Behind Closed Doors by Catherine Alliott

 

Behind Closed Doors by Catherine Alliott.

Published 4th March 2021 by Penguin Michael Joseph.

From the cover of the book:

From the outside, anyone would think that Lucy Palmer has it all: loving children, a dashing husband and a gorgeous home.

But when her marriage to Michael comes to an abrupt and unexpected end, her life is turned upside down in a flash.

As the truth of her marriage threatens to surface, Lucy seizes the opportunity to swap her house in London - and the stories it hides - for a rural escape to her parents' farmhouse in the Chilterns.

But Lucy gets more than she bargained for when she moves back to her childhood home, especially when it throws her into the path of an old flame.

Coming face-to-face with her mistakes, Lucy is forced to confront the secrets she's been keeping from herself and those she loves.

Is she ready to let someone in? Or will she leave the door to her past firmly closed . . .

**************************

Lucy is a woman who seems to have it all, but appearances can be deceptive. Her husband Michael is not the perfect husband and father he seems to be, and behind closed doors living with his controlling behaviour and infidelity for the almost the entire course of their marriage has taken its toll on her and their children.

When the twisted hand of fate comes calling, Lucy is given the chance to start again, but years of living with Michael has seen her lose the confidence of her youth and she is unsure what to do. She decides to pack up her life and move from London into her elderly parents' country house to sort out their wayward ways, and find her feet at the same time - a move that brings her into the path of an old friend, who might become more if she is willing to take the plunge. But does Lucy's destiny lie here in the safety of her childhood home, or does London still offer her a chance of happiness?

This is a book which brings in some heavy themes, and Catherine Alliott explores them with a deft touch - domestic abuse and coercive control are central to Lucy's story, and we are present for some very difficult scenes here, but Alliott brings in some intriguing storylines exploring mental health, retribution, guilt, and the weight of responsibility around caring for elderly relatives too.

But along with the shade, there are plenty of flashes of light that balance the story out beautifully. There's bags of humour in these pages, very often in relation to the unruly behaviour of Lucy's aged parents and their friends that had me laughing out loud, and elements of love, tenderness, understanding, and finding an inner strength that helps you to move on that are enchanting.

The characters here are beautifully drawn and the story plays out against some lovely settings all the way to an ending that has a couple of surprises up its sleeve that made me weep! The whole story combines to produce a novel that is wonderfully heart-warming and brimming with the sense that it's never too late to take a chance and follow your heart.

Behind Closed Doors is available to buy now from your favourite book retailer.

Thank you to Sriya Varadharajan from Penguin Michael Joseph for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review and for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the author:

Catherine Alliott is the author of fifteen bestselling novels including About Last Night, My Husband Next Door, A Rural Affair, One Day in May, The Secret Life of Evie Hamilton, and Wish You Were Here. She lives with her family in Hertfordshire.

Future Perfect by Felicia Yap

 

Future Perfect by Felicia Yap.

Published 18th March 2021 by Wildfire.

From the cover of the book:

What if today was your last day...

A bomb has exploded during a fashion show, killing a beautiful model on the catwalk. The murderer is still at large... and he may strike again. Yet this is the least of Police Commissioner Christian Verger's worries. His fiancée Viola has left him. He has to keep his tumultuous past a secret. To make things worse, his voice assistant Alexa is 99.74% sure he will die tomorrow.

Moving from snowy 1980s Montana to chic 1990s Manhattan to a drone-filled 2030s Britain, Future Perfect is an electrifying race to solve a murder before it's too late. 

Yet it is also a love story, a riveting portrait of a couple torn apart by secrets, grief and guilt. A twisted tale of how the past can haunt a person's future and be used to predict if he will die... or kill.

***********************

Future Perfect is a book that had me at the blurb, and it was everything and more that I wanted it to be.

Welcome to a near future so realistic you can almost taste it! It's one not so very different from the one we know now, except with a little bit more 'helpful' technology embedded in our lives, and it is filled with just as much human frailty as we know today.

New to his post, Police Commissioner Christian Verger is having a difficult day. Not only is he unsure about his capability to do the job he has been appointed to do, he is trying to deal with the fallout of a bombing in New York that may lead to possible death and destruction at a high profile fashion show coming up in London that night, his girlfriend has left him - and Alexa insists the likelihood of him surviving to see tomorrow is remarkably small. Not great.

Events of this difficult day then play out through the eyes of various characters linked to the fashion designer Alexander King, whose model had her arm blown off on a New York catwalk, and whose event that night in London was supposed to be the pinnacle of his glittering career - and it is up to us, at the side of Christian, to put all the pieces together to track down the identity of the killer before they can strike again. To spice things up, Christian's disgruntled girlfriend, Viola, has co-incidentally been working on a computer program designed to identify the suspects of the crime, which throws up some very interesting names and has her trying to track down the killer at the same time.

