling people who brought her to the gallows, but there is also stirring warmth to be found in her story, especially around the bonds of motherhood, family and friendship that ultimately give her restless soul some peace.

I have loved each and every one of Foster's stirring, feminist tales that give voice to women punished for simply wanting more, but this is absolutely my favourite one so far. Maggie worked her way into my heart, and I found myself utterly sobbing as I turned the final page of this beautiful novel. More please, Kate Foster!

The Mourning Necklace is available to buy now in hardcover, ebook and audio formats.

Thank you to Mantle/Pan Macmillan for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

About the author:

Kate Foster worked as a national newspaper journalist for more than twenty years before becoming an author. Growing up in Edinburgh, she became fascinated by its history and often uses it as inspiration for her stories. Her previous novels include The Maiden, which won the Bloody Scotland Crime Debut of the Year and was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and The King’s Witches. The Mourning Necklace is her third novel. She lives in Edinburgh with her two children.

The Secrets of Dragonfly Lodge by Rachel Hore

 

The Secrets of Dragonfly Lodge by Rachel Hore.

Published 31st July by Simon and Schuster.

From the cover of the book:

Secrets from the past, unravelling in the present…

Nancy Foster has harboured a devastating secret that shattered her professional and personal life. On meeting her, journalist Stef Lansdown realizes that she has the power to restore Nancy’s reputation and to heal the wounds, if only Nancy will trust her. 

But someone else wants to get to the bottom of the story first, someone who doesn’t want it to be told.

Set in the beautiful environs of the Norfolk Broads in 2010, and in London in the '40s and ‘50s, when life for career-driven women was so different, The Secrets of Dragonfly Lodge is Sunday Times multi-million copy bestselling author Rachel Hore’s utterly compelling new novel, interweaving the past and the present.

***********

When journalist Stef Lansdown decides that her next project will be setting the record straight when it comes to the way the research of female scientists has been historically side-lined, or worse, she could not have foreseen how her own life would change in the process...

Fate brings Stef into contact with Dr Nancy Foster, who lives alone on a nature reserve on the Norfolk Broads, in ramshackle Dragonfly Lodge. As Stef strikes up a friendship with this elderly woman, she begins to realise that Nancy is an ideal candidate as a subject for her book - if only she can persuade Nancy to reveal the devastating secrets she has kept about her life and work.

But persuading Nancy to trust her is not going to be easy when someone is determined to keep the truth hidden, and Nancy's protective grandson, Aaron, is suspicious of Stef's motives.

Set in the beautiful Norfolk countryside, Rachel Hore's compelling new novel delves into the shocking history of the treatment of female scientists in post-war Britain, and is inspired by the experiences of her own mother and aunt in the late 1940s.

The story unfurls through the eyes of Stef in 2010, as she gets to know Nancy (and her grandson Aaron); and through flashbacks to Nancy's life, which she gradually reveals over the course of the book, once she knows she can trust Stef with the truth. The book is dominated with jaw-dropping detail about how Nancy's personal and professional lives were derailed by patriarchal manipulation, sexual discrimination, and the misjudged motives of others. It paints an authentic picture of time and place, with powerful themes of post-war attitudes; the conflicting demands of marriage, motherhood, and career; and the factual stories of women who were treated just like Nancy - all of which leaves a profoundly bitter taste in the mouth, 

In the present, Hore weaves in lovely threads about friendship, family, failed relationships, love, marriage, and community, and a gentle romance for Stef, all of which nicely echo many of the themes from Nancy's life. There is the grit of a sinister mystery about threatening letters, and an examination of corporate influence in scientific research too, which fill out an already hard-hitting novel. But, for all its thought-provoking substance, this is not a book without hope. I very much enjoyed the way Hore brings everything to an uplifting close, and her nature writing is lovely.

I consumed the 480 page heft of this compelling novel in a single sitting, which says a lot for how Rachel Hore can utterly absorb you with her writing. Highly recommended, especially if you love a book that shines a light on the untold history of women.

The Secrets of Dragonfly Lodge is available to buy now in hardcover, ebook and audio formats.

Thank you to Simon and Schuster for sending me a proof of this book in return for an honest review, and for inviting me to join this Team BATC blog tour.

About the author:

Rachel Hore worked in London publishing for many years before moving with her family to Norwich, where she taught publishing and creative writing at the University of East Anglia until deciding to become a full-time writer. The Secrets of Dragonfly Lodge is her fourteenth novel. She is married to the writer D.J. Taylor and they have three sons.

Seven Recipes For Revolution (What We Eat Book One) by Ryan Rose

 

Seven Recipes for Revolution (What We Eat Book One) by Ryan Rose.

Published 22nd July 2025 by Daphne Press.

From the cover of the book:

The Bear meets Attack on Titan in this exhilarating, food-based epic fantasy filled with high stakes and monster steaks, perfect for fans of Pierce Brown and Jay Kristoff.

Paprick is a common butcher, carving slabs of meat from gargantuan monsters so elite chefs can prepare magic-granting meals for the rich. But Paprick’s true passion is cooking, and if he can learn the secret art, his dreams of liberating his people and sharing the monsters’ magic with the world could come true. He steals the precious ingredients needed to practise recipes at home, but if he’s caught, he’ll be executed.

