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Today I’m on the blog tour for C’est La Vie: Such is life by Melody Saleh, thank you to the Ladies at Love Books Tours for organising it and inviting me to take part & thank you to the author for providing me with a copy.

Pages: 348

Synopsis: Sex in South Florida meets Fifty Shades of betrayal
They’re more than friends . . . they’re sisters.

Amber and her best friends have been there for each other through thick and thin, but now the women face their biggest challenges yet . . . and the stakes have never been higher.

Reeling from a devastating chain of events, Amber’s life will never be the same. But when Amber’s estranged and vindictive identical twin sister shows up at the eleventh hour offering salvation, Amber knows it’s too good to be true. Meanwhile, Amber’s friends are battling their own demons.

Brian is everything Debra always hoped for, but is she ready to open up her heart again? Or, will the persistent Italian heartthrob, the other piece of her previous love triangle, terrorize her into submission?

Zya’s newfound happiness is threatened by her ex, who’ll stop at nothing to win custody of their daughter. What lengths must she go to, to keep her family together?

Finally controlling her self-esteem and health issues, Dominque is determined to have a baby . . . even if it kills her. Will the love of her life, the man she never wanted—but always needed, stay by her side as she chooses such a dangerous path?

Meanwhile, someone is watching . . . taking pictures . . . waiting to exact revenge on Amber and everyone she loves. Who is it? And can they be stopped before it’s too late?

Fasten your seatbelt for the shocking—and smolderingly sexy—conclusion of the Unbroken Series.

If you like a little angst in your happily ever after, buy the Unbroken Series today.

My Rating: 🐧🐧🐧🐧🐧

My Thoughts: I have to be really careful what I say here because this is book 3 of a series and I don’t want to spoil anything..

I have been lucky enough to be on the blog tour for the first 2 books as well which I will link here for you to have a read.

Book 1 – Facade

Book 2 – Deja Vu

Ultimately this series is about 4 women all best friends (although really they’re more like sisters) helping each other through whatever life throws at them & I have seriously enjoyed being part of their journey.

There’s heart wrenching moments, heart warming moments, lots and lots of sex, drama by the bucket load, a crazy Italian & a secret twin! – if any of this sounds like something you would enjoy then pick up the series!

If you don’t want spoilers on book 3 then please don’t read any further

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Just a bit further…

This book was so good, it gave me all the feels, my heart broke for Amber through the first part, after reading all 3 books I feel so attached to her and I just wanted to give her a cuddle, I absolutely adored the way Patrick took care of her, seeing the development of their relationship has been an absolute joy to read.

Dominique is adjusting to life after being given good news that she is cancer free but finding it hard to accept that she can’t just get on with life in the way that she wants & it’s still a waiting game to achieve her ultimate dream of having a baby with Tad – can they come to an agreement that works for both of them?

Debra is learning that it’s ok to move on after the tragic death of her husband quite early on in the first book, but is Brian the right one for her? – he’s taken on her children as his own, but does he offer her everything else she wants in life?

She knows he’s ready as he’s left her an engagement ring, he’s just patiently waiting for her to catch up with hin 😂

Zya has found the love of her life, and they’re ready to take the final step and marry! – but her ex and the father to her teenage daughter is determined to throw a spanner in the works! Along with trying to help Ashanti realise what she wants to do with her future, we very quickly learn that poor Zya is just not meant to have an easy ride!

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Today is my stop on the blog tour for The Kensington Kidnap by Katie Gayle, thank you to Bookouture for organising it and inviting me to take part.

Pages: 242

Synopsis: A missing teenager, a mysterious cult and a case of mistaken identity – just another day’s work for Epiphany Bloom.

Epiphany ‘Pip’ Bloom is down on her luck. She can barely afford cat food, and just because Most has three legs doesn’t mean he eats any less. So she absolutely can’t afford to mess up her latest temp job. But when she walks through the door of the private investigation firm, her new boss mistakes her for a missing persons expert. He then charges her with finding Matty Price – the teenage son of two A-list celebrities – who has mysteriously disappeared from his home in Kensington.

It ought to be a disaster, but Pip reckons it’s actually an opportunity. She’s always been curious (nosy, her mother calls it) and has an uncanny knack for being at the wrong place at the right time (she doesn’t want to know what her mother thinks of that). After years of trying to find something she’s good at, has Pip managed to walk straight into the job she was born to do?

She owes it to herself and poor missing Matty to find out.

