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Today is my stop on the blog tour for Love is what you bake of it by Effie Kammenou thank you to Love Books Tours for Organising it and inviting me to take part.

Pages: 278

Synopsis: The only love Kally Andarakis is baking is in the form of the sweet treats she whips up in her café, The Coffee Klatch.

Kally never believed herself to be a person worthy of love, but when an intoxicating man she considered out of her league pursues her, she risks everything to be with him. Later, when tragedy strikes, truths are revealed that leave Kally brokenhearted and untrusting.

Eight years later, Kally is a successful pastry chef running the café she’d always dreamed of owning. With a home of her own, a profession she’s passionate about, and the support and love of friends and family, Kally is content with the life she has carved out for herself.

Until the day Max Vardaxis walks into her café…

With arguing parents, meddling relatives, an overly energetic grandmother, a man-crazy best friend, and the long ago, mysterious disappearance of a grandfather, this new man in town is just one more complication in Kally’s life, if not the main one.

Kally must now decide whether to keep her heart safe or to once again take a ‘whisk on love.’

My Rating: 🐧🐧🐧🐧

My Thoughts: I know the saying says you should never judge a book by its cover, but for this particular book I was totally guilty of that, it just looks fun, flirty and lighthearted and I was totally in need of some of that.

The story did not let me down with the fun and flirty aspect and it totally sucked me in, I did find though that it wasn’t as lighthearted as I thought it would be in some places, but I found that I appreciated that, it gave the story a depth that I wasn’t expecting and made me love the main characters even more!

We follow Kally, a baker with her own shop, she has issues with letting people in and has already decided (and is ok with) that love is not on the cards for her.

But one day Max, a police officer but one she hasn’t seen before walks into her shop and she starts feeling things that she thought she’d never feel again, however she’s been hurt before, can she trust her heart again?

This story was told from 2 different timelines, and the last chapters really help you to realise why Kally is so closed off to love, I’m really glad they were put in and went into as much detail as they did, they really made me feel her pain, I just needed to know how the past ended 😂

This book had me laughing, it had me swearing at my kindle, I loved the whole will they won’t they aspect but when you as the reader can see things from both sides it’s easy to get so invested that you get frustrated when the main characters just can’t see what’s right in front of them!

It was an absolute joy to read and made my heart happy, I cannot wait for the next instalment

Today is my stop on the blog tour for Catalyst by Tracy Richardson thank you to The Write Reads Tour Company for organising it and inviting me to take part.

Pages: 248

Synopsis: Marcie Horton has a sixth sense. Not in the “I see dead people” way, but . . . well, maybe a little. She feels a sort of knowing about certain things that can’t be explained–an intuition that goes beyond the normal. Then there was that one summer four years ago, when she connected with a long-departed spirit . . . But nothing that incredible has happened to Marcie since. This summer, Marcie is spending time working at Angel Mounds, the archeological dig her mother heads, along with her brother, Eric, and his girlfriend, Renee. The dig is the site of an ancient indigenous civilization, and things immediately shift into the paranormal when Marcie and her dig teammates meet Lorraine and Zeke. The two mysterious dig assistants reveal their abilities to access the Universal Energy Field with their minds–something Marcie knows only vaguely that her brother has also had experience with. Marcie learns how our planet will disintegrate if action is not taken, and she and her team must decide if they are brave enough to help Lorraine and Zeke in their plan to save Mother Earth, her resources, and her history. It looks like the summer just got a lot more interesting.

About The Author: Tracy wasn’t always a writer, but she was always a reader. She went to school and school and got her degree in Biology, and now uses her science background in her writing through her emphasis on environment issues and metaphysics. When she’s not writing, you’ll find her doing any number of creative activities-painting furniture, knitting sweaters, or cooking. Tracy lives in Indianapolis.

If this book sounds like something they would interest you you can buy yourself a copy here ☺️ – kindle only at the moment, the paperback will be released on 22nd September 2020.

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Today I am delighted to be part of the cover reveal for Lets get Published by Val Penny & here it is….

Synopsis: At last, a book that is easy to read and tells it how it is! The book was written to assist authors to maximise their success when submitting work to agents or publishers, to help authors consider their priorities and preferences for getting work into print. To advise authors on how to identify the agents and/or publishers they want to approach. It should also assist with editing their manuscript fully prior to submission. The book offers advice about how to prepare a submission package to give an author the best chance of success. The road to becoming a successful author is not easy, but it is rewarding. Let this book take you on the journey.

