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Today I’m on the tour for The Shape Of Your Heart by Debbie Howells, thank you to Rachel at Rachel’s Random Resources for organising it and inviting me to take part.

Pages: 334

Synopsis: ‘When the world says “give up”, hope whispers, “try it one more time”.’

Callie’s always been the least ambitious of her sisters but also the happiest, until fate snaps her fiancé away before they can say I do.

One year later, she is still putting her life back together, but she might be ready for more. With so much life left to live, she has to find a way to be happy.

Nathan knows not everyone gets a second chance at life and he’s not going to waste his. He’s left the city behind, moved to Cornwall and is starting over. When he meets a beautiful woman at the beach it feels like fate, but her heart belongs to someone else.

Could Callie and Nathan be just what each other needs?

About The Author:

Having previously worked as cabin crew, a flying instructor and a wedding florist, Debbie started writing during her busiest summer of weddings.

After self-publishing three women’s commercial fiction novels, she wrote The Bones of You, her first psychological thriller. It was a Sunday Times bestseller and picked for the Richard and Judy book club. Three more have been published by Pan Macmillan: The Beauty of The End, The Death of Her and Her Sister’s Lie.

Her fifth, The Vow, was published by Avon in 2020 and was a #1 ebook bestseller. Her latest, The Secret, is out now, with her next due in 2023.

More recently, Debbie has returned to writing women’s fiction novels, about life, love, friendship and loss – the stuff that happens to all of us. The first of these, The Life You Left Behind is coming in February 2022, published by Boldwood.

Debbie writes full time, inspired by the peacefulness of the countryside she lives in with her partner Martin and Bean the rescued cat.

I did start reading this and really enjoyed what I read but just wasn’t able to deal with certain parts after losing my dad last year.

If it sounds like it’s up your street it can be bought here!

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Today I have an exciting cover reveal for you! – I am on the tour for this one in April too, I can’t wait!

Let me tell you a little about the book first though!

Synopsis: A Catholic priest looking for a wife. A betrayed woman in need of an honest man.
What could possibly go wrong?

When Father Thomas Sheridan encounters Faith in a dark cupboard, he believes he’s found his future wife. But Tom isn’t brave enough to tell her the truth…

When Faith meets Tom in the office kitchenette, she can’t stand him. No matter, she’s fallen for the mysterious man she met in the cupboard and can’t wait to meet him again. Oh, and she’s got a new rule: one lie and he’s out. She’s not getting duped again.

But everyone loves Tom. From Perdita, Faith’s friend, to Hope, her chronically ill sister—who’s on the lookout for a man herself. And neighbours Luke and Gavin—who’ve fallen out over Luke wanting a baby. They urge Faith to give Tom a chance. But how can she have strong feelings for two men? And even worse, how will she react when she discovers that Tom is the man in the cupboard—and, heaven forbid, a Catholic priest?

How beautiful is this cover?

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Today I’m on the tour for Seahaven by Ruth Enright, 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: 309

Synopsis: England, 1700’s. Seahaven is a lawless fishing village on the wild East Coast of Yorkshire. When a sailing ship is wrecked, three young people from very different backgrounds are caught up in a race against time. Solomon must escape his bondage as an American slave and his two friends, Robin and Sophie, are desperate to help him. However, this is a time of smuggling, slavery, robbery and betrayal. The whole community, whether rich or poor, is involved in outlawed activity. Robin’s strange and feared Uncle Jorfant leads the underground smuggling ring. Soldiers, the militia and excise men are always on patrol and the Press Gang is a constant fear to the men of the village. It is a volatile, complex world, one in which past and present collide mysteriously.

Solomon, Robin and Sophie all have their own personal reasons for wishing to escape. During their adventures, both alone and together, they meet many people along the way; some become allies, others a threat, and the three friends also face new dangers. Hampered by their circumstances and those with power, who control and surround them, escape is never a certainty.

Will Solomon find freedom at last and what will become of Robin and Sophie? An exciting and gripping adventure, portraying the harsh realities of life from a very different era!

My Rating: 🐧🐧🐧.5

My Thoughts: this one did take me a while to get into, historical fiction isn’t a genre I reach for often because sometimes the language used and things spoken about can take some adapting to!

We’re following Robin and Sophie two friends who have gone smuggling for the night after a ship has crashed..Sophie in disguise obviously, can’t be having girls doing things like that in the 1700’s 🤣

They run into Solomon, a young lad who has been sold into slavery but is desperate to escape so obviously Robin and Sophie take upon themselves to help him… but if Robins Uncle Jordan’s finds out they could all be in trouble!

What follows is a story full of action and adventure, bravery and a lot of secrets!