As the story progresses, the backdrop moves in time between Montana of the 1980s, New York of the 1990s and the current investigation in 2030, bringing in little snippets of the past lives of some of the characters and hinting at their darkest secrets - but quite who is who, and who is hiding what is unclear, which gives a wonderful Christiesque feel to the whole piece.

The pace of the novel is perfect, and the tension builds beautifully to a delicious climax at the London fashion show, where we find out the truth behind more than one mystery - and I take my hat off to Felicia Yap for her top class skills as an author in writing a book which misdirects the reader quite as well as this. Nice one Felicia!

But this is also a high concept thriller that plays around beautifully with the notion of technology as well as messing with your head. There is nothing in this book that feels like anything that will not come along in the next few years and be accepted by the majority as something that will be a valuable addition to our modern lifestyle - however absurd. I thoroughly enjoyed the comedy that derives from situations in this book where technology seems to have the upper-hand, despite the characters' wishes.

I was also very impressed with the way Yap explores the concept of perfection in her book, which gives you quite a lot to think about, and the combination of Future and Perfect in the title is nothing short of genius.

This is an intelligent thriller with just the right amount of intrigue, excitement, and mystery, with a nice touch of friendship and romance thrown in at the same time. Felicia Yap, you have yourself a new fan!

Future Perfect is available to buy from your favourite book retailer now.

Thank you to Felicia Yap for sending me a gifted copy of this book as part of her very generous giveaway competition on Twitter.

About the author:

Felicia Yap grew up in Kuala Lumpur. She read biochemistry at Imperial College London, followed by a doctorate in history (and a half-blue in competitive ballroom dancing) at Cambridge University. She has been a radioactive-cell biologist, a war historian, a university lecturer, a technology journalist, a theatre critic, a flea-market trader and a catwalk model. Felicia's debut thriller Yesterday has been translated into multiple languages around the world. Her second novel Future Perfect will be published in spring 2021.

The Lip by Charlie Carroll

 

The Lip by Charlie Carroll.

Published 18th March 2021 by Two Roads.

From the cover of the book:

Away from the hotels and holiday lets, there is an unseen side of Cornwall, where the shifting uncertainties of the future breed resentment and mistrust.

Melody Janie is hidden. She lives alone in a caravan in Bones Break: a small cliff-top on Cornwall's north coast. She spends her time roaming her territory, spying on passing tourists and ramblers, and remembering. She sees everything and yet remains unseen.

However, when a stranger enters her life, she is forced to confront not only him but the terrible tragedies of her past.

The Lip is a novel about childhood, isolation and mental health, told in the unique and unforgettable voice of Melody Janie.

'All of this is Bones Break. All of this is mine.

I know every inch of it; I know it as intimately as the seagulls. I stand at dead-centre, my feet teetering on the edge of the lip. Below, the thundering tattoo of waves on rock. Wind catches the tips of my hair, lifting them above my ribs: less force than it takes to knock me down; enough to make me right myself with a step to the left, and then another back again. Here on the lip, it is vital to know where my feet are.'

*********************

Melody Janie lives all alone in a caravan on the edge of the Cornish Cliffs - her beloved kingdom of Bones Break. Fate has not been kind to Melody, and she prefers to keep herself very much apart from other people, especially the tourists who invade her privacy. She normally spends her time watching them from afar and spying on their movements, but with no wish to know them better.

But when a stranger intrudes on her little corner of heaven, Melody Janie is forced to take action and challenge him about his act of trespass on 'her land', and in doing so she is forced to confront the truth about her own past at the same time.

The Lip is an outstanding novel, set in a Cornwall that is somewhat different to the one we generally read about. No romantic, windswept happenings for our author Charlie Carroll here, although the vistas may indeed be beautiful. Instead this is a book about people clinging onto the edge with their fingertips while all around them their world falls away, and it's a theme Carroll injects into his novel in more ways than one.

Melody Janie quite literally lives in the edge of the cliffs, which are eroding under her at an alarming rate, but she is also on the edge of the local community, preferring solitude over mixing with those that know her story (or think they do), and both of these circumstances are products of the tragedies of her childhood. Her world has shrunk to the confines of Bones Break and she lives only to protect the last vestiges of her mother's dream and uphold the custodianship imbued in her by her father.

