Author: Patricegotting

Today I am on the tour for Behind Closed doors by Rowen Chambers, thank you to Zoé at Zooloos Book Tours for organising it and inviting me to take part & thank you to the author and the publisher for my copy.

Pages: 293

Synopsis: I thought he was the man of my dreams. He may just be my worst nightmare.

After years of struggling, I never expected someone like Evan Sinclair to walk into my life.

Confident, charming, and well-dressed, I couldn’t believe it when he asked me — a waitress at a diner — to go out with him.

He swept me off my feet, offering me a life I never imagined — a luxurious apartment, new clothes, a world beyond my wildest dreams. For the first time in years, I thought I was finally happy.

But as our relationship deepens, things start to change. Evan’s love comes with strings attached: unspoken rules, decisions made for me, and a creeping sense of control. The more I try to hold on to this perfect life, the more I feel like I’m losing myself.

Evan won’t talk about his past. His temper flares if I even ask about it. And when I find out the reason why, I wonder if I’ve made a terrible mistake.

I thought this new life was everything I wanted. Now, I’m scared I won’t be able to get out before it’s too late.

My Thoughts: oh my god this book made me angry, like shaking my head, shouting at the book and almost throwing my kindle across the room angry.

But that means it was really well written, for a fictional character to make me that irate is a testament to the authors skill.

Evan was a horrible man & I just wanted to shake Grace & make her see sense!

I found myself nodding along and agreeing with everything Jenna was saying & willing both her and Martin to just dig a little deeper..

I thought things were maybe a little repetitive at times, but turns out that just added to the eeriness of the story.

Lots of secrets, lots of lies, characters with hidden agendas and a story line that will stick in your head.

I love a good psychological thriller and this one didn’t disappoint.

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Today I am on the tour for The Break-Up Before Christmas by Charlotte Barnes, 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.

Pages: 297

Synopsis: This holiday season, love is going off-script.

Celebrated advice columnist ‘Dear Dotty’ Ellison has made a name for herself by solving everyone else’s problems.

But she derails her seemingly perfect life when she unknowingly advises her girlfriend of ten years to break up with her. Through her own advice column.

Suddenly single, Dotty realises her life behind the picture-perfect brand isn’t as flawless as she thought. Determined to rediscover who she really is, she decides it’s time to learn how to take her own advice. She begins writing letters to herself through her column.

But when Dotty meets a gorgeous stranger at a cooking class, everything she thought she’d learned through her journey of self-discovery is thrown into question.

Now, with Christmas approaching, will Dotty discover that love and life aren’t something you can write, edit or schedule?

My Thoughts: this one made me feel all warm and happy by the end, it made me smile so much.

This book isn’t about the romance, it’s about finding yourself again after all your plans for the future have fallen apart.

It’s about realising the value of true friendship and the beauty of it too, knowing that you have people in your life that will drop everything to help, that are a positive force but are also not afraid to tell you when they think you’re wrong.

& that is exactly what Dotty has, her girls and her mum are fiercely protective yet brutally honest & that was actually quite refreshing.

When Dotty started writing letters to herself and came to all the realisations that she did it made me emotional but also made me want to pump my fist because I was so proud of her.

I don’t want to give anything away.. I went into this one completely blind & I think that’s the best way to do it. It’ll make you laugh, possibly make you cry but it will also make you proud to be a female (if you are)

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Today I am on the tour for The Motel by Nancy Savage, 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.

Pages: 287

Synopsis: Pearl just checked in. To her own personal nightmare.

Things aren’t going well for Pearl Fuller. Reeling from a breakup and struggling to make ends meet, she’s sleeping on her ex’s couch and working nights at The Driftwood Motel.

The same motel that years ago was the scene of the legendary Berkman murder. They say that room 52 has been empty ever since that night. But if that’s true why can Pearl see someone moving around in there? And why is she the only one who can hear that eerie voice?

No one else seems concerned, but they don’t have to spend every night sitting alone at the front desk, certain that someone is hiding out there in the darkness, watching.

The only bright spot in Pearl’s life is Noah, a guy she recently met who has drawn her in with his charm and good looks. But it’s beginning to feel as though Noah isn’t who he says he is, and soon Pearl suspects he knows a lot more about room 52 than he’s letting on.

Will Pearl discover the truth before it’s too late? Or is she about to open the door to a nightmare so twisted that her worst fears will pale in comparison?