But searching for Matty takes Pip into the strange, intimidating world of the rich and famous. And it soon becomes clear that some of these people’s love for themselves doesn’t extend to their fellow humans.

As Pip investigates further, she realises the question isn’t whether Matty ran away – it’s whether Pip will find him alive and make it home safely herself…

My Rating: 🐧🐧🐧🐧

My Thoughts: right from the start this book made me laugh, poor Pip was so ditzy, nothing seemed to go right for her but she’s also the type of character you instantly fall in love with.

She’s feeling down and forgotten because Mummy has cut her off, so she’s on her own with no Job and no way of paying the overdue rent that her housemate is covering, but when he tells her he can no longer afford to do so she finds herself in a bit of a pickle – she swallows her pride and gets in touch with the lady from the recruitment agency hoping she will give her just one last chance after the unfortunate incident at the vets last time 😂

She does find herself a job, but bit doing what she thought she was there to do, she’s somehow stolen someone else’s job as a private investigator… nothing else can go wrong, right?

I found this to be one of those books that although it’s relatively short and could easily be read in 1 sitting – I kept putting it down and finding something else to do just to make it last.

The serious bits were very well done & for a cozy mystery there was lots of drama and suspense that just left me wanting more and more.

I need the next instalment, I need to know what happens with the budding romance that the book was hinting towards, I need more of Most and his needy ways!

But more than anything I’d like Epiphany Bloom to be my best friend… I honestly can’t wait to see what trouble she lands herself in next time!

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Pssst… today is publication day and the book is currently 99p on kindle so…Click here and buy your copy today!

Today is my stop on the blog tour for The Cousins by Karen M McManus, thank you to The Write Reads Tours for organising it and inviting me to take part and thank you to the publisher for providing me with a free copy via NetGalley.

Pages: 304

Synopsis: The Storys are the envy of their neighbours: owners of the largest property on their East Coast island, they are rich, beautiful, and close. Until it all falls apart. The four children are suddenly dropped by their mother with a single sentence:

You know what you did.

They never hear from her again.

Years later, when 18-year-old cousins Aubrey, Milly and Jonah Story receive a mysterious invitation to spend the summer at their grandmother’s resort, they have no choice but to follow their curiosity and meet the woman who’s been such an enigma their entire lives.

This entire family is built on secrets, right? It’s the Story legacy.

This summer, the teenagers are determined to discover the truth at the heart of their family. But some secrets are better left alone.

My Rating: 🐧🐧🐧🐧🐧

My Thoughts: firstly, let me say I’ve been trying to write this on and off all day, due to a bereavement in the family it’s not been easy to get my thoughts in order BUT I owe it to everyone involved in the blog tour and the book to give it my best shot…

We follow the Story’s a family that looks perfect on the outside, a family that looks like they have all they need, but as we all know looks can be deceiving, they’re all hiding their own secrets whilst hoping their don’t come out!

The story follows cousins, Jonah, Milly and Aubrey – cousins should be the first best friends that any person should have but because of a family disagreement in 1996 they barely know eachother!!

They’re invited to their grandmothers lavish resort for the summer & thats where they start to realise that not everything they’ve been told is true!

With the help of a few people along the way, can they get to the bottom of it and uncover the REAL truth of the ‘Story Legacy’ before its too late?

This book was incredible, it was fast paced and had me hooked, I devoured the story and it provided me with the distraction I needed at the time so a thank you Karen!

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Today is my stop on the blog tour for opaque by Calix Leigh Reign, I’m coming at you with an excerpt, thank you to the ladies at Love Books Tours for organising it and inviting me to take part and thank you to Cayelle for my copy.