As his desperation grows, he ventures into the black market and uncovers a spice imported from unknown lands. Combining it with the last of his stolen meat, he cooks a dish the world has never tasted before, with side-effects he couldn’t have foreseen.

The dish’s magic grows Paprick to kaiju-size, and legends of his powers spread among the people. Immediately, the rulers arrest him, but Paprick convinces them to make him a chef’s apprentice—if they ever want to learn his Recipe. However, his exposure to the world of high cuisine reveals the rot at its centre, and with his new power, rebellion is only a few recipes away…

***********

Paprick is an apprentice butcher, spending his days carving meat from monstrous beasts called emphon, to supply the tables of the rich. He is forbidden to taste the meat himself, and benefit from the magical properties it provides, so when he steals some emphon to feed his own desires as a keen cook, he knows he is risking everything.

Desperate to learn the secrets of the recipes the Rare consume, he ventures to the black market in search of ingredients for his own dishes. Discovering an exotic imported spice, he is inspired to add to the scraps of emphon he has stolen. The results lead to unexpected consequences, but they also bring Paprick a chance to barter his unique recipe for a chance become the Chef he longs to be.

Little does he know that they will also lead to knowledge of the darkness as the heart of the dynasty that rules Ranch, and that the power he gains from his food might be the catalyst to spark rebellion...

With a brutal beginning that cuts to the bone, like the cleaver Paprick wields, Ryan Rose conjures a wickedly sharp fantasy debut that is unlike anything I have read before. The central themes of elitism, oppression, reckoning, and revolution may be familiar ones, and they make for a truly gripping adventure, but it is the way Rose manages something deliciously original with his food based magical system that marks this debut out from the crowd.

Rose's novel unfurls in two compelling threads, cutting back and forth from the present, where Paprick stands trial for the alleged crimes that have earned him the title 'The Butcher'; and the past, as he tells his version of the events that have led to the rebellion raging outside the prison walls, in a cracking retrospective.

The world building is complex, with a lot of context coming at you head on right from the first page, but Rose shows great skill in the way he gradually knits together the details of this society of Commons and Rares, and the history that has come before. Multiple strands of story weave together to make a tasty dish of triumphs and tragedies for the well drawn characters around Paprick (plenty to love and loathe amongst them), with a feast of bitter-sweet side orders of the bonds of family, love, conspiracy, betrayal, and war. Rose makes the sumptuous most of the theme of food, cooking, recipes, kitchen protocol, and culinary techniques - even going so far as to include full recipes for each course of Paprick's seven recipes for revolution, which I though was an inspired touch.

This is a book to get your teeth into (pun intended). I loved the way everything comes together in a kicker of an ending that promises much more appetizing plot to come in the next book in the trilogy, Eight Tastes of Treachery. My epic fantasy taste-buds are already watering in anticipation...

Seven Recipes for Revolution is available to buy now in hardcover, ebook and audio formats.

Thank you to Black Crow PR/Daphne Press for sending me a proof of this book in return for an honest review, and for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the author:

After escaping his hometown in Central Florida, Ryan Rose made his way to Los Angeles. There, he attended the University of Southern California, studying to become a chemical engineer. He was sure he would one day be an asteroid miner.

A year later, he became an English major working in Concert and Live Entertainment production and writing a fantasy novel, eager to become a full-time author. These days, Ryan lives in Oakland with his partner and their dog, which may in fact be a demon. He still works in event production (occasionally) but now works to support Democracy Policy, which is more relevant to revolutions at least. Ryan continues to write about ridiculous things, like a world where people eat kaiju to gain superpowers. At least he achieved that author thing part-time.

His debut epic fantasy novel, Seven Recipes for Revolution, debuts in July 2025. It is the first in the What We Eat trilogy. He is represented by Harry Illingworth of DHH Literary Agency.

Havoc by Rebecca Wait

 

Havoc by Rebecca Wait.

Published 3rd July 2025 from riverrun.

From the cover of the book:

Fleeing Scotland in the wake of family disgrace, 16-year-old Ida Campbell secures a scholarship at a failing girls' boarding school on a remote part of the south English coast. Despite the eccentricities of her new Headmistress, who warns her of the dangers of the Cold War and the ever-present threat of the bomb, St Anne's seems like a refuge to Ida. But all this is about to change. For a start, her new room-mate is the infamous Louise Adler, potential arsonist and hardened outcast.

Meanwhile, the geography teacher Eleanor Alston, in her late thirties, a disastrous love affair in her wake, faces the new term with weary resignation. But the fragile ecosystem of the school is disrupted by the arrival of a new teacher, Matthew Langfield. Eleanor has an uneasy feeling he is not who he says he is.

***********

1984. Desperate to get away from her tainted family, Ida Campbell manages to get herself a scholarship place at St Anne's, an obscure girls' boarding school high on cliffs overlooking the English Channel. Somewhat surprised when she actually turns up at the failing establishment, the eccentric, nuclear-war-obsessed Headmistress decides to place Ida in the only space available... with the infamous Louise Adler, whose prodigious reputation for mayhem and anarchy makes her a challenging prospect as a room mate.  