My Thoughts: I really enjoyed this one, it almost didn’t read like a thriller to begin with but as the story goes on you do find yourself being slowly pulled in until your left reeling, but knowing which way is up and who you can trust.

Pearl is a rather unlikeable character to begin with, I found her really whiny, yeah she found herself in situations that weren’t ideal, but she didn’t seem to want to do anything to make it better.

Until her colleague encouraged her to put her details on a job website..

What seems like the perfect job comes up for her, it’s only for a week, puts a roof over her head gives her a bed to sleep in and it involves animals.. what could possibly go wrong?!

I didn’t know wether Pearl was safer at the motel or at the house she was looking after because once things started doing wrong she just couldn’t catch a break.

The book has a whole cast of characters & all of them could have been guilty.. I even started wondering if Edsel was involved.. he just always seemed to be there when things kicked off at work.

I found myself unable to put the book down once the action kicked in, I needed to know how it ended.

I would really recommend this one if you enjoy a slow burn thriller.

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Today I am on the tour for Chasing A Dream by Alison J Barley, 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: 353

Synopsis:Kilburn, Derbyshire 1950. Stella has her heart set on becoming a writer. However, living in a small mining village with an aggressive father somewhat limits her aspirations.
After the death of her grandpa – the only person to recognise and encourage her ability, Stella is lost and about to give up on her dream altogether. Then Stella meets Will, and they soon become very close. He is very supportive and keen to help her succeed in her quest. 
When Stella’s teacher, Miss Hutton, offers to be her mentor, Stella’s dreams of becoming an author seem to be within her grasp. But then a cruel twist of fate, once again, shatters her ambition.
Thankfully she can rely on Will’s support, that is until they find that their relationship has suddenly become the centre of a long-since uncovered secret.
Can their relationship survive, and will Stella find enough strength to triumph above the constant setbacks she faces?

Chasing the Dream is a story of heartbreak, love and tragedy. It follows the journey of a young girl’s determination to overcome life’s challenges to achieve her goal.

My Thoughts: I wasn’t sure what I’d think to this one as I really struggle to read books that deal with grief as a main topic since losing my dad in 2022 but I found myself totally engrossed and swept up in the story!

I wanted nothing but the best for Stella but didn’t have the highest hopes with everything that she had to deal with, the parts that featured her dad made me so angry I wanted to cry, no one deserves a parent like that.

I did panic when her little hiding place got found out but it turned out Will was a shining light in her life and made my heart happy.

A story that will play with all your emotions, give you the warm and fuzzies, break your heart & repeat the cycle over and over again.

I thoroughly enjoyed it & will look out for more from Alison in the future!

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Today I am on the tour for Swiped by Paula Rogers, thank you to Zoé at Zooloos Book Tours for organising it and inviting me to take part & thank you to the author and the publisher for my copy.

Pages: 297

Synopsis: Two rivals. One bet. First to fall in love wins . . .

For Nat Lane love is predictable. Controlled. Scientific. As the founder of a high-profile dating app, she is far more comfortable working on the data behind the dates than finding love herself.

Until her infuriating, but charming, business rival, Rami, publicly challenges her data.

To prove him wrong, Nat makes a bet: she’ll find her perfect match using her own app. Rami must find a date the old-fashioned way.

First to find ‘the one’ wins.

But as the competition heats up, so does their chemistry. Until the lines between rivalry and romance begin to blur.

Nat set out to prove love is a science. But with Rami, it might just be something far more unpredictable . . .

My Thoughts: I really enjoyed this one, it has all the elements of a typical romcom that we all love but it was executed in a way that I’d never read before & I just ate it up!

I loved Nat and Rami as main characters equally, they were fantastic separately but together their banter was off the charts and at times laugh out loud funny.

I’ll be honest, I was all for Nats way of finding love as that’s how I found my boyfriend and I’m far too awkward to meet someone off the cuff in a public setting 😅 that being said though I did enjoy reading about Ramis experiences, you could feel the awkwardness through the page and at times it made me cringe.

Being honest I just wanted them both to sack it off and get together & I wasn’t convinced we’d ever get there.

I would definitely recommend this one & can’t want to read more from Paula in the future.

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Today I am on the tour for Crime In The Garden by Catherine Moloney, thank you to Zoé at Zooloos Book Tours for organising it and inviting me to take part.

Pages: 265

Synopsis: Two brutal murders. One glass house with a sinister past. And a ruthless killer who’s ready to throw the first stone . . .