About the Author Val Penny is an American author living in SW Scotland. She has two adult daughters of whom she is justly proud and lives with her husband and two cats. She has a Law degree from Edinburgh University and her MSc from Napier University. She has had many jobs including hairdresser, waitress, lawyer, banker, azalea farmer and lecturer. However, she has not yet achieved either of her childhood dreams of being a ballerina or owning a candy store. Until those dreams come true, she has turned her hand to writing poetry, short stories and novels.
Her crime novels, ‘Hunter’s Chase’ Hunter’s Revenge, Hunter’s Force and Hunter’s Blood form the bestselling series The Edinburgh Crime Mysteries. They are set in Edinburgh, Scotland, published by Crooked Cat Books. The fifth novel in the series, Hunter’s Secret, is published by darkstroke. Her first non-fiction book, Let’s Get Published is available now.

Buy the book here!

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Today is my stop on the blog tour for Singapore Killer by Murray Bailey, thank you to Murray for inviting me to take part and providing me with a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Pages: 384

Synopsis: A helicopter crash and burned bodies.
A faceless corpse.
A mysterious town.
It’s September 1953 and Carter is drawn into a dark case from which there seems no escape.

Who is Black Jack?

My rating: 🐧🐧🐧🐧🐧

My Thoughts: When Murray first approached me at the back end of last year asking if I’d be interested in the blog tour for his newest book and after reading the very short synopsis I couldn’t say no, it drew me in straight away! – not even knowing it was book 5 in an already well established series but me off, he assured me it could be read as a stand alone.

The book opens with a helicopter crash, all we know is that one of the passengers is a criminal, he is handcuffed to the only other passenger (other than the pilot) after the pilot is shot we realise that the helicopter crash appears to be deliberate but why?

Ash Carter is like a real life action man, he runs a small business trying to solve people’s problems ie finding missing dogs and helping to work out why local businesses are struggling, the only issue being that he doesn’t actually like charging for his service, much to the annoyance of his receptionist/assistant Madam Chau & his savings are dwindling.

Ash finds himself sucked in my the mystery of the helicopter crash and makes it his mission to get to the bottom of it, especially when he realises that his friend is seemingly on the trail of the same person.

They reluctantly decide to work together to see if they can bring the killer to justice.

The case brings Ash to a strange community which appears to have no children despite a lot of women saying they’ve given birth, the children are nowhere to be found, why? And how is this place linked?

This book constantly had me second guessing myself, just when I thought I’d worked out who the killer something would happen to prove me wrong! – I got lost in the story so quickly and was a little bit sad when it ended, luckily for me though, there are 4 previous books to get lost in at some point in the future.

The book will be released for purchase on the 1st June 2020 and can be bought at the link below ☺️

Buy Singapore Killer here!

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Today is my stop on the blog tour for The Split by Sharon Bolton, thank you to Trapeze Books and Orion publishing for organising it, inviting me to take part and providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Pages: 400

Synopsis: SHE’S GOT NOWHERE LEFT TO HIDE.

A year ago, in desperation, Felicity Lloyd signed up for a lengthy research trip to the remote island of South Georgia.

It was her only way to escape.

AND NOW HE’S COMING FOR HER.

Freddie Lloyd has served time for murder. Out at last, he’s on her trail.

And this time, he won’t stop until he finds her.

BECAUSE NO MATTER HOW FAR YOU RUN, SOME SECRETS WILL ALWAYS CATCH UP WITH YOU…

My Rating: 🐧🐧🐧🐧🐧

My Thoughts: this book was a slow burner at first, which helped build the atmosphere really well.

Felicity is running away from her ex husband who she thinks she has seen after her. She’s a glaciologist and has taken a job in Antarctica on the last boat of the summer with the think that he won’t find her and she’ll be safe, little does she know that no matter how far you run, some things will always catch up with you.

The story is told within 2 timelines, eventually meeting up so it’s just the one, the first is the ‘before leaving where we follow felicity through her therapy and slowly start to see how she’s got to the point where she feels she has to run, the second is the present day, where we see her getting ready for her trip.

The book is told from different perspectives, all people who seem to have felicity’s best interests at heart, but are they all as they seem?

Once the story got going I couldn’t stop reading, and devoured it pretty quickly because I needed to know where it would end, would she get away? Would Freddie find her? would we ever find out why she felt the need to run in the first place?

This story was full of so many twists and turns that I didn’t know wether I was coming or going, but I’m the best way possible.

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Today is my stop on the blog tour for In Plain Sight by Marion Todd, thank you to Tracy at Compulsive Readers for organising it and inviting me to take part & thank you to Canelo for my copy.

