Author: Patricegotting

Today I am on the tour for Peckersley’s Bird Cafe by Michael A Duffy, thank you to Hannah at Hygge Book Tours for organising it and inviting me to take part and thank you to the author and the publisher for my copy.

Pages: 497

Synopsis: A garden bird-feeding fanatic and his troubled wife ride the roller coaster of family relationships, while fending off a social media frenzy and an army of invading squirrels.

Marjorie Peckersley would prefer to be twenty-something again. Trouble is, she’s just turned 70, which cannot be remedied even by sitting in her garden fishpond. If only husband, Norman, had noticed that she was slowly losing the plot, while their wider family relationships fall into ruins.

But he’s too busy caring for his pride and joy – Peckersley’s Bird Café.

When some local animal lovers start rescuing distressed squirrels from a nearby MOD research facility, Norman learns one important truth. Squirrels love both peanuts and bird food in general. The bird café faces wipe-out.

Trouble is, squirrels are very cute and capable of getting the whole world of social media on their side. Norman is very grumpy and in danger of becoming the internet’s #EvilGrandad.

Marjorie is very confused, but hopes her husband can come through. In the meantime, she realises she can take steps to rescue herself.

So why not take a slightly bonkers a ride to Nowtmuch village with the Peckersley’s? Norman and Marjorie – together with a supporting cast of ever-hungry garden birds and squirrels – will be so pleased to meet you there!

My Thoughts: this one was a lot of fun, full of memorable characters, although for some of them I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.

I lost count of the amount of times this book made me laugh, the funny moments start very early on and continue right to the very end, some of them had me putting my head in my hands because I was just in utter disbelief that the characters thought what they had planned would work..

At one point whilst reading I was shaking my head and saying “no, no, no” because I could see what was about to happen before it happened and hated myself a little because I was utterly powerless to stop it! – yes I know it’s ‘just a book’ But I was so engrossed in the writing & the characters felt so real!

I really appreciated the fact that the story was told from the perspective of both Norman and Marjorie, because the things those two got up to when they weren’t together were amazing and I couldn’t imagine missing out on half of that!

This isn’t one I would’ve found without the help of Hygge Book Tours, but it’s one I will be recommending to those who love a bit of humour in their books!

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Today I am on the tour for The Other Tenant by Lesley Kara, thank you to Anne at Random Things Tours for organising it and inviting me to take part and thank you to the author and the publisher for my copy.

Pages: 344

Synopsis: Marlow has always lived in unusual places. But when she accepts a position as a live-in property guardian, she finds herself moving somewhere she swore she’d never return to.

Right from the start, she knows it’s a terrible mistake. The elegant Victorian school is due to be turned into luxury apartments, but its eerie, empty corridors are full of Marlow’s worst memories.

And now something sinister is happening on the site. One of the other tenants has disappeared without warning, and Marlow suspects that the nine other guardians know far more than they’re letting on. She’s determined to find out what happened to the missing woman – but which of these strangers can she trust?

And can she uncover the truth before her own past catches up with her?

My Thoughts: now this is a psychological thriller with a difference, it’s not your usual setting.. it’s set in a school, Marlows old school where she has just agreed to be a property guardian… who knew there was such a thing?!

Marlow gets the invite because they’ve just had someone leave rather quickly so there’s a vacancy and since she’s having to leave her current one the timing is perfect, the only problem is her best friend died at that school and she’s not sure she’s ready to deal with that, her solution? Don’t let anyone know she used to attend the school.

Right from the off of her moving in, I got an uneasy feeling about the Head Guardian, he didn’t want her in the room she’d been promised, claimed there was a water leak that made it unsafe, so she was out into the other side of the school all on her own..

As we get into the story we soon learn that all of the residents are keeping secrets, some smaller than others.. but it means that literally any of them could be a suspect in the mystery that starts to unfold.

Now I have read a few of Lesley’s books but I have to say I think this one is by far my favourite so far..