Meanwhile, geography teacher Eleanor Alston is facing another tedious year teaching girls who have little thirst for learning. Haunted by her only love affair that went badly wrong, and mulling over a less than shining career that has died in the shabby halls of St Anne's, she sees little to look forward to. However, the arrival of a new male teacher, Matthew Langfield, soon gives her a distraction from her own problems. Setting tongues wagging amongst the girls, and female staff, Eleanor is certain there is something not quite right about the story he has told them about his past...

Set against a fabulously imagined, cliff-top girls' boarding school setting, which channels Malory Towers by way of a decidedly dark version of St Trinian's, Rebecca Wait hits her literary stride once again with the compelling Havoc.

Told in three strands, the story follows the equally bizarre perspectives of sixth-former Ida, from the pupil side; and teacher Eleanor, viewing events from the staff side; plus the letters of neurologist James Halliwell to a former colleague, which become more significant as the story progresses. Without giving too much away, Wait spins a mesmerising tale about Ida's quest to fit in at a place where she hopes to be free of her past; Elizabeth's search for purpose as she tries to get to the truth about enigmatic Matthew; and the piece de resistance of the whole novel, which concerns a strange malady that begins to afflict the pupils.

Hysteria is the name of the game, as the three strands twist sinuously around each other, and Wait fills them out with a delicious dark vein of humour that plays beautifully against the minutiae of school life, the odd-ball collection of staff members, and the cracking dynamic between Ida and Louise (what a pair, I loved them both, and the way their relationship developed). The mystery of the disturbing ailment provides a heavy-weight puzzle to be solved (and plenty of emotional heft too), with a minor strain in the thread about what Ida is running from. 

Wait sports wonderfully with popular culture and political references appropriate to the era, particularly with the fear about nuclear war that nibbled at the public conscience in the mid 1980's (that 1984 Threads drama still haunts me), the Brighton bombings, and Louise's perturbing selection of reading material.

I knew I was going to love this one before I even opened the cover, and I was right. Absolutely fabulous from start to finish!

Havoc is available to buy now in hardcover, ebook, and audio formats.

Thank you to riverrun for sending me a proof of this book in return for an honest review.

About the author:

Rebecca Wait is the author of four novels, the most recent of which, I’m Sorry You Feel That Way, was a book of the year for The Times, Guardian, Express, Good Housekeeping and BBC Culture, and was shortlisted for the Nota Bene Prize.

Her previous novel, Our Fathers, received widespread acclaim and was a Guardian book of the year and a thriller of the month for Waterstones.

Murder In Mesopotamia by Agatha Christie

 

Murder in Mesopotamia by Agatha Christie.

This edition published 22nd March 2018 by Harper Collins.

Originally published 1936.

From the cover of the book:

An archaeologist’s wife is murdered on the shores of the River Tigris in Iraq…

It was clear to Amy Leatheran that something sinister was going on at the Hassanieh dig in Iraq; something associated with the presence of ‘Lovely Louise’, wife of celebrated archaeologist Dr Leidner.

In a few days’ time Hercule Poirot was due to drop in at the excavation site. But with Louise suffering from terrifying hallucinations, and tension within the group becoming almost unbearable, Poirot might just be too late…

***********

Nurse, Amy Leatheran, is asked to join a dig on the banks of the River Tigris in Iraq, by celebrated archaeologist Dr Leidner, who is concerned about the health of his wife Louise. She is excited about the prospect, but as soon as she arrives she feels there is something off about the atmosphere here - the tension amongst the party is palpable.

'Lovely Louise' is clearly suffering from acute anxiety, but whether she really has cause to fear the danger she claims has followed her from her past, or whether she is simply paranoid, is unclear. It is only when Louise is murdered that they all wonder whether she was actually telling the truth about the peril stalking her.

Fortunately, Hercule Poirot is on hand in Iraq to delve into the matter...

Murder in Mesopotamia is one of Christie's wonderfully atmospheric locked-room mysteries that thrums with lots of delicious detail garnered from her own first-hand experience of being part of an archaeological dig, at the side of her second husband Max Mallowan.

The story is narrated from the perspective of Amy Leatheran, who has been co-opted as part of an on-going dig to attend to Louise Leidner, the seemingly neurotic wife of the celebrated American archaeologist in charge. Amy introduces us to the various members of the dig, their relationships to each other, and her take on the obvious tensions running high within the party - and eventually, to the reasons why Louise is so worried for her safety at the hands of a former husband who she denounced as a spy, even though he is supposed to have died years before in a train crash.

When Louise is subsequently murdered, a victim of a fatal head injury received in a room which no one could have possibly entered without being seen, it is a total mystery. Hercule Poirot, who is serendipitously in the locale, is asked to direct the power of his little grey cells to the matter, which he unravels with the help of nurse Amy.

Amy's personality shines through this story, and really enjoyed her outsider's view of whole situation, particularly when it comes to Poirot's modus operandi, and the revelations that come as his unconventional methods blow the case wide open. Her observations of the party, and of Poirot himself, are absolute gold, and there is a lot of humour to be had from them.