Excerpt: Any semblance of individuality in this society is cause for immediate crucifixion and exile, as far as he’s concerned. Not that he’d oppose either, but he prefers to contribute to the cure of the spreading disease of monotony prior to his departure.
Adam has grown to begrudge a society that molds human emotions to be absent of compassion for their fellow man, to judge without mercy, to worship currency, and to empty one’s mind of rational thought while simultaneously demanding acts in opposition to those teachings. He rebels only to relent. The vicious cycle frustrates his thoughts from optimism into pessimism.
While caged in darkness, he becomes emotionless and murderous in thought. Both are unwelcome and undesirable, but they’re consistent and relentless. It consumes his days and thoughts as of late.
The love the world promises is plentiful now seems a distant memory.
He mostly feels lost and swallowed up inside of a watery black hole that has no surface to desperately swim toward. So, he drowns repeatedly.
“Adam, come eat your breakfast before it gets cold!” his mother, JoAnn, bullhorns as she tends to do each morning.
She’s ignoring his scowl and that only aggravates him. The opacity of his mind can grow inescapably dark with minor provocation, but when she ducks her head into the family room and winks her eye at him, he reluctantly smiles, unable to resist her charm.
The simplicity of a smile beckons the balance of gloom. His soul once again attempts a daring escape, but reality swiftly retrieves its property, and his thoughts sink back down into the abyss, robbing him of the smile he tried to own.
His father, Mark, walks down the hallway and notices his son sitting frozen like a statue on the living room sofa gripping the iPod he’d gifted him for his 16th birthday last week. Mark shoots Adam a stern gaze to reinforce his wife’s command.
“F you, Mark,” Adam whispers under his breath. “I’m coming, Mom.”
He recalled falling asleep last night, listening to their pathetic groans, and reverts to an anger he’s marginally powerless against. He manages to suppress only a portion, since he hasn’t the energy to battle over territory, requiring every ounce of patience he can muster to mold himself into an identifiable human being.

Buy your copy of opaque here!

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Today is my stop on the blog tour for Dead Already by Tim Adler, thank you to Emma at Damp Pebbles Blog Tours for organising it and inviting me to take part

Synopsis: What if someone you accidentally killed came back to haunt you? When the perfect crime results in the kidnap and murder of Megan, his only child, East End villain Mickey Speight is griefstricken. But now, nearly thirty years later, Megan sends a message to her father, gone-to-ground in present-day Margate. As the messages from his dead daughter keep coming, Mickey teams up with a young American female therapist to discover whether this really is a voice from beyond the grave, or if somebody has loomed out of Mickey s past wanting revenge. Someone is fingering Mickey’s collar and Mickey doesn’t like it. Mickey realises that he must haunt the old East End boozers, betting shops and strip clubs of his youth if he’s to find out what really happened to his daughter. DEAD ALREADY is a psychological thriller that splices the ever- popular East End gangster genre with a ghost story; a cross between revenge thriller YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE and supernatural horror DON T LOOK NOW.

About the Author: Tim Adler is a commissioning editor on The Daily Telegraph, who has written for the Financial Times and The Times, among others. Tim s latest thriller is HOLD STILL, which WH Smith has selected for special promotion. His debut e-thriller SLOW BLEED went to number #1 in the US Amazon Kindle psychological thriller chart. Crime Book Club made it a Book of the Month. E-thriller.com made its follow-up SURROGATE a Book of the Month. Sunday Times Culture described Tim s nonfiction book THE HOUSE OF REDGRAVE, a family portrait of the Redgrave acting dynasty, compulsively readable well written, extensively researched while The Mail On Sunday called it dazzling . The Daily Telegraph gave it 5 stars. Tim is a former deputy editor of Business Reporter and, before that, head of research on Marketing Week and London editor of Deadline Hollywood, the entertainment business news website.

Buy link: Buy Dead Already from Amazon here!

Today is my stop on the blog tour for The Stairwell by Dean Bryant, thank you to Emma at Damppebbles Blog Tours for organising it and inviting me to take part & thank you to the publisher for my copy.

Pages: 204

Synopsis: Frightful visions. An unknown manipulator. A force from beyond reason.

Brandon Chapman arrives home to a horrific scene. His wife, Stephanie, is exhibiting behaviour that he can only describe as that of someone possessed – yet he doesn’t even believe in the supernatural. He soon realises that it was nothing other than a frightful, haunting vision.

After discovering a dark secret about Stephanie, Brandon meets a strange figure with knowledge about his own life that no one could possibly know. As his visions become more frequent and terrifying, he begins to question his sanity.

Brandon must either side with this figure or his wife before his daughter comes to harm.

Alice Hamilton, a shy and quiet university student, meets handsome Niel Curtis whilst on a night out with friends. They very quickly fall for one another, but their happiness is short-lived when Niel ends up in a coma after a traffic accident.

Alice fears he may never wake up again and, unaware of the consequences, strikes a deal with a strange voice. When Niel awakes, his behaviour changes drastically, and Alice – like Brandon – becomes subject to nightmarish, violent visions.

Are Brandon and Alice caught in a never-ending nightmare?

My Rating 🐧🐧🐧🐧.5

My Thoughts: wow, the prologue to this story really pulls you in straight away and had you questioning everything from the get go and never really let’s go!