It’s gritty and full of suspense, there’s so many twists that you end up going back on yourself and doubting every single thought you’ve had whilst reading.

I would absolutely recommend this one, but I promise you you probably won’t be able to look at your old school in the same way again.

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Today I am on the tour for Anna’s Promise by Pauline Tait, thank you to Anne at Random Things Tours for organising it and inviting me to take part and thank you to the author and the publisher for my copy.

Pages: 222

Synopsis: Struggling to come to terms with losing her mother, Anna embarks on a journey to uncover the truth about her family and her mother’s hidden past.

And while a letter, a photograph and the Old Lodge lead her back to the Isle of Skye, Anna is shocked to discover the island she had holidayed on so often as a child has been quietly keeping the secrets her mother had left unsaid.

Hamish, handsome, quiet, and moody, seems unnerved by Anna’s presence. Ben, a city slicker, out of place and determined to help Anna in her quest, proves invaluable, but is his presence on the island merely coincidental?

Meanwhile, a newly discovered family member may not be a cause for celebration.

A riveting and unmissable novel about new beginnings and the power of love over loss.

My Thoughts: This is book 2 in the Maren Bay Series, they are companion novels so although it would read well as a stand-alone I would recommend picking up the first one, just so you have a bit of back story about the area and the other characters in the book.

In this one we’re following Anna who after the death of her mother is being led back to Isle of Skye in search of answers, what she doesn’t expect if for the journey to lead her down several paths with different people leaving her not knowing who to trust and who is telling the truth.

The writing is beautiful and really draws you in this was a 2 sitting read for me because I just needed to know what happened.. (would have been a one sitting read if I didn’t have to put it down to go to work😂) t

The characters are well written & feel realistic and believable, we could feel Anna’s doubt and anxiety about certain situations coming through the pages!

The story as a whole is emotional and leaves quite an impact, there were times within the book that left me tearing up because I resonated with Anna and what she was feeling so much.

I’ll be honest, this isn’t a series I would’ve picked up without the help of the blog tours but it is absolutely one I would recommended and cannot wait to continue!

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Today I am on the tour for The Jagged Scar by Nick Rippington, thank you to Zoé at Zooloos Book Tours for organising it and inviting me to take part and thank you to the author and the publisher for my copy.

I have a spotlight for you today where I will tell you a bit about the book and the author & I’ll also have the link to buy it at the bottom ☺️

Pages: 438

Synopsis: The Jagged Scar is a spin-off from Nick Rippington’s much-acclaimed Boxer Boys series.
Troubled schoolgirl Red and her best friend Marc visit London for a Valentine’s party but they get separated and she ends up in a police cell.
While behind bars the teenager befriends mysterious glamour girl Kat who negotiates her release and invites her to a 70s Soho awash with strip clubs, porn shops, shady characters and bent cops.
Unhappy with her home life back in Wales, she opts to stay and lands a job in the nightclub empire of former stripper Blaize and her porn king husband Jack. Before long she has made friends, settled into the lifestyle and forgotten all about the problems at home.
That is until her world is turned upside down by a sequence of tragic events. It leads her to question those around her and brings her to the notice of some leading players in London’s dark underbelly who will stop at nothing to keep their unlawful activities under wraps.
And as she closes in on the truth, Red is about to make the shocking discovery that her new life is inextricably linked with the past she’s so desperate to leave behind.

About The Author:

NICK RIPPINGTON is an award-winning author of crime and psychological thrillers.

He is a member of the Crime Writers Association and was the last-ever Welsh Sports Editor of the now defunct News of The World. 

A national sports journalist with a wealth of experience, Nick took the plunge and began writing crime thrillers when Rupert Murdoch shut down Europe’s biggest-selling Sunday newspaper in 2011 as a result of the phone hacking scandal. 

His debut novel Crossing The Whitewash came out in 2015, receiving an honourable mention in the Writers’ Digest Self-publishing eBook awards.