Charlie Carroll also uses this book to give us brilliant insight into the hidden side of Cornwall. Beneath the picture-postcard scenes, Cornwall is one of the poorest areas of the UK, and has a very uncomfortable relationship with the tourists and second homers that are attracted here by its beauty and clement weather. As traditional ways of life have disappeared, Cornwall needs the money tourism brings, but the proliferation of holiday lets and the demand for bolt-holes from the rat-race has priced many locals out of the housing market, especially the young, and tensions understandably run high. How long can the real Cornwall cling on?

The Lip allows us to see both the beauty and the beastly sides of Cornish life through Melody Janie's eyes, which is really rather clever, and her story allows Carroll to bring in a whole raft of themes in the telling too - childhood, unresolved trauma, isolation and the pressure of modern life all there for us to examine in their dark glory - and oh boy, does he pull off a wonderful sleight of hand in misdirecting us in terms of what we think we know about Melody Janie's story. Bravo, Mr Carroll!

The Lip was an absolute delight for me, and far more of an emotional journey than I was expecting. It took me to some pretty raw and uncompromising places, but along with the darkness, this is also a tale that encompasses the beauty of friendship found in unexpected places, taking a chance, and coming to terms with what life has thrown at us. When the world falls away from under our feet, we do not always have to sink down into the depths - an ending can also be a beginning, and the ending of this book is one that will touch you to the very core. I loved it!

The Lip is available to buy no from your favourite book retailer.

Thank you to Rachael Duncan of Two Roads for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

About the author:

Charlie Carroll is the author of three non-fiction books: The Friendship Highway (2014), No Fixed Abode (2013) and On the Edge (2010). He has twice won the K Blundell Trust Award for 'writers under 40 who aim to raise social awareness with their writing', wrote the voice-over for the TV series Transamazonica (2017), and is one of the Kindness of Strangers storytellers.

His debut novel, The Lip, is out in 2021.

The Book Of Longings (Paperback Release) by Sue Monk Kidd

 

The Book Of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd.

Published 18th March 2021 in paperback by Tinder Press.

Hardcover edition originally reviewed April 2020.

From the cover of the book:

Ana is born in Galilee at a time when women are seen as possessions, only leaving their fathers’ homes to marry.

Ana longs to control her destiny. Taught to read despite her mother’s misgivings, she wants to be a writer and to find her own voice. A voice that will speak for the silenced women around her.

Betrothed to an elderly widower, Ana almost despairs. But an encounter with a charismatic young carpenter in Nazareth awakens new longings in her, and a different future opens up.

Yet this is not a simple love story. Ana’s journey will bring both joy and tragedy, but it will also be enriched by the female friendships she makes along the way.

The Book of Longings is an exquisite tale of dreams and desire, and of the power of women to change the world.

**************************

Where do I even start to try to do justice to the beautifully written and utterly compelling The Book of Longings?

In this book, Sue Monk Kidd has taken on the mammoth, and might I say, incredibly brave task of reimagining the life of Jesus as one in which he had a wife - rather than being the celibate and scholarly single man we are used to hearing about. I was looking forward to reading this book enormously and as soon as I read the first line I knew I was going to be in for a treat, because it made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck...

 

"I am Ana. I was the wife of Jesus ben Joseph of Nazareth."

From the very beginning, Sue Monk Kidd's intentions are clear about where she wants to take us with her novel. This is going to be Ana's story, not a bible retelling. It is obvious that Ana's journey is going to be one fraught with difficulties, as we cannot fail to be aware of the fate of the man she marries, but it also opens up intriguing possibilities about where this journey goes.

To my mind, Monk Kidd takes the perfect line here, using just the right amount of what we have read about Jesus from the Bible and working this into her story in a way that portrays him as an ordinary man - albeit one who comes to see himself as a someone with a singular purpose. The focus remains on Ana at all times and we come to know Jesus through her eyes as a son, a brother and a husband  - in ways that are are real and significant to Ana and the other females in the novel.

Interestingly, much of Jesus' part in the wider story takes place in the wings, and we hear about his exploits obliquely through Ana's interactions with other characters around them, which leaves the reader with the freedom to believe what they wish about his life. I particularly enjoyed how Judas has such a central role to play throughout in this book, and the way his part plays out in these pages gave me real pause for thought.

Essentially, this is a book that honours female friendship and support networks, and acknowledges the power of women: one that gives voice to Ana, and her small group of female companions, and also suggests so much about the kind of life an educated woman might have lived at this time if she had been able to take the opportunities freely granted to men. Monk Kidd presents us with a fabulous cast of female characters too - all of them women of unfathomable inner strength, who support, and transform each other. It is the voices of the women who sing out from these pages: the women who have been silenced, made invisible, or had their stories distorted over time in the history books written by men. It is the women who carry this story and their struggle is just as relevant today.