To step into Hollingrove Palm House is to step into another world, filled with tropical blooms, lush foliage and six ancient stones. Flash tycoon Tony Pardoe, the house’s owner, doesn’t believe the old wives’ tales that swirl around these stones. A mistake he won’t live to regret.

Pardoe’s body is found, sprawled across the stones like a sacrificial offering. Now it’s up to Detective Markham and his team to solve the twisted puzzle of Pardoe’s killing.

The only clue? Another mysterious death, under the same roof. Thirty years ago, little Mary Priddy suffered a fatal fall among the stones. Markham doesn’t believe in that kind of coincidence.

But the roots of these murders are buried deeper than he could ever imagine . . .

While Markham’s grappling with his own, more personal demons, a third body falls.

Can he unravel the mystery — more tangled than the palm house foliage — before the killer escapes into the shadows a second time?

About the Author:

Catherine Moloney is a Liverpool writer of Irish-American heritage. After graduating in Jurisprudence from Jesus College (University of Oxford), she was called to the Bar at Gray’s Inn. Despite qualifying as a barrister, her first love was English; this led to a PhD in English Literature at Birkbeck College (University of London). 

In her academic career, she lectured and published widely on the subject of tuberculosis and nineteenth-century literature, but somehow managed to avoid contracting galloping hypochondria and turned her attention to crime fiction.

If you like the sound of this book it can be bought here!

It is also available on Kindle Unlimited along with the other books in the series!

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Today I am on the tour for Things We Need To Say by Linda Middleton, 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.

Pages: 338

Synopsis: Don’t let The One become The One Who Got Away.

Emma thought she had her life figured out — the career, the love, the future.

But her career feels like it’s going nowhere, and her once-perfect relationship with Jay is beginning to unravel. The life she’s always envisioned feels like it’s slipping away.

Jay has always dreamed of running his own restaurant.

But he never imagined that in chasing success, each step forward would pull him further away from Emma.

As cracks in their relationship deepen, Emma and Jay realise that their love story wasn’t as perfect as they once believed.

They must learn that finding where your heart truly lies means letting go of everything you thought you knew about love . . . and yourself.

My Thoughts: ahh I loved this one, I loved all of the characters.

This is book 2 in the Second Chance Love Stories series and although it would read as a standalone it has overlapping characters from book one so I would highly recommend reading Things They Never Said first, I promise it will add a lot of feeling to the experience.

This isn’t your typical romance as the characters are already in a relationship so you miss the initial getting to know each other stage, but I appreciated that it felt like an insight into what happens after & the relationship in this one wasn’t perfect which gave it a more realistic feel!

We’re following Jay who is currently a partner in a catering business although he has aspirations to open his own restaurant! & Emma who is enrolled in a management training role learning the hospitality industry, both very full on jobs with crazy hours so they’re not getting to spend the time together that they used to so obviously the cracks begin to show.

As I said earlier I adored both characters, I found Jay was quite selfish at times though, it’s like he was walking round with blinkers on and couldn’t see past his aims and goals, I know this was probably on purpose so we could appreciate the redemption arc more when it came, but I found myself shaking my head at him & swearing under my breath regularly. 😂

Emma was just lovely, a little too insecure at times & her inner monologue sometimes read like a teenager rather than a lady in her 20’s but I guess with a partner like Jay who was making her feel unwanted at times we can’t blame her.

This story made my heart happy in the end, thoroughly enjoyable but with a lot of layers that stopped the story from being predictable.

I’m now left wondering if there will be more books in this series either way I can’t wait to read more from Linda in the future.

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Today I am on the tour for When The Ice Melts Away by B.L. Brady, 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.

Pages: 275

Synopsis:

Sometimes the loss of love can lead to the cruellest of desires, the pain can even penetrate a cold, lifeless vampire heart.

Blake is 23. He dreams of a better life as he works at a job he sees no future in until he sees an ad calling for assistance at a local bookstore, Crimson Tale Books, and to his luck lands the job.

But as Blake starts his new job, he falls ill with haunting visions that paralyse him, thrusting him into a blinding world of ice and pain. All he can do is suffer as the daily world around him revolves.

With the help of Lowen, the owner of Crimson Tale Books and Gabriel, sent to guide and protect, Blake is introduced into a world of Vampires and all things that intrigue and terrify him at once.