That launched the Boxer Boys series, which has found a niche in the growing UK gangland market. To date, there are four books in the series – Crossing The Whitewash, Spark Out, Dying Seconds and Bare Lies. 

Nick’s creation of the notorious Dolan family, their associates and enemies has been greeted with acclaim by some of the country’s most prestigious book bloggers. 

Meanwhile, his standalone psychological thriller Rabette Run has been described as ‘Alice in Wonderland… with tanks and guns’ with a twist you didn’t see coming. Rabette Run (published by Red Dragon) and Crossing the Whitewash are both available as audio books while the first three novels in the Boxer Boys series are available in digital format with Amazon as a box set.

The Jagged Scar, Nick’s 6th novel, is a spin-off of the Boxer Boys which can be read as a standalone, as can all his books. It is based in 1970s Soho, London, and you may notice a few characters that appear much later in the saga.

Nick has now moved out of East London to the wilds of Suffolk. He is married to Liz and has two daughters, Jemma and Olivia.

If you like the sound of this book it can be bought here! And is also available on Kindle Unlimited!

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Today I am on the tour for What We Did In The War by Jennie Walters, thank you to Anne at Random Things Tours for for organising it and inviting me to take part and thank you to the author and the publisher for my copy.

Pages: 277

Synopsis: Can you ever let go of the past? Two women unhappy with their lives seize a chance to start over during a WWII bombing raid, in this dramatic and suspenseful novel.

London, 1944: As bombs start raining from the sky, two women rush out of a restaurant, leaving their possessions behind. Their chance meeting amid the chaos and destruction will have long-lasting consequences. Both beset by desperate problems, they take advantage of the wartime chaos to escape their humdrum lives and start again. .

Sticking together, the pair live under the radar, using a stolen ration book to feed themselves and relying on a street kid’s help to get by. Cecil eventually finds work, while glamorous, feckless Claude looks after the flat—or doesn’t. Gradually their friendship sours and resentment creeps in. Just as Cecil is wondering whether she should ever have trusted Claude in the first place, she makes a shocking discovery—one that will expose a web of secrets, lead to an act of violence, and set the two on separate and very different paths.

My Thoughts: I really enjoyed this story, I was a little worried with it being a story set in WW2, but the primary focus was more on these 2 women and their life rather than the way itself which I really appreciated.

We’re following 2 ladies, Cecil and Claude as they become known, they’re thrown together in a restaurant when it’s attacked by a doodlebug, they have nothing in common other than they both have a past to escape & decide to use the bombing as a way to do so, they’re both presumed dead so why not reinvent themselves?

One is pregnant without the father in the picture and the other wants to escape an unhappy marriage, can they work together to both find happiness?

All seems to be going well, they’ve even found a friend in a young girl called Floss, who helps them become more ‘worldly wise’ but we all know that secrets don’t stay secret for long and the past will eventually come and find them.

A really easy read that delves into some sensitive topics without getting too heavy.

One that I would highly recommend

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Today I am on the tour for Whitechapel Autumn of Error by Ian Porter, thank you to Anne at Random Things Tours for organising it and inviting me to take part and thank you to the author and the publisher for my copy.

Pages: 384

Synopsis: Whitechapel 1888; a killer is on the loose and the newspapers are ensuring the nation knows all about not just the crimes but the terrible living conditions in which they are being perpetrated.

Nashey, a tough, scary yet charismatic man of the night, whose mother had to prostitute herself when he was a boy, knows the identity of the killer but keeps it a secret. He believes the publicity generated by the murders is forcing the authorities to address the poverty and degradation in the area. He allows the killer to remain free (whilst ensuring no more women are attacked) so the unsolved murders continue to dominate the headlines. He meets Sookey, an eccentric middle-class slummer and civilising influence. The two of them share a mutual friend, Mary Kelly, a fiery young prostitute whose back-story tells of how she was reduced to such a life.

To fund his surveillance of the killer, Nashey agrees, against his better judgement, to assist an old adversary to commit a daring night robbery under the noses of the huge police presence in the area.