The Book of Longings is the most incredible novel that deals sensitively and imaginatively with a subject that many would consider taboo. I was curious about how Sue Monk Kidd would tackle Jesus himself in her book before reading it, conscious that there was a difficult path to be walked with this one, but in viewing this wholly from the perspective of a novelist she has produced a story which is full of humanity, love and tenderness - and one which touched me deeply.

The Book of Longings is available to buy in hardcover, paperback, e-book and audio formats from your favourite book retailer.

Thank you to Caitlin Raynor at Headline for originally sending me a proof of this book in return for an honest review and to Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the author:

Sue Monk Kidd is the author of The Secret Life of Bees, one of the most beloved novels of the 21st century. It spent 2.5 years on the New York Times bestseller list, and has sold over 8 million copies worldwide. It was long-listed for the Orange Prize (now the Women’s Prize for Fiction) and made into a film starring Sophie Okonedo, Alicia Keys and Jennifer Hudson. 

Sue’s subsequent novels, The Mermaid Chair, The Invention of Wings and now The Book of Longings, were all New York Times bestsellers. 

Sue is also the author of several non-fiction books including the New York Times bestseller Travelling with Pomegranates, co-written with her daughter Ann Kidd Taylor. Sue lives in Florida.

Rise To Glory (Audio Book) Q and A by Alex Knight

 

Rise To Glory (Audio Book) by Alex Knight.

Narrated by Christopher Ragland.

Released by Audible on 18th March 2021.

From the cover:

Rise to Glory is LitRPG meets Hunger Games and CBS’s Survivor, featuring powerful classes and in-depth game mechanics in a brutal, survival-based fantasy world.

Welcome to The Glory - the world’s biggest VR tournament.

In front of millions of viewers, teams compete in a battle royale where they clear dungeons, complete quests and slay other players in a race to score the most points.

The winners are instant celebrities, and it's time Bash the Berserker joined their ranks. One win away from going pro, his dreams of fame, fortune and that iced coffee sponsorship are finally coming true...until he’s kicked off his team mere hours before registrations close.

With everything on the line, Bash manages to cobble together a new rag-tag team. A washed-up semi-pro who hates his guts, a talented analyst who’s never actually competed and a streamer whose ego is only surpassed by her love of throwing swords.

Oh, and if they want to earn their glory, Bash will have to trade in his war hammer and play as a three-foot-tall, tree-hugging elf....

***********************

To mark the release of the fabulous Rise To Glory, I am delighted to bring you a Q and A with the main man himself Alex Knight!

How different is LitRPG compared to writing straight fantasy or science fiction?

Honestly, not that different. LitRPG stories are still human stories. They might take place in video games, but those game worlds need not be so different from a fantasy world. And in fact, as fantasy is one of the biggest gaming genres, most of LitRPG is set in a fantasy video game world. So really, the main difference comes from “The Rules.” Instead of physics, these game worlds are governed by the rules of their specific games. And really, even those aren’t that different from fantasy. Take for instance a fantasy series with a hard magic system – Brandon Sanderson’s work comes to mind. In it, there are rules that govern how the magic works. LitRPG’s game worlds, spells, and abilities work exactly the same. On a basic level, you really could call LitRPG just fantasy with a hard magic system.


Did a love of video games inspire Rise to Glory? 

Oh, 100%. And not just a love of video games, but a love of competitive video games. There’s something magical in throwing yourself into competition. I wrote Rise to Glory to be a love letter to competitive gaming.


What are your current favourite fantasy reads?

Well, I’m currently loving Joe Abercrombie’s The Trouble with Peace and every single moment of
Jonathan Stroud’s Lockwood and Co. series. Really good stuff! They’re the kind of authors whose work is so good it gives you imposter syndrome.


Did any films, tv series, video games, or novels influence your writing process for Rise to Glory?

I think the biggest inspirations were Blizzard’s hit team-based shooter, Overwatch. I cherish my Tuesday night gaming sessions where my friends and I make time to hammer out a few games. I wanted Rise to Glory to capture that team-focused, collaborative energy, and combine it with an open world MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing game) like World of Warcraft.


What are you writing next?

I’m currently signed to a five-book series where I’m co-writing with LitRPG titan Luke Chmilenko. We’re creating a wild, post-apocalyptic world full of randomly spawning hell gates, savage monsters, and ambitious heroes that rise to meet them (and maybe, begin to understand them). As well, I am finishing up Nightfall, a gothic-themed LitRPG with my publisher, Portal Books, and would love to get to work on the sequel to my recent fantasy thriller, The Far Wild.