The young ones have to work out who they can put their trust in to help Solomon gain the freedom he craves whilst keeping both Sophie and Robin safe Jorfant and his bunch of outlaws… is it possible?!

The writing was beautiful, some of the descriptions we’re so detailed that I found it was easy to picture what was going on.. it almost read like a film.

Yet another one I wouldn’t have picked up on my own but one I would recommend.

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Today I’m on the tour for The Widows Secret by Theo Baxter, 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: 346

Synopsis: It’s the secrets you don’t know that will kill you.

Married couple Leona and Wayne Woodrow are celebrating their anniversary with a hike on the Appalachian Trail when Wayne slips and falls off a cliff. A search party turns up his bloodied clothing, but not his body.

An inheritance and a huge payout from a life insurance policy do little to ease Leona’s grief. Adding to her stress is Wayne’s brother, Michael, who makes it clear he suspects Leona is somehow responsible for Wayne’s death.

When Michael is shot dead and his wife Chelsea vanishes, Leona finds herself the prime suspect in a twisted plot of secrets, betrayal, and murder.

Leona is sure that what’s been happening is connected to a secret in Wayne’s family. And she’s right. But she has no idea just how shocking that secret is and just how far its keepers will go to protect it…

My Rating: 🐧🐧🐧.5

My Thoughts: I really enjoyed this one, a good solid psychological thriller that kept my attention throughout.

We’re following Leona and Wayne who are celebrating their 5th wedding anniversary, Wayne treats Leona to a long weekend away hiking with an overnight stay in a nice hotel on the way.. but during the hike Wayne falls off the edge of the cliff and is presumed dead.

Whilst reading the book I did feel that something wasn’t right and just didn’t add up, some of the characters just didn’t sit well with me, but I couldn’t work out why..

The further along we got I did start to work things out and if I’m completely honest I did work out the final twist quite early on, but I feel like because I knew where it was going or so I thought it helped build the anticipation and made the book more enjoyable.

The writing was perfectly paced and made me feel uncomfortable at times, in what I would consider to be just at the right moments.

I would highly recommend this one!

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Elodie Hart is Sara Madderson’s pen name for her decidedly dirtier books and I was lucky enough to be a part of her ARC team for Unfurl. ❤️

Pages: 364

Synopsis: BELLE
When you’ve been told your whole life that something is sinful, you have two options.

Avoid it like the plague. Like it has the power to destroy all that is good and pure.

Or become as fixated upon it as Eve was upon that apple.

I’m sick of the push-pull of terror and temptation. It’s tearing me apart. I just want a bite of the apple.

More than a bite. I want to devour it. Have its juices spill from my lips.

And by apple I, of course, mean sex.

RAFE
My new neighbour is the kind of beautiful that could bring a man to his knees. But she’s twenty-two. Fourteen years younger than me.

That’s too young. I’ve vowed to stay away. Until she comes to me for help.

It seems she has something to dispose of. Her chastity.

And it seems I have something she wants. The club I run for discerning adults. More specifically, the programme we’ve created for women just like Belle.

A programme that will transform her from innocent to damned.

Unfurl the parts of her she’s denied until now.

It seems I may not be the only one falling to my knees, after all.

God help us both.

Unfurl is a steamy age-gap contemporary romance featuring multiple partner play and a monogamous HEA.

My Rating: 🐧🐧🐧🐧🐧

My Thoughts: before we start I have to be honest and say my penguin rating system seems far too tame for this book 🤣

The synopsis gives a pretty good run down of the plot so I’ll try not to include too much of that in my review and get straight into the nitty gritty..

Belle is desperate to be more like her friend Maddy, they both attended the same catholic boarding school, they both had the same teachings drummed into them every day about sins of the flesh and such but unlike Maddy, Belle is 22 and still a virgin and she can’t get past her morals to change that although she realllly wants to.

Whilst attending a party at her mum and dads she meets their upstairs neighbour Rafe who instantly has her feeling hot under the collar.. what she doesn’t yet know is that he owns a sex club!

This book was off the charts steam level and you could feel the anticipation and the attraction dripping from the pages before anything physical had even happened.

I personally really appreciated that there was no shame in the fact that Belle was still a virgin in her 20’s, there is always a lot of stigma to it, but in this book nothing was forced, Rafe and Gen made sure that she knew all the details (details that she’d picked) it was all on her terms and they only encouraged her when she showed interest, they didn’t push her.

The steamy scenes were utter perfection I won’t go into too much detail here as I have family that read my blog 🤣 but the men worshipped her (pun maybe intended) but only to her limits and boy was it good. 🥵🥵

I definitely wouldn’t go for the things Belle chose, I’m all about just the one man but I definitely loved reading about it, several times I had to look up and make sure no one could see what I was reading 🫣

I’m sat here hoping there will be an Alchemy book 2!