The mystery itself is incredibly clever, riddled with twists that turn on secrets and psychological manipulation, and has a literally 'cracking' solution to locked room problem. As is Christie's forte, she delves into dark emotions, especially jealousy. Everything hangs of the complexities of the character of murdered woman, whose different faces are revealed through the testimonies of others, but the story is also filled out with threads about addiction and the smuggling of artifacts which add extra spice.

This was the perfect bonus book to follow my recent read, Christie's non-fiction, archaeological memoir Come Tell Me How You Live, which was my July pick for #ReadChristie2025. I listened to the audio book narrated by Anna Massey, who makes a wonderful Amy Leatheran.

Murder in Mesopotamia is available to buy now in multiple formats.

About the author:

Agatha Christie is known throughout the world as the Queen of Crime. Her books have sold over a billion copies in English with another billion in over 70 foreign languages. She is the most widely published author of all time and in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. She is the author of 80 crime novels and short story collections, 20 plays, and six novels written under the name of Mary Westmacott.

The Jane Austen Insult Guide For Well-Bred Women by Emily Reed

 

The Jane Austen Insult Guide for Well-Bred Women by Emily Reed.

Published 17th July 2025 by Harper Collins.

From the cover of the book:

A celebration of the sharpest, wittiest, most beloved Jane Austen characters and their timeless retorts

Why use plain words to scold those nearest to you when fancier insults are available?

With The Jane Austen Insult Guide for Well-Bred Women, you can clap back at irritating strangers, tiresome guests, bad dates and micromanaging bosses with top-notch snipes from the ultimate literary genius.

***********

It's no secret that I worship at the altar of Jane Austen, and I am by no means alone in appreciating the impressive bite of the sharp wit she displays in her writing. If you have never used a quip or two from her books are you even an Austen devotee? 

If you are also yearning to apply a bit of Jane Austen sass, then this is the book you need to hand! It is full of choice quotations of the fancy Austen kind for you to use as insults in place of boring old plain words - and it even has suggestions for when each biting phrase might be appropriate in a modern setting.

Some of my absolute favs are here, many from Pride and Prejudice (which in my opinion is the best Austen source material for a literary retort); absolutely loads from Emma too (a remarkably under-rated treasure trove of disparaging asides). All the insults are worthy examples of her formidable genius - and, as the blurb quite rightly states, just as effective today as they were two hundred years ago.

Celebrate #JaneAusten250 by treating yourself (or the Austen fan in your life) with this enjoyable guide to well-bred barbs, and go forth with a slice of excellent Regency era scorn... it's what Jane Austen would do!

Required reading fellow Austenites, and "Obstinate, headstrong girls'. Also lots of fun spotting who said what from among her characters. 

The Jane Austen Insult Guide for Well-Bred Women is available to buy now in hard cover and ebook formats.

About the author:

Emily Reed is a freelance writer who often finds herself wondering 'What Would Jane Do?' in irksome social situations.

The Heretic Cypher (The Egyptian Stones Book One) by Murray Bailey

 

The Heretic Cypher (The Egyptian Stones Book One) by Murray Bailey.

Published in paperback 14th July 2025 (ebook 25th July 2025) by Three Daggers.

From the cover of the book:

When Egyptologist Alex MacLure’s friend and mentor dies he’s stunned to discover she’s left a message—hidden, encoded, and meant only for him.

With a mysterious artifact and a trail of cryptic symbols, Alex is thrust into a deadly race against time. What begins as a quest to finish her research quickly spirals into a chilling conclusion: her death was no accident. She was murdered for what she discovered.

Now he’s the next target.

Hunted by a ruthless adversary, Alex finds himself swept from the academic halls of London to the heart of Egypt’s oldest sites.

As he races to decode a forgotten truth buried beneath centuries of deception, powerful enemies close in—willing to kill to protect a secret—a revelation so explosive, it could rewrite everything we know about ancient Egypt and religion.

***********

When Egyptologist Alex MacLure's close friend, Dr Ellen Champion, dies under suspicious circumstances he is determined to find out why. Could her demise be related to the research she had been undertaking into Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon's infamous discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922? If so, why?

With the police eyeing him as a suspect, and the feeling that he is being followed, Alex knows he must tread carefully. Armed with the knowledge that Emma had been decoding mysterious symbols that appeared to reveal a big secret about the tomb and its contents, and the discovery of an enigmatic clue that she has left him to follow, Alex sets off on a quest to complete her research.

The trail takes him from the streets of London, to the dreaming spires of Oxford, and finally to the burning sands of Egypt. It becomes clear that Emma was murdered for what she knew by a powerful enemy hiding in the shadows, and they will stop at nothing to prevent an ancient secret from getting out...

In a delicious mash-up of Wilbur Smith, Dan Brown, Indiana Jones, National Treasure, and Tomb Raider Murray Bailey takes an exciting leap into a contemporary thriller that is entertainingly different from his area of interest in the 1940s/1950s that I am familiar with.  

The story unfurls largely from the perspective of Egyptologist Alex MacLure, who is dragged into a murky world where his interest in the symbolism of numbers gives him a curious edge in a dangerous treasure hunt for lost artifacts related to Carter and Lord Carnarvon's discoveries. The narrative is spiced up by intriguing sections about the police investigation into Emma's death, as well as additional juicy threads about the machinations of those who are keen to stop Alex in his tracks for different reasons of their own (which become evident as the story progresses).