Thanks so much for having me! It was a pleasure to stop by.
Y’all stay sane and safe out there!

Many thanks Alex! Rise To Glory is available to buy now from Audible HERE.

Thank you to Amber Choudhary at Midas PR for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About Alex Knight:

Alex Knight grew up a sun-baked, outdoorsy Floridian and has lived in several places around the world. As an author of LitRPG and Fantasy his work includes the Nova Online Trilogy. In the past Alex has worked as everything from a dish washer at Busch Gardens to the Communications Coordinator at the Florida Attractions Association. 

After deciding he didn’t like stability or predictable pay checks he made the jump to being a freelance writer. Soon that turned into ghost-writing romance novellas, then ghost-writing full-blown science fiction novels, and finally, writing his own books.

The Forgotten Life Of Arthur Pettinger by Suzanne Fortin

 

The Forgotten Life of Arthur Pettinger by Suzanne Fortin.

Published 4th March 2021 by Aria Fiction/Head of Zeus.

From the cover of the book:

Sometimes the past won't stay hidden, it demands to be uncovered...

Arthur Pettinger's memory isn't what it used to be. He can't always remember the names of his grandchildren, where he lives or which way round his slippers go. He does remember Maryse though, a woman he hasn't seen for decades, but whose face he will never forget.

When Arthur's granddaughter, Maddy moves in along with her daughter Esther, it's her first step towards pulling her life back together. But when Esther makes a video with Arthur, the hunt for the mysterious Maryse goes viral.

There's only one person who can help Maddy track down this woman – the one that got away, Joe. Their quest takes them to France, and into the heart of the French Resistance.

When the only way to move forwards is to look back, will this family finally be able to?

**************************

Arthur Pettinger is a man who has lived a long and eventful life, but at the age of ninety-six dementia now clouds his mind and he has forgotten rather a lot of it. However, some things are very clear to Arthur, especially his memories of serving in France during WWII and the woman he met during his time there - his first love, Maryse.

When Arthur's granddaughter Maddy comes to look after him with her daughter Esther, his penchant for sharing glimpses of his scrapbook and tales of the old days sets off a chain of events that finds them joining forces with Maddy's ex Joe to try to find out what happened to Maryse - and it's a trail that leads them all the way back to Arthur's wartime exploits working with the French Resistance behind enemy lines. This is a quest that will not only help Arthur come to terms with his past, but will also help his nearest and dearest decide the course of their future.

The story plays out in a dual timeline following the search for Maryse in the present, and the history of Arthur's wartime experiences, moving back and forth in time until all the little pieces fall into place to reveal the truth. This serves nicely to combine elements of wartime thriller with historical love story, rich in period detail that holds nothing back about the horrors of occupied France, and a delightful modern mystery story that encompasses a gorgeous contemporary romance to boot. Suzanne Fortin handles the myriad threads in both timelines with skill, bringing in shades of meaning that work beautifully in both the past and the present, and ties everything up in one of the most moving endings I have read in a very long time - whilst keeping Arthur central to the whole story in a way that sensitively portrays him as a real person, despite the ravages of his dementia.

Reading this was an incredibly emotional experience and lots of tears were shed along the way - both of joy and sadness. Love shines out of these pages, whether it be romantic or otherwise, and the way Fortin explores the capacity to love through both of the timelines in this book is enchanting.  I adored every little thing about this tale of friendship, family ties and devotion: the characters and the beautifully drawn relationships between them, the backdrops, the nostalgia, the compelling storylines... I could go on and on, but instead I will just say that this is one of my absolute favourite reads of 2021.

The Forgotten Life of Arthur Pettinger is available to buy in e-book format now from your favourite book retailer, or via the links below, and it will be available in paperback from 10th June 2021.

Amazon UK     Kobo     Google Play     iBooks

Thank you to Victoria Joss from Head of Zeus for providing me with 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:

Suzanne Fortin writes women's fiction dual-timeline and her first novel The Forgotten Life of Arthur Pettinger is due for release March 4th 2021.

Suzanne also writes mystery and suspense as Sue Fortin where she is a USA Today bestseller and Amazon UK #1 and Amazon US #3 bestseller. She has sold over a million copies of her books and been translated into multiple languages.

Find out more about Suzanne: Twitter     Facebook     Instagram

The Soul Of A Woman by Isabel Allende

 

The Soul Of A Woman by Isabel Allende.

Published 2nd March 2021 by Bloomsbury Publishing.

From the cover of the book:

When I say that I was a feminist in kindergarten, I am not exaggerating.