The paperback is Available now and can be bought here! it will be out on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited on the 10th Feb.

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Today I’m on the tour for Remember My Name by Erkut Sogut, thank you to Jaime at Inked Editorial for organising it and inviting me to take part, I have a spotlight for you today!

Pages: 209

Synopsis: From the slums to the stands. They’ll always want a piece of you.

A desperate boy holds a dark secret.
His only option is to leave home and face the treacherous journey to Europe in the hope of a better life.
A young journalist is determined to bring down the system that creates such desperation.
Two lives intertwined, hunted for nothing more than wanting to create a better world.

***
Afam is a promising young footballer, but he’s not set for stardom. Working on the streets of AJ City in Lagos, Nigeria, he’s grafts hard so he can support his sister through school. When Sam, a Christian missionary, promises him the world — a trial at a top club – Afam leaps at the chance. But things soon turn sour, and it becomes clear that Sam has ulterior motives. When he confesses to his friend, Leye, about Sam’s unwanted advances, he finds a surprising comrade.

The boys hatch a plan for revenge, but things don’t go according to plan and soon they are on the run. Leye goes into hiding with some questionable friends of his cousin and Afam has nothing else to cling to but the shaky promises of human traffickers who assure him they can get him safely into Europe, where a trial at a Paris club awaits him.

At the same time, Annabel, a British investigative journalist has had a tip-off that in addition to facilitating the shady academies making false promises to young African boys in order to part them with their cash, someone at the top level of football, and maybe government, is clearing the path for ruthless human traffickers to bring these young men into Europe and make modern-day slaves out of them.

Very soon, Annabel finds herself too close to the truth, and some very powerful people want to silence her.

About The Author: Dr Erkut Sogut was born in Hanover, Germany and in addition to being an author, is a sports lawyer, sports agent and a professor for sports law & sports management. He holds a doctorate in sports law. His debut novel, DEADLINE, is the first in a planned series of thrillers which aim to shine a light onto the darker side of international football.

He is the founder of the international sports agency “GROW – Rising Talents”, the CEO of the educational company “Football Agent Institute”, board member of the charity “BigShoe” and has co-founded “Unity” – a cosmetic company with a focus on sustainability and environmental awareness.

He lives in Orange County, California.

If you like the sound of this it can be bought here! And it’s also available on Kindle Unlimited.

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Today I’m closing the tour for The Reprobation Series by Catherine Fearn by sharing my review for the third and final book Sound, 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: 221

Synopsis: Can you hear it?

A professor of psychoacoustics is found dead in his office. It appears to be a heart attack, until a second acoustician dies a few days later in similar circumstances.

Meanwhile, there’s an outbreak of mysterious illnesses on a council estate, and outbursts of unexplained violence in a city centre nightclub. Not to mention strange noises coming from the tunnels underneath Liverpool. Can it really be a coincidence that death metal band Total Depravity are back in the city, waging their own form of sonic warfare?

Detective Inspector Darren Swift is convinced there are connections. Still grieving his fiancé’s death and sworn to revenge, he is thrown back into action on the trail of a murderer with a terrifying and undetectable weapon. 

But this case cannot be solved using conventional detective work, and D.I. Swift will need to put the rulebook aside and seek the occult expertise of Dr. Helen Hope and her unlikely sidekick, guitarist Mikko Kristensen.

My Rating: 🐧🐧🐧🐧

My Thoughts: I am genuinely sad that this trilogy is over, I have loved it so much!

The third book saw the return of all our favourite characters including Mikko and his band, Knut had a bigger part to play this time.. he was their way into see the Messiah!

This one is based on psychoacoustics and the things it does to the body that we have no idea about, I found it fascinating!

This book as with the others has an undercurrent of religion and mythology that had me utterly gripped as it’s not something I have any prior knowledge of, it was done in a really subtle way and was interwoven within the story.

I found this book a lot more gruesome than the others with more intricate details of the victims which really showed Catherine’s development and confidence as an author.

I absolutely loved this series, it’s one that I wouldn’t necessarily have picked up on my own but what a gem I would’ve missed out on if I hadn’t.

Will really miss this off bunch of friends & will secretly keep everything crossed that we see them again in the future.

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Today I have my review for Virtual Strangers by Sam Canning, 2 days late so I apologise!

Pages: 384

Synopsis: Do you believe in love at first type?

When Ada set up her own PR firm from a coffee shop, she didn’t expect to meet journalist Fraser. Also working there daily, he soon becomes a friend. Reporting on interesting things to do around Edinburgh, Fraser ropes Ada into accompanying him on his assignments.