The action moves super fast between locations as Alex makes his discoveries, finds allies to aid him in his cause, and dodges those who are out to get him, which makes for a very exciting story. I did want to yell at him at times to be a bit more guarded in who trusts, as this gets him into more than one sticky situation, but he is very likeable, and the left-of-centre way his brain makes leaps forward as the plot twists and turns around connections and puzzles really keeps things interesting.

A lot of fascinating information about Egyptology, archaeology, mythology, religion, mathematics, and mysticism comes at you quickly in this thriller, so you do have to pay close attention, but the payoff at the gripping conclusion makes this attention to detail so worthwhile. And it is a conclusion that keeps you perilously perched on the edge of your seat too!

This is unlike anything I have read from Murray Bailey before, but his central themes of secrets, conspiracy, deception, and absorbing history are here in spades, and this story provides just as much 'bang for your buck' as I have come to know and love from his books. I galloped through it in a single sitting, and cannot wait for the next book in the series, The Mark of Eternity, which is coming next year.

The Heretic Cypher is available to buy now in paperback, and ebook formats.

Thank you to Murray Bailey for providing me with an e-copy of this book in return for an honest review, and for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the author:

Murray Bailey Is the author of the Ash Carter thrillers, inspired by his father's experience in the Royal Military Police in Singapore in the early 1950s. From the prequel series, based in Cyprus and Israel, The Prisoner of Acre won the 2025 Page Turner Award. A post-Singapore series is based in the Philippines. The Heretic Cypher is the first book of a trilogy featuring a young Robert Langdon-type character decrypting secret messages written by an ancient Egyptian.

Murray is well traveled, having worked in the US, South America and a number of European countries throughout his career as a management consultant. However he also managed to find the time to edit books, contribute to articles and act as a part-time magazine editor.

Murray was born in Manchester and now lives on the south coast of England with his family and two dogs, Teddy and Muffin.

Divinity Games (Kanha and Colbey Book Three) by Lou Gilmond

 

Divinity Games (Kanha and Colbey Book Three) by Lou Gilmond.

Published 17th July 2025 by Armillary Books.

From the cover of the book:

When opposition MP Harry Colbey uncovers a corrupt plot between senior government ministers and a big tech organisation intent on enriching its owners, he finds himself the target of a strange form of harassment. His train pass and credit cards won't work, his phone won't get signal and every traffic light he comes to is red. Only his colleague, Esme Kanha, believes him. She's investigating the suspicious death of another anti-corruption MP.

But when Colbey's daughter gets engaged to the son of one of the tech company's owners, he is forced to venture straight into the heart of the sinister elite. Colbey intends to expose them – but in a world dominated by AI, where every movement is tracked and every conversation listened to, the stakes are dangerously high.

The ‘terrifying’ conclusion to the Kanha and Colbey thriller series.

***********

If MP Harry Colbey thought being in opposition would make his fight against the insidious spread of AI harder, he is now finding that being pushed even further into the wilderness as an Independent might be making it a battle he can no longer win. Forced to hold-up inside Westminster since he has been denied access to his credit cards, bank account, travel pass, and even his library card courtesy of Henri Lauvaux's terrifying AI creation, Divinity, Colbey's options are limited - not to mention the fact that the last time he saw daylight he was attacked by drones that meant to do him serious harm.

Meanwhile, Colbey's confederate (and lover), MP Esme Kanha has been banished to the back benches, having lost her coveted position of Chief Whip in the moves and counter moves that have played out. But she is determined to keep fighting against the political corruption that now has Lauvaux's Alcheminna empire with its fingers in every conceivable pie related to public life and the security forces. Somehow she must find incontrovertible evidence that democracy is being subverted by The Owners, a powerful elite with a dangerous agenda, in a world where the truth is increasingly difficult to establish.

When Colbey's daughter gets engaged to the son of one of the central players among The Owners, he is catapulted into the heart of a nest of vipers. It is a dangerous place to be, but it might also give him a chance to search for cracks in the ever-strengthening walls of their entitled palisade... especially if Kanha is able to get the evidence of wrongdoing that they need to aid their cause.

Building of the beautiful wrought previous novels in the Kanha and Colbey series, Lou Gilmond pulls out all the stops in this blockbuster third outing to create a political-thriller-meets-near future-chiller that keeps you enthralled from the first page to the last.

Colbey and Kanha are really up against it in this novel, facing the sheer enormity of trying to prove what is going on in the corridors of power as Lauvaux sees his megalomaniac-level plans coming to fruition. With Orwellian levels of dystopian devilry (and a lovely nod to 1984) Gilmond has an absolute ball spinning her threads to speculate about what could happen in a society where AI not only sees, hears, and reads everything, but is also given the power to manipulate at will.