As a child, Isabel Allende watched her mother, abandoned by her husband, provide for her three small children. As a young woman coming of age in the late 1960s, she rode the first wave of feminism. She has seen what has been accomplished by the movement in the course of her lifetime. And over the course of three marriages, she has learned how to grow as a woman while having a partner, when to step away, and the rewards of embracing one's sexuality.

So what do women want? To be safe, to be valued, to live in peace, to have their own resources, to be connected, to have control over their bodies and lives, and above all, to be loved. On all these fronts, there is much work to be done, and this book, Allende hopes, will 'light the torch of our daughters and granddaughters with mine. They will have to live for us, as we lived for our mothers, and carry on with the work still left to be finished.'

**********************************

The Soul of a Woman is one of those little gems of a book that stay with you long after you have read it. I was privileged to read this as part of a fabulous readalong organised by the Tandem Collective on Instagram, at the same time as reading Allende's sweeping tale of love and loss, A Long Petal of the Sea (see here for my review of that one), and I loved the whole experience.

Part memoir and part exploration of what it means to Allende to be both a woman and a lifelong feminist, The Soul of a Woman is surprisingly easy to read, and had I not been taking it in stages to follow the readalong schedule I could easily have absorbed it in a singe sitting.

Reading this book is just like taking part in a relaxed conversation with Allende and some good female friends over a long, leisurely lunch with a few glasses of wine, and it is easy to imagine the ebb and flow, the laughs and tears that would accompany this event. 

This is not a straightforward feminist treatise, but there is plenty to get your teeth into here, and although I do not agree with everything Allende has to say about what it means to be a woman and how one should live, this is such an honest and forthright account of her own views and feelings - and quite clearly one which is intended to elicit conversation and debate around many of the facets of feminism and womanhood that she explores, rather than dictate how others should feel. It's the voice of a woman who has lived a rich and eventful life and wants to share what she has learned in an attempt to pass on the brand to others to carry on with the work that still needs to be done.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and musing on my own life and views about what it means to be a woman. I have to say that it really added an extra dimension to reading and understanding Allende's fictional A Long Petal of the Sea too, as some of the characters in that book definitely reflect parts of her own experience as a young woman in Chile, so if you get the chance to read both then I highly recommend that you do!

The Soul of a Woman is available to buy now from your favourite book retailer.

Thank you to Bloomsbury Publishing for gifting me a copy of this book in return for an honest review and to the Tandem Collective for organising and inviting me to take part in this brilliant readalong.

About the author:

Born in Peru and raised in Chile, Isabel Allende is the author of The House of the Spirits, Daughter of Fortune, Paula, My Invented Country, The Japanese Lover and The Soul of a Woman.. Her books have been translated into more than 35 languages and have sold over 65 million copies worldwide. The Japanese Lover was an international and New York Times bestseller. She lives in California.

A Long Petal Of The Sea by Isabel Allende

 

A Long Petal Of The Sea by Isabel Allende.

Published in paperback 4th March 2021 by Bloomsbury Publishing.

From the cover of the book:

'A powerful love story spanning generations. Full of ambition and humanity' Sunday Times

'One of the strongest and most affecting works in Allende's long career' New York Times Book Review

Victor Dalmau is a young doctor when he is caught up in the Spanish Civil War, a tragedy that leaves his life - and the fate of his country - forever changed. 

Together with his sister-in-law, he is forced out of his beloved Barcelona and into exile in Chile. 

There, they find themselves enmeshed in a rich web of characters who come together in love and tragedy over the course of four generations, destined to witness the battle between freedom and repression as it plays out across the world.

'A masterful work of historical fiction about hope, exile and belonging' Independent Online

'A defiantly warm and funny novel, by somebody who has earned the right to argue that love and optimism can survive whatever history might throw at us' Daily Telegraph

'Allende's style is impressively Olympian and the payoff is remarkable' Guardian

******************************

A Long Petal of the Sea is a sweeping tale of love and loss - and it is is also my first Allende, in conjunction with the wonderful The Soul of a Woman (review of that one here) as part of the thoroughly enjoyable Tandem Collective readalong on Instagram.

The story begins in Catalonia, Spain during the Spanish Civil War, where young doctor Victor Dalmau and his family are caught up in the political upheaval that will change his country for ever. As Franco and his fascist forces bear down upon Barcelona, Victor is forced to flee to France with his brother's widowed, pregnant wife, Roser- a dangerous journey that finds them housed with other refugees who have fled from the fighting in Spain. By chance, they are offered the opportunity of a new life in Chile, but only if they go as a couple, so Victor and Roser marry and  head off to a life of exile on foreign shores - but their fight for freedom is not yet finished, and it seems that love is also not done with them yet...