Is it too late for Nashey and Mary to correct their mistakes?

My Thoughts: I know I’m always saying I’m not a fan of historical fiction, but I am a fan of true crime so the fact that this one was loosely based on the Jack The Ripper murders had me hooked from the beginning.

The writing was so real and so raw that I found myself having to put it down a few times, which isn’t like me at all, but in this instance that’s a nod to the authors brilliant writing, he had me feeling emotions so deeply that I had to take myself away from the book.

I loved Nash as a main character he’s you’re stereotypical bad boy, but yet this times he’s trying to do good, he’s trying to get to the bottom of the murders and protect the women too, just sometimes his idea of protection isn’t the same as ours.

I have a soft spot for Sookey and Mary, they were just brilliant characters, strong and powerful if a little misguided at times.

If you’re looking for a book where the descriptions are that spot on that you’ll get thrown right into the action and find yourself unable to read in the dark without looking over your shoulder the look no further because you’ve definitely found it.

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Today I am on the tour for The Perfect Teacher by Kelly Golden, thank you to Anne at Random Things Tours for organising it and inviting me to take part and thank you to the author and the publisher for my copy.

Pages: 423

Synopsis: What if your worst enemy… was your daughter’s new teacher?

Miss Smith is perfect. That’s what my beautiful girl Jenna says, the morning I see the new teacher by the school gates, flashing her brilliant smile.

But I know Jenna’s wrong. Because thirty years ago, Georgia Smith was my best friend… until one terrible day she wasn’t. I’ll never forget her face twisted with hate the last time I saw it.

I’m still shaking as the clock ticks past four thirty, and I begin to wonder why Jenna isn’t home yet. And then I feel it in my gut:

Georgia is back, and my baby girl is gone.

My Thoughts: now everyone knows I love a psychological thriller, this one was so cleverly done that I’m struggling to get my thoughts into words.

Jenna has a new favourite teacher, she sees her, she talks to her, she listens to her. But more importantly she gives her a safe space to hide when things get too much. What we don’t know at the time is that Miss Smith had history with Jenna’s mum and let me tell you it is a very tangled web, but untangling it will have you totally engrossed & just when you think you’ve got to the bottom of it there’s more.. there’s always more!

This story was told from multiple perspectives across multiple timelines & you’d think it would get confusing, but it doesn’t, it all comes together so seamlessly, I was hooked from the beginning which made this a one sitting read for me.

The characters were likeable, even the ones that I don’t think we were supposed to like, the teenagers were realistic and believable and the chapters were short and snappy, this one literally had everything, the only negative for me which is more of a personal preference than anything else was that the book as a whole was maybe just a little too long, at over 400 pages.

I would definitely highly recommend this one though and I will be looking out for Kelly’s next release in the future.

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Today I am on the tour for Looking for Lucie by Amanda Addison, thank you to Dave at Write Reads Tours for organising it and inviting me to take part and thank you to the author and the publisher for my copy.

Pages: 272

Synopsis: Looking for Lucie is a contemporary YA novel that explores identity, self-discovery, and newfound friendship as an 18-year-old girl sets out to uncover her ethnic heritage and family history.

“Where are you really from?”

It’s a question every brown girl in a white-washed town is familiar with, and one that Lucie has never been able to answer. All she knows is that her mother is white, she’s never met her father, and she looks nothing like the rest of her family. She can’t even talk about it because everyone says it shouldn’t matter!

Well, it matters to Lucie and-with her new friend Nav, who knows exactly who he is-she’s determined to find some answers.

What do you do when your entire existence is a question with no answer?

You do a DNA test.

My Thoughts: this was a really heartwarming story of just wanting to feel like you belong and wanting to fill in what you feel are massive gaps in your history..

Lucie has grown up thinking her dad was a sperm donor, but as she’s grown up she’s starting to feel different from the rest of her family, so without her mum knowing she orders a DNA test to finally get to the truth.. little does she know that she’s actually closer to the truth than she thinks.