He soon learns that his immobilising visions are a call for something much more sinister than he ever expected.

My Thoughts: this book did a fantastic job of setting up what promises to be a fantastic series, part fantasy, part horror, full of suspense and I’m assuming there will be some romance along the way too.

When I started this I didn’t really know what I was letting myself in for, it was a slow start whilst we get introduced the characters and a little about their back story. The world building was fantastic, so good that reading was making me feel physically uncomfortable.

Blake can’t wait to start his new job, he sees it as a fresh start, a way to get his life back on track, all seems to be going well.. he’s made new friends in Lowen and Lisa but little does he know he’s going to be introduced to a whole new world very soon.

It’s creepy, just the right amount of eerie with enough action and unknown elements to keep you turning the pages.

I thoroughly enjoyed this and can’t wait to dive into book 2.

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Today I am on the tour for The Silent Sister by Jan Baynham, 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.

Pages: 391

Synopsis: A woman searching for somewhere to belong.
A child rescued from the rubble of a ruined island.
A secret buried in the heart of Kefalonia.

Greece, 1953. When a catastrophic earthquake reduces the beautiful island of Kefalonia to ruins, Cassia Makris risks everything to save a young girl buried beneath the rubble that was once her home.

In that moment, Cassia makes a life-changing decision that will bind their fates forever but force her to carry a devastating secret . . .

Wales, 1973. Eléni Davies has always felt there was something unspoken in her past — a silence at the heart of her childhood. When she discovers a hidden journal among her mother’s belongings, it unravels an untold story of love and loss on a faraway island.

Drawn to the place where her story really began, Eléni travels to the now-rebuilt Kefalonia. Among the lemon groves and sun-bleached chapels, she begins retracing her mother’s footsteps to piece together a story that was never meant to be told.

But in doing so, Eléni must decide whether some secrets are better left buried — or whether confronting them is the only way to finally heal.

My Thoughts: I think it’s time I admitted I now enjoy historical fiction, although it’s still not a genre I reach for often it’s unfair to say it’s not for me, because the last few I’ve read have been 4/5 stars.

This book was an absolute delight, it started sad & very intense, but as the book goes on it becomes a more positive story and one that was just a delight to get lost in.

It is emotional and feels genuine, you can really feel what the main characters are feeling.

Cassia and Tom were just the loveliest people & yeah what they did was wrong, but they did it for the right reasons. I found myself encouraging them to give Eléni a better life, to make her feel loved and safe in the hopes that she would open up.

The story was dual timeline so in the earlier timeline we follow Cassia and in the later one we are following Eléni, but the parallels between the two were eerie yet weirdly poetic.

I laughed, I cried & just completely devoured this book, the setting was beautiful and the writing was immersive. One I would definitely recommend.

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Today I am on the tour for Suddenly Desired by Katie Evergreen, 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.

Pages: 265

Synopsis: He’s fighting for his reputation. She’s risking her heart.

Blake Fielding built the world’s biggest social media empire — until a scandalous hack turns his company, Heartbook, into headline-hell and Blake into public enemy number one.

Ellie Mae Woodward thought she was walking into her dream job interview at Heartbook. Instead, she walks straight into corporate chaos, a building in lockdown and — literally — the brooding CEO at the centre of the scandal.

Blake’s guarded and entirely off-limits. Ellie’s quirky, creative and not remotely impressed by billionaires. But he needs someone who sees past the headlines. Ellie — with her dress covered in nerdy-hearts and a pink notebook of dreams — might just be the wildcard he needs.

Teaming up to uncover the truth could save them both. But when it’s finally revealed, they’ll have to choose between clearing Blake’s name . . . Or risking it all for something neither of them saw coming.

My Thoughts: I adored this! – it’s book 2 in a series but can easily be read as a standalone as we are following different characters.

Blake is the face behind Heartbook, the most popular social media platform they have but he has found himself in the middle of a scandal.. things have been posted on his profile saying derogatory things about women, he is adamant it’s not him, but without the proof to back it up he’s going to lose his job.

Ellie is there for a. Interview & obviously turns up when the last thing they’re thinking about doing is hiring & gets turned away..

They both have a chance meeting, a meeting that could end up changing both their lives more than they could’ve dreamed.

A lot of fun, flirty, spicy and the characters banter was second to none, but what really shine through was that they both just wanted to help each other and the romance just sort of happened naturally.

Definitely the epitome of a romcom and I can’t wait for the next one!

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