This novel is full of wonderful themes of the bonds of family, love that is lost and found, bitter recriminations and forgiveness, that weave deftly through a tale of political troubles and the fight for freedom. Its scope is immense, sweeping you along over four generations and bringing in a cast of rich and varied characters. There is so much history to take in with this book, especially if you do not know much about the Spanish Civil War or the politics of Chile, and while much of this is fascinating, at times it was a little tricky to keep up with the political machinations that dictated the course of events - so it helps if you do a little homework as you go along. I did also feel a bit disconnected from the emotional intensity of the story, and could not work out if this was a product of the translation or simply because I did not really like Victor all that much!

However, there is a lot to immerse yourself in with this book and reading it as part of a readalong with other members of the Isabel Allende group was both entertaining and enlightening, as it made me really think about how the story played out - and reading this at the same time as absorbing Allende's The Soul Of A Woman added an extra dimension that helped me see the characters through her eyes too. I think this may have made me more partisan towards the female characters, who I wanted to know more about, and perhaps this is why I failed to connect with Victor - it's interesting to speculate on that one.

If you like your fiction on the sweeping scale, with a big dollop of historical fact woven into the story, then this is definitely going to be one you will enjoy, and it has definitely made me want to explore more of Allende's writing.

A Long Petal of the Sea is available to buy now in paperback, hardback, e-book and audio versions from your favourite book retailer.

Thank you to Bloomsbury Publishing for gifting me a copy of this book in return for an honest review and to the Tandem Collective for organising and inviting me to take part in this brilliant readalong.

About the author:

Born in Peru and raised in Chile, Isabel Allende is the author of The House of the Spirits, Daughter of Fortune, Paula, My Invented Country, The Japanese Lover and The Soul of a Woman.. Her books have been translated into more than 35 languages and have sold over 65 million copies worldwide. The Japanese Lover was an international and New York Times bestseller. She lives in California.

A Cold Dark Heart (Inspector Drake Book 8) (Audio Book) by Stephen Puleston

 

A Cold Dark Heart (Inspector Drake Book 8) (Audio Book) by Stephen Puleston.

Narrated by Richard Elfyn.

Released 13th January 2021.

From the cover:

Accident or murder? A dangerous serial killer. Can Drake catch a murderer trusted by everyone?

When 89-year-old Emyr Isaac is found dead in his home, Drake and his team initially suspect a burglary gone wrong. Isaac was old, and his death was a tragedy, but it’s not a murder case...is it?

But as the investigation develops, Drake uncovers more suspicious deaths - all elderly victims, all seemingly innocent - but with one connection: Each victim received care from the same healthcare professional during their last moments.

If Drake’s suspicions are correct, they have a dangerous serial killer on the loose - someone who should offer help and safety, not a chilling early demise. Soon, the team realize that stopping this killer will require playing a dangerous game. Drake must do all he can to ensure no more lives are lost...even if it means putting members of his own team in harm’s way.

A Cold Dark Heart is the eighth book in the dynamic Inspector Drake crime series. If you like clever mysteries, great plots, and believable characters, then you’ll love Stephen Puleston’s Ian Drake novels.

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A Cold Dark Heart is my second Inspector Drake book, following almost seamlessly on from the excellent previous crime thriller, Nowhere To Hide.

This investigation finds DI Drake and his team on the trail of a possible serial killer on their North Wales patch - one who might distressingly be a health professional with easy access the the old and vulnerable. Somewhat hampered by the new Chief Inspector, the boorish Hobbs, who is keen to take any glory for himself by acting as SIO and micromanaging them all, Drake and his team set about narrowing down the field of suspects (and there is a worrying number of them) whilst also trying to prevent any further deaths - and this time, this means one of them being right at the dark heart of the proceedings.

Narrated once again, with the most beautiful Welsh lilt, by Richard Elfyn (you can say 'Morgan' to me anytime Mr Elfyn!) this is the kind of crime story that had me on the edge of my seat from practically the first line to the very last - at times, completely gripped, with my heart in my mouth just listening to the story play out as I was so worried about the safety of the team.

Drake's little foibles are so familiar to me now, as he maintains his inner calm by indulging in his rituals, and he seems a lot more settled in his personal life, which is just as well given his less than easy relationship with Hobbs. There is also some nice character development around the other team members in this latest story - with the hint of a possible romance in the future, Mr Puleston? And while we are on the subject of the team, this has to be my favourite crime series when it comes to the importance of each and every team member. I love the way they all knuckle down to the task in hand, sifting through the evidence and putting in the hours to get the job done in a way that proves police work involves a lot more than the flashy scenes we often see in tv dramas. I am quite fond of them all now - except Hobbs, obviously.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story and cannot wait for the next adventure for DI Drake and the gang!