The story dealt with some really important topics in a really sensitive way, it delves into the world of arranged marriages and interracial relationships and navigating a world that at the time you don’t necessarily understand.

The writing flows really well which made this a really hard book to put down and I ended up finishing it in one sitting, I found myself totally immersed in the story and rooting for Lucie to get answers that she would be happy with.

If you’re looking for a nice contemporary story that will really make you think about your family history then this is the one for you, it’s full of characters that you just want to be friends with!

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Today I am on the tour for Honour Among Spies by Merle Nygate, thank you to Anne at Random Things Tours for organising it and inviting me to take part and thank you to the author and the publisher for my copy.

Pages: 397

Synopsis: At the heart of London’s spy operations, Mossad head of station Eli carries the scars of a past disaster while grappling with the turbulent political landscape back home. His resolve to uphold his duty and keep his job is tested like never before.

Desperate to tip the scales in the espionage game, Eli concocts a risky plan involving tampered drones destined for Russian hands. But to execute this plan, he has to exploit those closest to him. Eli’s moral compass clashes with the mission, leading him down a treacherous path of betrayal.

As the stakes escalate, Eli finds himself embroiled in a deadly web, racing to foil an apocalyptic agenda. With the clock ticking, alliances are tested, sacrifices are made, and Eli must confront the consequence of his actions head-on.

Eli and his team must navigate a shadowy underworld to prevent a terrorist plot from unleashing chaos on a global scale. Will they emerge victorious, or will the darkness consume them all?

My Thoughts: spy stories are really hit or miss for me, this one was definitely a hit, the main characters were really likeable even though they were doing a job that isn’t considered good.

This is the second book in the series which I didn’t know going into it, but this read really well as a stand alone, all that was missing really was the introduction to all the characters, but this book does a really good job of reintroducing them to the reader as things unfold!

We have 2 main storylines within which shows all of our characters pushed to their limits whilst also affecting the personal lives for a couple of them too, after all the only problem with a job like being a spy is that it will always lead to secrets being kept and lies being told, w lot of them don’t even know the real names of their ‘colleagues’

A thriller that will keep you guessing throughout and I can’t wait to carry on with the series!

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Today I am on the tour for Better Left Unsent by Lia Louis, thank you to Anne at Random Things Tours for organising it and inviting me to take part and thank you to the author and the publisher for my copy.

Pages: 365

Synopsis: Millie Chandler is known at work as the nice receptionist who got dumped by the company hotshot, and ever since then, she has vowed to keep everything to herself – her feelings, her hopes, and especially her fears. 

But Millie does have an outlet: her emails. From sarcastic replies to her rude boss, rants to friends about their terrible taste in men to a five-hundred-word love declaration to her ex, who three years on, is about to marry someone else. Millie’s reality lives in her drafts until the morning she discovers that they are somehow in her sent folder. The truth is out.

As every dark secret she’s worked so hard to keep password protected is released, Millie must fix the chaos her words have caused.

Will Millie find the strength to open both her heart, and her inbox?

My Thoughts: as far as romantic comedies go this is up there as one of my favourites, it had me laughing out loud very early on and didn’t let up on the humour throughout.

We’re following Millie as she goes through everyone’s worst nightmare, she’s been writing draft emails with all the inner thoughts and feelings the truths she wants to tell people.. and somehow they all get sent overnight, technology is brilliant until it doesn’t work right? 😂

Not long after, her colleague Jack finds her hiding in a room with a cardboard cut out of Gary Lineker, reassures her that things will be ok and what follows is a friendship/relationship that will make you jealous, full of banter, burgers and witty moments.

Millie has a couple of best friends in her life that are there for her through it all, they read all the emails with her, talked her through her options and were just there for moral support, one provided healthy snacks and the other provided alcohol 😅

This is a book that has stayed with me since finishing it & makes me smile every time I think of it, I think it’s fair to say I will be reading more from Lia Louis in the future, although this one will be a hard one to top!

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