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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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Today I’m coming at you with a cover reveal for a beautiful book 😍 but just to tease you a little before I reveal the cover I’m going to tell you a little about the author and the book.

About the Author:Jo-Anne Blanco was born in Brazil to an English mother and Spanish father. She has spent much of her life travelling around the world as a teacher. Her travels, together with her lifelong passion for reading, writing and storytelling, inspired her to embark upon her Fata Morgana epic fantasy series, about the life and adventures of Morgan le Fay. Mythology, fairy tales and Arthurian legend are all major influences on her work, and her ongoing journeys to countries of great landscapes and folklore are never-ending sources of inspiration.

She is the author of Morgan Le Fay: Small Things and Great and Morgan Le Fay: Children of This World. These novels are the first two books in the Fata Morgana series

The series is for readers of all ages (as Rosemary Sutcliff once said of her own work, “for readers aged nine to ninety.”) The books follow Morgan from her early childhood in post-Roman Dark Ages Britain and through her teenage years to adulthood. Elements of Celtic folklore, fairy tales, and mythologies of diverse cultures are woven throughout the books, but each novel is an original adventure story that can be read either as a standalone or as part of the ongoing series.

About the Book: WHEN MONSTERS COME TO LIFE…

In the aftermath of Ambrosius’ attack on Tintagel Castle, young Morgan is sent away to the fortress of Dimilioc with her family, friends and tutor. But when bandits ambush their party, Morgan gets lost in the forest with nothing but her wits and her magic powers to rely on.

In her battle for survival, Morgan faces a cruel, hostile world that is suspicious, afraid and jealous of her magic. Silver-tongued faeries who are not what they seem. Vengeful Piskies and Muryans holding her friend Ganieda captive. Angry Giants and Spriggans who have awakened in the earth. And the ever-present threat of Ambrosius and his army, waiting to strike again…

To rescue her friends and outwit her enemies, Morgan must draw upon all her gifts, magic and mortal, in a perilous journey that will test her strength, faith and loyalty to the utmost…

ARE YOU READY FOR THE COVER REVEAL?

Isn’t it pretty?! 😍

Today is my stop on the blog tour for The Ancestor by Lee Matthew Goldberg, thank you to Emma at Damp Pebbles Blog Tours for organising it and inviting me to take part, and thank you to the publisher for my copy.

Pages: 348

Synopsis: A man wakes up in present-day Alaskan wilderness with no idea who he is, nothing on him save an empty journal with the date 1898 and a mirror. He sees another man hunting nearby, astounded that they look exactly alike except for his own beard. After following this other man home, he witnesses a wife and child that brings forth a rush of memories of his own wife and child, except he’s certain they do not exist in modern times—but from his life in the late 1800s.

After recalling his name is Wyatt, he worms his way into his doppelganger Travis Barlow’s life. Memories become unearthed the more time he spends, making him believe that he’d been frozen after coming to Alaska during the Gold Rush and that Travis is his great-great grandson. Wyatt is certain gold still exists in the area and finding it with Travis will ingratiate himself to the family, especially with Travis’s wife Callie, once Wyatt falls in love. This turns into a dangerous obsession affecting the Barlows and everyone in their small town, since Wyatt can’t be tamed until he also discovers the meaning of why he was able to be preserved on ice for over a century.

A meditation on love lost and unfulfilled dreams, The Ancestor is a thrilling page-turner in present day Alaska and a historical adventure about the perilous Gold Rush expeditions where prospectors left behind their lives for the promise of hope and a better future.

The question remains whether it was all worth the sacrifice…

My Rating: 🐧🐧🐧🐧

My Thoughts: this story is a strange one, everything in the synopsis fascinated me but gave me the creeps at the same time.

I normally run through the story but the synopsis has done a pretty good job of setting the scene for us!

The story was told in 2 timelines? Modern day, and in 1898, coming together in the conclusion.

I loved the fact that the stories from 1898 were told in journal entries, they added to the very real feel of them, as much as the goings on of 1898 made me feel uncomfortable and like I didn’t want to read they were also the bits that had me hooked the most, the innocent seeming stranger is anything but and had one hell of a past to hide!

I loved Travis and his family, they were just so likeable and relatable & I really just wanted everything to work out for them all.

This is definitely not the type of book I would normally gravitate towards, but I am so glad I have it a chance.

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