A Cold Dark Heart is available to buy now from your favourite book retailer in paperback, e-book and audio versions.

Thank you to The Book Club Audible Listeners Group and Stephen Puleston for my copy of Nowhere To Hide, which was gifted in return for an honest review.

About the author:

Stephen Puleston writes a series featuring Inspector Drake based in North Wales and also a series featuring Inspector John Marco based in Cardiff.

For many years he worked as a lawyer in a small practice representing clients in the criminal courts and doing divorce work, all of which has given him valuable raw material for his novels. He still lives and works in North Wales where the Inspector Drake novels are set.

While Paris Slept by Ruth Druart

 

While Paris Slept by Ruth Druart.

Published 4th March 2021 by Headline.

From the cover of the book:

On a platform in occupied Paris, a mother whispers goodbye. It is the end. But also the beginning...

Beautiful. Powerful. Unforgettable. A stunning portrait of the brutality of war and the tenacity of love. In the tradition of Virginia Baily's Early One Morning and M. L. Stedman's The Light Between Oceans.

Santa Cruz 1953. Jean-Luc thought he had left it all behind. The scar on his face a small price to pay for surviving the horrors of Nazi occupation. Now, he has a new life in California, a family. He never expected the past to come knocking on his door.

Paris 1944. A young woman's future is torn away in a heartbeat. Herded on to a train bound for Auschwitz, in an act of desperation she entrusts her most precious possession to a stranger. All she has left now is hope.

On a darkened platform two destinies become entangled. Their choice will change the future in ways neither could have imagined.

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Our story begins in 1953, where Jean-Luc, Charlotte and their son, Sam, have settled into their version of the American Dream after their flight from war-torn Paris. But their peace is shattered by a knock at the door that exposes a secret they have been hiding since 1944.

We are then plunged into occupied Paris of 1944, where fate brings together a young railway worker, called Jean-Luc, pressed into working for the Nazi's, and a desperate mother, called Sarah, on her way to almost certain death. In a split second, this mother makes the hardest of choices, pressing her baby into his hands with the words "Please, take my baby! His name's Samuel.". 

What follows is a dual timeline:  following the flight of Jean-Luc and his fiance, Charlotte, out of France in 1944, with a tiny baby who becomes their own - while Samuel's parents are transported to an uncertain fate in Auschwitz; and a tug of love fight in 1953 to decide the fate of a child who knows nothing of his real parents and considers himself wholly American.

This is a powerful and heart-breaking story that will hit you with a profound emotional punch. Many of the scenes described from the 1944 part of the tale are difficult to read, with unflinching details of the horrors of war, and the hard decisions associated with survival. The 1953 elements are also full of their own brand of cruelties and trauma that tug mercilessly at your heartstrings. But both parts of the tale are also filled with moments of love, the strength of the human spirit and the bonds of family that tie people together.

This is definitely a book that requires you to invest fully in both sides of the story, but there were times when I felt swayed in my allegiance, and I was not entirely sure whether this was intentional or not. I would have liked to have seen more of Sarah and David's experiences both during and after the war so I could get to know them better. Although Ruth Druart rightly says in her Acknowledgements that this is not what the story is really about, I needed to know more to fully understand their own difficult choices.

There is so much in this beautifully written and compelling debut to admire. The strong themes of love, loss, what it means to be a parent, cultural identity and moral dilemmas are fathomless and Druart explores them artfully as she weaves her threads through time. The war time scenes are particularly impressive, and Druart's descriptions of the horrors Jean-Luc sees during his time at Dracy are incredibly raw and emotive. I also have to say that I don't think I have read anything before that examines quite as well the tenuous line between what collaboration and the acts one is forced to perform in order to survive might look like to outside eyes.

I will finish with a powerful quote from my favourite character of Draurt's, Jean-Luc, which sums up the sentiment of this novel for me. "I think we always have a choice. It's just that it's a difficult one sometimes."

While Paris Slept in available to buy now in hardback, e-book and audio formats from your favourite book retailer now.

Thank you to Louise Swanell at Headline for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review and to Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the author:

Ruth Druart grew up on the Isle of Wight, moving away at the age of eighteen to study psychology at Leicester University. 

She has lived in Paris since 1993, where she has followed a career in teaching.

She has recently taken a sabbatical, so that she can follow her dream of writing full-time.