This is one of my favourite series of recent years, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. I love so many things about what Gilmond achieves with it on literary, and thought provoking fronts. Her characters are wonderfully engaging, especially Colbey and Kanha, who it is a joy to follow in their quest to uphold democracy, even if they know the system is far from perfect. They are surrounded by a fabulous supporting cast, and the antagonists are genuinely frightening. And yet nothing that Gilmond has them doing seems beyond credibility, given the bitter taste of a near future that does not seem too far away.

This book is a delicious culmination of everything that has come before, weaving themes of surveillance, propaganda, power, truth, security, and privacy into an intelligent, exciting, and often witty story that comes full circle from Gilmond's opening gambit in Dirty Geese (Book One). Although this is said to be the conclusion to the series, there is an unsettling twist at the end that could be a hook into another adventure for Kanha and Colbey... I will keep my fingers crossed!

Gilmond's writing is as good as any of the renowned political thriller authors plying their trade today - if you have yet to discover it, then you are in for a treat!

Divinity Games is available to buy now in hardcover, paperback, and ebook formats.

Thank you to Armillary Books for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review, and to Midas PR for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the author:

Based in Oxford, UK, Lou Gilmond is an author of mystery and thriller fiction, screenplays and travel books.

The Village Cafe In The Loire by Gillian Harvey

 

The Village Cafe in the Loire by Gillian Harvey.

Published 12th July 2025 by Boldwood Books.

From the cove of the book:

High-flyer Becky Thorne cannot believe what she’s being told. She doesn’t need to be signed off for burnout! Life has been a bit chaotic lately, that’s all. As if dealing with her enviable job and permanent meddling from her mother aren’t enough, she’s also inherited a café in the Loire from an estranged great-aunt, complete with sitting tenant who refuses to budge.

But nobody stands in Becky’s way! Ignoring her best friend Amber’s advice, she decides to storm over to France and sort the tenant out. Then she can finally get the café sold and jump back on the career ladder.

What she doesn’t count on is the tenant being Pascale, who is six feet of tall, dark, handsome and extremely grumpy about her plans for change. Not to mention the village and the secrets it holds about her past.

Becky’s path to success is all planned out. But the Loire has a magic she might not be able to resist…

***********

Becky's career was going well, or so she thought, but the pressure of being a director at a London advertising agency gradually crept up on her unawares. After an unfortunate incident in which a laptop was sent hurtling in the direction of the office intern, Becky finds herself signed off for a month due to 'severe burnout'. As someone used to climbing the ladder to corporate success, Becky does not know what to do with herself. Relaxing is simply not part of her make-up, but she needs to get her head together if she is going to achieve a coveted position on the board of the advertising agency.

She decides to head to France, where she has recently been bequeathed a little cafe in the Loire by her great-aunt Maud, who she had not seen since she was a child. She had been planning to sell the cafe and invest in a swanky new London apartment, but now might be just the time to tackle the unexpected headache the news of a sitting tenant at the property has brought...

After a heart-breaking diversion in Harvey's last book, Midnight in Paris, she is back to her more typical fictional fare with a story of new beginnings in the beautiful Loire. The story begins with Becky suffering a melt-down at work which forces her to reassess the things she really wants in life, through the revelations that come with returning to a place she loved in her childhood.

Becky begins her visit full of big plans for the the cafe, but as she bumps heads with the 'sitting tenant', handsome writer Pascale, and reconnects with her past, she begins to realise she has been ignoring almost all other aspects of her life in pursuit of her career - including being a terrible friend to her bestie Amber. 

New beginnings dawn, including a lovely slow-burn romance with gentle Pascale, via all the necessary bumps in the road you need in this kind of story. There is plenty of humour, lots of charming French content, a heart-warming twist or two, and the kind of examination of complicated family relationships that Harvey does so well,  particularly when it comes to the expectations of over-protective (aka domineering) mothers.

Time to slow down with a cup of coffee, and the perfect slice of summer escapism Gillian Harvey style!

The Village Cafe in the Loire is available to buy now in paperback, ebook and audio formats.

Thank you to Boldwood Books for granting me access to an e-copy of this book in return for an honest review, and to Rachel's Random Tours for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the author:

Gillian Harvey is an author and freelance writer who lives in Norfolk.

Her novels, including the bestselling A Year at the French Farmhouse and The Riviera House Swap, are often set in France, where she lived for 14 years.

Come, Tell Me How You Live by Agatha Christie

 

Come, Tell Me How You Live by Agatha Christie (as Agatha Christie Mallowan).

Published 27th August 2015 by Harper Collins.

Audio Book narrated by Judith Boyd.

From the cover of the book:

Agatha Christie’s personal memoirs about her travels to Syria and Iraq in the 1930s with her archaeologist husband Max Mallowan, where she worked on the digs and wrote some of her most evocative novels.

Think you know Agatha Christie? Think again!

To the world she was Agatha Christie, legendary author of bestselling whodunits. But in the 1930s she wore a different hat, travelling with her husband, renowned archaeologist Max Mallowan, as he investigated the buried ruins and ancient wonders of Syria and Iraq. When friends asked what this strange ‘other life’ was like, she decided to answer their questions by writing down her adventures in this eye-opening book.