The book is fast paced and the action just keeps coming, poor Brandon finds himself in all sorts of situations trying to keep his wife and daughter safe, but when he’s upfront with her and tells her the truth about ‘the man’ who keeps asking him to do all these terrible things she doesn’t believe him and thinks he’s either going crazy or is under too much stress!

Then we follow Alice, who on a night out meets the man of her dreams and rather quickly they become an item and she’s introducing him to her parents!

Then disaster strikes and to save his life she makes a deal with an unknown voice in her head & I think it’s fair to say nothing will ever be the same again!

I read this story within a couple of hours, I just couldn’t bear to drag myself away from it I needed to know what happened!

I personally did not see the ending coming & was totally shocked by it, but looking back it all definitely makes sense 😂

If you’re looking for a quick, creepy thriller that will take you on a rollercoaster ride and leave you questioning all the little noises your house makes in the middle of the night this is definitely the one for you.

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Today is my stop on the blog tour for The Boy Between by Amanda Prowse and Josiah Hartley, thank you to the Ladies at Love Books Tours for organising it and inviting me to take part.

Synopsis; Bestselling novelist Amanda Prowse knew how to resolve a fictional family crisis. But then her son came to her with a real one…

Josiah was nineteen with the world at his feet when things changed. Without warning, the new university student’s mental health deteriorated to the point that he planned his own death. His mother, bestselling author Amanda Prowse, found herself grappling for ways to help him, with no clear sense of where that could be found. This is the book they wish had been there for them during those dark times.

Josiah’s situation is not unusual: the statistics on student mental health are terrifying. And he was not the only one suffering; his family was also hijacked by his illness, watching him struggle and fearing the day he might succeed in taking his life.

In this book, Josiah and Amanda hope to give a voice to those who suffer, and to show them that help can be found. It is Josiah’s raw, at times bleak, sometimes humorous, but always honest account of what it is like to live with depression. It is Amanda’s heart-rending account of her pain at watching him suffer, speaking from the heart about a mother’s love for her child.

For anyone with depression and anyone who loves someone with depression, Amanda and Josiah have a clear message—you are not alone, and there is hope.

My Thoughts: firstly you’ll notice that I’m doing things a little bit different this time, there’s no rating for this book because it just doesn’t feel right to rate someone’s harrowing journey with depression. you just need to know that I feel so honoured to be given the chance to read it & chosen to review it.

This really is a first hand account of what it’s like living with depression, I really felt for Josiah, I just wanted to bundle him up and hold him tight, reassure him that he really isn’t on his own.

I had to be on my own when I read this, because my eyes kept springing a leak and it just felt wrong to not give the book my full attention I just couldn’t deal with any kind of distraction.

The chapters told from Josiah’s point of view were a total mix of emotions and I felt a lot of them with him, I felt the darkness and the fatigue and just the total lack of any emotion at all at times, but then as the book went on I also started to feel the acceptance and the small rays of hope.

The chapters from Amanda’s point of view were just as emotional but for different reasons, as someone without children I found those chapters a little harder to understand but that doesn’t mean they were any less devastating.

I truly believe that this should be a required read for secondary school students, I feel it would help them learn how to deal with their own emotions but also to know how to help friends should they be going through something similar.

Lastly I want to thank Josiah and Amanda for putting this book out there and being willing to share the most devastating parts of their journey.

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Pages: 395

Synopsis:

There’s no problem Becky Watson can’t fix. Except her own love life…

Struggling single mother Becky Watson longs to revive her career as a life-fixer, working miracles to solve her clients’ problems, no matter how big or small. Since the birth of her two-year-old son she has been stuck preventing wedding fiascos for the richest and rudest residents of the Comptons, a charming, leafy area of southern England known for its artistic heritage.

So when semi-reclusive local artist Charlie Handren reluctantly hires Becky to fix his six-year creative slump, she’s delighted to set him up with a come-back exhibition and Rachel Stone, the woman of his dreams.

Though they get off to a rocky start, Becky and Charlie soon become close. But as the beautiful Rachel becomes Charlie’s muse, Becky is forced to wonder: will giving Charlie everything he wants mean giving up her own happily ever after?

My Rating: 🐧🐧🐧🐧🐧

My Thoughts: When Claire approached me asking if I’d be interested in reviewing her book I was absolutely delighted, given all the heavy thrillers I’d been reading a nice uplifting romance was exactly what I was looking for & this one did not disappoint, it gave me EVERYTHING I was looking for and more.