As they work side-by-side Ada can’t help but notice how attractive Fraser is, and how well they get along. But, Ada has been chatting to a guy she met on an Agatha Christie fan fiction site, and she can’t stop wondering about him. His interests are the same as hers, and the anonymity helps them both be more honest and open. As Ada’s messages with the mystery man become deeper, she thinks she’s falling for him.

Ada is torn between Fraser and Myster-E – but can you have real feelings for someone when you’re virtual strangers?

My Rating: 🐧🐧🐧🐧

My Thoughts: I bloody loved this, it had everything you would want from a rom com!

Ada as a main character seems confident despite the devastating shock she gets at the beginning.. she’s just returned home to Edinburgh so she is around her best friend again and has her mum for support too!

She’s setting up her own PR company so hires a table at the local cafe to give her the space she needs to work without getting under her mums feet at home.. it’s here she meets Fraser, they hit it off immediately as friends the humour and the banter is on point.

Ada believes that Fraser has a girlfriend and she’s currently talking to a Myster-E online, so as far as she’s concerned it’s purely platonic and therefore easy and uncomplicated!

They find themselves in situations regularly that made me laugh out loud multiple times.. watching them discover the truth had me utterly hooked and I couldn’t put it down.

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Today I’m on the tour for Hell Hath No Fury by Geoff Major 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: 393

Synopsis: They changed her life forever. Did they really think they could get away with it?

Evie Perry was a high-class escort whose way of life was abruptly and cruelly shattered by two drunken men. Stella Kendrick’s husband committed suicide and left her with a legal battle and a debt of £6m, but he leaves her a message with the names of three men on it. Daniella Maddox is a world-class barrister, assigned to an indefensible case for a corrupt client, but one she must win to save her own life. Unbeknownst to them, fate has woven their lives into a twisted web.

Detective Sergeant Alan Armitage is mystified when he attends the scene of a triple murder, but he is very quickly joined in his hunt for the killer by Detective Sergeant Steve Denton from The Met, and Detective Sergeant Bob Williams from North Yorkshire CID. Along with Detective Constable Rachael Jones, they have to uncover who the murderer is and why they are killing people across the country. Their task is made even more difficult because a criminal known to most simply as The Broker gets closer to banking millions every time his team commits another murder.

My Rating: 🐧🐧🐧🐧🐧

My Thoughts: I have been eagerly awaiting the release of Geoffs next book since reading deadline as part of the blog tour in 2020 & let me tell you this one is absolutely worth the wait!

The tension is oozing from the page from the start and absolutely impossible to put down!

Twists and turns everywhere and absolutely full of red herrings, I thought I had it worked out multiple times just to be proved wrong at every turn.

We’re following a group of friends who have agreed to always be there for each other in whatever way any of them needs.. pooling resources and money where necessary.. one by one these friends and their families all turn up dead & seemingly the only thing linking the murders is the lottery ticket left in each of their mouths.

Full of secrets, lies and some badass female masterminds, this goes down as one of the most complex thrillers I’ve ever read but it honestly kept me on my toes throughout.

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Today I’m on the tour for Consuming Fire by Catherine Fearns, 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: 201

Synopsis: Liverpool is in the grip of an intense heatwave, and strange things are happening.

A woman dies in an apparent case of Spontaneous Human Combustion; a truck explodes on the dock road; the charred corpses of pets litter the city; forest fires ravage the pinewoods…and there are birds everywhere, silent flocks drawing in ominously.

Detective Inspector Darren Swift thinks there are connections, and his investigation delves into the worlds of football, nightclubs and organised crime. But is he imagining things?

Dr. Helen Hope doesn’t think so. And she believes the key lies in a mysterious seventeenth-century occult book which has gone missing from Liverpool Library.

In the blistering sequel to Reprobation, DI Swift is forced to confront some inconvenient ghosts from his past, as a terrifying shadow lies over his city’s future….

My Rating: 🐧🐧🐧🐧

My Thoughts: were back with DI Darren Swift as he’s thrown into another case which yet again is weird and seemingly has no explanation… spontaneous human combustion is just something you read about in novels isn’t it? Whilst he tries his hardest to find the rational explanation that must be there, no matter how deep it’s buried, more weird things keep happening.. with one link.. fire!

As more things come to light he realises there is only one person he knows with the expertise to help him wade his way through the confusion.. Dr Helen Hope.

I loved the fact that this one focussed more on Darren, his past and getting to know him better whilst Helen took more of a back seat!

I’ll be honest and say I missed Mikko though!

This one was just as eery and gripping as the first book, tied up some loose ends and left some looser than before!

Look out for my review of book 3 tomorrow!

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