Described by the author as a ‘meandering chronicle of life on an archaeological dig’, Come, Tell Me How You Live is Agatha Christie's very personal memoir of her time spent in this breath-taking corner of the globe, living among the working men in tents in the desert where recorded human history began. Acclaimed as ‘a pure pleasure to read’, it is an altogether remarkable and increasingly poignant narrative, a fascinating, vibrant and vivid portrait of everyday life in a world now long since vanished.

***********

Come, Tell Me How You Live is a short autobiography/travelogue by Agatha Christie (writing as Agatha Christie Mallowan) about her experiences accompanying her second husband, renowned archaeologist Max Mallowan, on his digs in Iraq and Syria. 

Written in the 1930s (although not published until 1946) it is full of delicious, and often humorous, reminiscences of travelling to far away places to delve beneath the sand in search of pre-history, but it is anything but dry and dusty. Instead Christie, who goes to great pains to say it is not an account of history, regales her audience with golden nuggets about the human side of the expeditions - right from the necessary arrangements before setting off (buying clothes and packing); the logistics of travel, living accommodations, and staff; the people they meet; and lots of lovely episodes that take place while they are in foreign climes.

I did not really know what to expect from this book, but I found it so engaging. Christie's love of travel (especially trains), her spirit of adventure, and her fascination with what makes people tick seeps from the page. It is full of intriguing detail about travel, expeditions, and the landscape and culture of the Middle East in the 1930s, and proved to be required reading when it comes to the background of her mysteries with archaeological settings.

This book was my July pick for #ReadChristie2025 for the prompt Archaeologists for this year's theme of Characters and Careers. I listened to the excellent audio book narrated by Judith Boyd - although i do recommend having a text copy to refer to as well, as it is full of photographs and maps which really enrich the experience. 

Come, Tell Me How You Live is available to buy now in paperback, ebook and audio formats.

About the author:

Agatha Christie is known throughout the world as the Queen of Crime. Her books have sold over a billion copies in English with another billion in over 70 foreign languages. She is the most widely published author of all time and in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. She is the author of 80 crime novels and short story collections, 20 plays, and six novels written under the name of Mary Westmacott.

Seascraper by Benjamin Wood

 

Seascraper by Benjamin Wood.

Published 17th July 2025 by Viking.

From the cover of the book:

Thomas lives a slow, deliberate life with his mother in Longferry, working his grandpa’s trade as a shanker. He rises early to take his horse and cart to the grey, gloomy beach to scrape for shrimp; spending the rest of the day selling his wares, trying to wash away the salt and scum, pining for Joan Wyeth down the street and rehearsing songs on his guitar. At heart, he is a folk musician, but it remains a private dream.

When a striking visitor turns up, bringing the promise of Hollywood glamour, Thomas is shaken from the drudgery of his days and begins to see a different future. But how much of what the American claims is true, and how far can his inspiration carry Thomas?

Haunting and timeless, this is the story of a young man hemmed in by his circumstances, striving to achieve fulfilment far beyond the world he knows.

***********

Thomas lives a hard life with his mother in Longferry, following in his grandfather's footsteps as a traditional cart shanker. Fishing for shrimp with a horse and cart is brutal, dirty work, and it provides little more than a poor living for him and his mother.

What Thomas longs for is the opportunity to become a folk singer, and to find a way to impress Joan Wyeth down the street, but he cannot see a way to make either dream come true. But then an American visitor called Edgar arrives at his door, promising him the chance to become involved in a Hollywood film production, and Thomas sees a different future beckoning...

Benjamin Wood's atmospheric novel packs a powerful punch, which is very laudable for a book of under two hundred pages. It follows twenty-year-old shanker Thomas over two days in his life which provide a real turning point for a young man who longs for change.

Wood introduces Thomas as he goes about his early morning ritual dragging the perilous sands in the bay for shrimp, as his grandfather did before him, in a profession he was drawn into out of the necessity to support himself and his single mother. It is far from the life Thomas wishes he was living, but he has had to cast his dreams aside to face harsh reality.

Then comes a transformative twist in Thomas' fate. He gets caught up in Edgar's infectious enthusiasm for an adaptation of an unusual book, and takes him on a tour of the sands that Edgar is convinced would make the perfect location for the film. During their foggy adventure, fraught with danger, something strange happens to Thomas that gives him the means to break out of his claustrophobic life... but things are not quite as they appear.

Wood's book is curiously timeless, and it is easy to think that this is a historical fiction novel set in an age long ago, particularly given Thomas' living conditions and his traditional way of life. However, as the story develops you begin to see that he is actually living in post-war Britain (probably 1960s), which works beautifully with the theme of being stuck in the past. 

Edgar becomes the catalyst for Thomas to confront the way he is caught between the life that has been set out for him, and the one he wants to pursue, and what follows is wreathed in lovely threads about belonging, dislocation, sacrifice, and complicated family relationships. There are subtle undercurrents at play between Thomas and his mother that cleverly echo the danger out on the sands too.

What begins as a bleak story ends on a hopeful note, via an original speculative twist that I absolutely did not see coming, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Wood's writing is wonderful and I cannot wait to explore more of his literary novels. 

Seascraper is available to buy now in hardcover, ebook and audio formats.

Thank you to Viking for sending me a proof of this book in return for an honest review.