We follow Becky, who is a “life fixer” who claims she can fix anyone’s problems & make them go away, it’s just a shame that she can’t put her advice to others into practice with her own life, but aren’t we all the same? 😂

Her next ‘project” is a man called Charlie, he was once a very well known and respected artist, but then his wife left him and his world fell apart, can Becky help him realise what he’s missing out on and put his life back together?

Her plan is simple, tidy him up, fix his relationship with his daughter, get him painting again and introduce him to a lady who is more fitting to his personality and interests, sounds easy right?

What follows is a story that felt real and believable and seemed to have so many levels, the character development was amazing, with them all (Becky and Charlie especially) realising that you don’t have to do things on your own.

The conclusion to the story made my heart happy and I’m not ashamed to admit that I fell a little bit in love with Charlie 😍

As much as I enjoy reading stand-alone romances I always get a little bit sad at the end because I know that’s it, I always need to know what happens after the end of the book 😂

Thank you Claire for giving me the opportunity to read and review your book & I am definitely looking forward to what you come out with next.

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Today is my stop on the blog tour for Casino Chiseler by Leopold Borstinski, thank you to Emma at Damp Pebbles Blog Tours for organising it and inviting me to take part

Pages: 255

Synopsis: Would you gamble everything you possess to win more than you can imagine?

Jewish gangster, Alex Cohen leaves jail to find salvation from the 1940s mob in the hotels of Las Vegas. When Bugsy Siegel invites him to take over sports betting in Nevada, Alex must figure out how to get back to the top table in New York without attracting the Feds’ attention.

If he succeeds then he will regain his self respect, but if he fails then the last members of the national crime syndicate will cut him dead and he will be left a nobody or wind up a corpse. And after he bumps into his childhood sweetheart, he has a once in a lifetime opportunity to win her heart. But Alex knows the criminal underworld has the habit of spilling over into his personal life and when Meyer Lansky asks him to murder Siegel, Alex must choose what is truly important to him.

My Rating: 🐧🐧🐧🐧

My Thoughts: Casino Chiseler is the 4th book in the Alex Cohen & yes I did read all 4 books so I could be a part of this tour 😂 – on the outside, the series itself seems like a fairly easy read but one that intrigued me instantly, – in reality it was complex and utterly gripping but still an easy story to follow.

In book 4 Alex has just been released from prison and makes his way Las Vegas to help a friend run his betting business, because obviously that’s where the money is now..however we are all aware that his end game is to get back in with the Murder Corp with the Mob Bosses.

As always with the series nothing is ever simple and Alex finds himself in a lot of situations that I’m sure he would rather avoid – one of them even including carrying out a hit that he never thought he’d have to do.

The story is action packed and just doesn’t stop but yet never seems to be confusing, we are reintroduced to an old character who i loved more this time round!

There was a lot of emotion in the story too, some parts really upset me whilst others really made me smile.

I cannot wait to dive back into the series and see what Alex gets up to next time!

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Today is my stop on the blog tour for Patents and Teachers by Sara Madderson, thank you to Anne at Random Things Tours for organising it and inviting me to take part & thank you to Sara for my copy.

Pages: 296

Synopsis: At two of London’s most exclusive prep schools, there are strict rules against parents fraternising with teachers.

Well, that’s the theory, in any case.

Jenna, a Year 3 teacher at St Cuthbert’s, catches the eye of the school’s highest-profile parent, a world-famous action movie star, with far-reaching consequences.

Meanwhile, over at Chiltern House, Astrid is still licking her wounds after her husband left her. Her daughter’s PE teacher, Callum, may be her best chance of rediscovering her joie de vivre.

Astrid’s friend Natalia, whose life revolves around motherhood these days, finds herself questioning everything she’s taken for granted when her husband becomes embroiled in a #MeToo scandal.

Really, the only ones behaving themselves are the kids …

My Rating: 🐧🐧🐧🐧

My Thoughts: this book was everything I expected & more, the storyline was easy to follow yet gripping at the same time which made it impossible to put down I devoured it in one sitting.

I did think that all of the different characters would be hard to keep track of, but once you got into it was actually really easy to follow, it turns out that a lot of them were linked in different ways which made things easier.

The story added a hint of glamour to my life which I appreciated with everything that’s going on in the world right now but never felt overwhelming which I appreciated, it honestly felt like the perfect escape.

The characters were believable and well developed I felt myself getting attached and feeling sorry for some whilst also absolutely despising others.

I’m secretly hoping there will be more books with the same characters as I wasn’t ready to let go of some of them 😂

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