About the author:

Benjamin Wood's first novel, The Bellwether Revivals, was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award and the Commonwealth Book Prize, and won Le Prix du Roman Fnac. A finalist for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, his other works have been shortlisted for the Encore Award, the CWA Gold Dagger Award and the European Prize for Literature. He is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at King's College London and lives in Surrey with his wife and sons.

The Betrayal Of Thomas True by A.J. West (Paperback Release)

 

The Betrayal of Thomas True by A.J. West.

Published in paperback 3rd July 2025 by Orenda Books.

From the cover of the book:

The only sin is betrayal…

It is the year 1715, and Thomas True has arrived on old London Bridge with a dangerous secret. One night, lost amongst the squalor of London's hidden back streets, he finds himself drawn into the outrageous underworld of the molly houses.

Meanwhile, carpenter Gabriel Griffin struggles to hide his double life as Lotty, the molly's stoic guard. When a young man is found murdered, he realises there is a rat amongst them, betraying their secrets to a pair of murderous Justices.

Can Gabriel unmask the traitor before they hang? Can he save hapless Thomas from peril, and their own forbidden love?

Set amidst the buried streets of Georgian London, The Betrayal of Thomas True is a brutal and devastating thriller, where love must overcome evil, and the only true sin is betrayal…

***********

London, 1715. Young Thomas True has run away from his unhappy life in the village of Highgate. His new residence perches amongst the tumbledown shops and houses on the old London Bridge, but living a stone's throw away from the squalid maze of the City's backstreets is not the place to forget the doubts that have led him to flee his strict religious upbringing. In the shadow of St Paul's Cathedral, Thomas' wanderings in the City's dark and gritty underbelly bring him to the door of Old Mother Clap's, the infamous molly house, where he finally feels at home.

By day, Carpenter Gabriel Griffin is working on the finishing touches of the Cathedral, but at night he stands guard at Mother Clap's as its impassive guard Lotty. He knows all about living a double-life, torn between his grief for the wife and child he has lost and the desires he cannot deny. When one of the mollies is found murdered, he realises that there must be a rat among them, however impossible this seems.

As Gabriel tries to track down the traitor, he finds himself becoming attracted to the apparently innocent newcomer Thomas, but he is distracted by the need to look at every member of his molly family with a suspicious eye. Who among them would sell their secrets, when their very motto is 'Always Together'? Can he save them, and himself, from the gallows, and finally find happiness?

In A.J. West's stunning second novel, he brings the hot-bed of Georgian London alive to explore the secretive world of the City's molly houses. Having consumed a wealth of historical fiction (and non-fiction) set in London, I was aware about the city's molly houses, but I think this is the first book I have read that really explores what it would have been like to have been part of this world. You can feel the care West has taken to make this novel as authentic as possible, especially through the considerable research he has clearly undertaken into London's gay history.

It is hard to encapsulate what London was like in 1715, at the very beginning of the shiny, new Georgian era, with the bizarre juxtaposition with the older, seedy parts of the City, and the stately environs that rose from the ashes of the Great Fire, but West vividly captures the contrasts and contradictions of the time to perfection. And more than that, he extends this feeling of a constant struggle to reconcile different natures of this city to the souls of his characters too.

Essentially, this is a period murder mystery, which has Gabriel desperately trying to find a traitor against the backdrop of a city openly hostile to the mollies. Caught between the necessity of living outwardly respectable existences, and the call of their true natures, West's mollies drive the tempo of this story, in all their fevered, glorious double-life wonder - reflecting the light and dark of the city that surrounds them. He also offers very clever clashes of perspective by looking at events through the eyes of jaded Gabriel, with all his inner turmoil, and achingly vulnerable Thomas, who steps wrong time and time again as he negotiates this new life.

My heart was in my mouth for almost the entire story. Public hangings, political machinations, religious fervour, and power games combine to make a perfect storm of peril unleashed by mobs, assassins, and devious magistrates with private agendas. West weaves threads of mystery and danger relentlessly around the lives of his characters to create a historical thriller with immense power, keeping you guessing about who The Rat at the heart of the story really is - and when the truth comes it shocks you to the core.

My goodness, this book utterly broke me, carrying me through every moment of the joys and sorrows of Mother Clap's molly family. While this is a work of fiction, West faithfully portrays the lives of men who were consumed like moths by the flame of their existence, standing and dying together, simply for the freedom to love each other as they wished. What a heart-breaking, beautiful, and unforgettable story of love and courage.

**A version of this review was originally published July 2024 for the hardcover release.

The Betrayal of Thomas True is available to buy now in hardcover, paperback, ebook and audio formats. You can buy direct from Orenda Books HERE.

Thank you to Orenda Books for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review, and to Random Things Tours for inviting me to join this blog tour.

About the author:

A.J. West grew up reading books to escape his shyness at school and discovered an early talent for writing fiction which led to an award-winning career as a BBC television newsreader and reporter.

He has also written for national newspapers and magazines and has appeared on television programmes including BBC Breakfast, Good Morning Britain, This Morning and the legendary reality television show, Big Brother, where he became an instant household name... though the specific household has yet to be identified.

Today, A.J. lives in South London with his husband, Nicholas Robinson.