Pages: 311

Synopsis: When a baby girl is snatched from the crowd of spectators at a fun run, the local police have a major investigation on their hands. DI Clare Mackay and her team are in a race against the clock when they learn that the child has a potentially fatal medical condition.

As Clare investigates she realises this victim wasn’t selected at random. Someone knows who took the baby girl, and why. But will they reveal their secrets before it’s too late?

My Rating: 🐧🐧🐧🐧🐧

My Thoughts: Wow, I absolutely loved this, and in fact upon discovering this was book 2 in a series and having plenty of time before my stop, I actually purchased the first book, because more often than not I feel like I’m missing something if I have agreed to review a book that is part of an already established series, so I went into this already knowing the team of detectives and such.

The action gets going straight away in this book, within the first few pages the baby has been snatched, how can a baby be snatched and a big local event with lots of people around and no-one see anything?

It comes to light rather quickly that the baby has a heart defect and needs medication regularly to stop her deteriorating, the GP confirms that they have about 48 hours to find her before she dies, can it be done?

For the most part this book was just a straight forward police procedural story with the main characters following all these different leads to work out where the baby is, but they soon learn that it’s obviously not as straight forward as they first thought.

The mum has a secret phone that she hides in the bathroom and then suddenly just disappears without a word, does she know more than she’s letting on?

This story really kept me on the edge of my seat, just as I thought I’d figured it out, something else happened to prove me wrong! – a thoroughly enjoyable read and one that was so easy to get lost in.

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Today is my stop on the blogtour for Switchboard by Andrew Post. Thank you to Anne from Random Things Tours for organising it and inviting me to take part.

Pages: 198

Synopsis: After two raids turn up zero evidence, narcotics detective Dwayne Spare infiltrates a crumbling apartment building where a suspected manufacturer of krokodil is hiding—but finds something much worse. The chemist Gerald Metzger isn’t after money; he’s lulling his most ‘dedicated’ customers into catatonia, to make contact with an eldritch being.

When Dwayne’s cover is blown, he becomes Metzger’s new test subject, an involuntary pilgrim into a world where “it’s all just in your head” is far from a reassuring statement.

My Rating: 🐧🐧🐧🐧

My Thoughts: this book starts off as a normal police crime/thriller story which is one of my favourites and well within my comfort zone and as such I thought I knew what I was getting, but boy was I wrong 😂

Dwayne sees a rare opportunity to catch Gerald Metzger, the chemist who is making and selling krokodil, every other chance Dwayne has had has been foiled before it’s even started, somehow Metzger always knows what he’s planning. – this time he’ll go undercover and get him from the inside, he’ll never figure that out, right?

Unfortunately for Dwayne, Metzger does figure it out and unbeknownst to him Dwayne becomes the next “dreamer” from here things get really detailed and graphic with regards to the effects of the krokodil and I was hooked, I couldn’t stop reading and I needed to know what happened, every single one of the characters were vital to the story for one reason or another, which I really appreciated

I’ve been left wanting to know more about the authors work so it’s definitely something I’ll be looking into in the future

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Today is my stop on the blogtour for Ground Rules by Richard Whittle – thank you to Emma at Damp Pebbles Blog Tours for organising it and inviting me to take part.

Pages: 235

Synopsis: Called out one night in the hope that she can identify the body of a man found in a field, Edinburgh forensic geologist Jessica Spargo – Jez – inadvertently becomes involved in the investigation of a university lecturer’s murder. The investigating officer, Tom Curtis, hands her a small glass vial and asks her to analyse its contents. She agrees to do it. The results confound everyone. Media attention around a seemingly unconnected incident on a construction site near Edinburgh means that all work has stopped. An object discovered beneath the site confounds everyone, including the police. Employed by the firm’s owner to attempt to solve the mystery, Jez falls foul of an uncooperative site manager. Unruffled, she perseveres. Meanwhile, the murder mystery deepens. Despite her reluctance to become further involved, she has her own theories about the origin of the vial’s contents, theories the police do not accept. To Jez’s dismay there are more deaths. As she says to Curtis, ‘I don’t do bodies. I’m a geologist, I look at rocks. If I’d wanted to look at bits of body then I would have become a surgeon or a pathologist.’

My Rating: 🐧🐧🐧.5

My Thoughts: I couldn’t help but feel as I was reading this that I had missed a big chunk at the beginning, purely because the main characters had a history and a relationship (friendship) that was already established that we as the reader knew nothing about. I tried to do some research to see if this was a series with previous books but to no avail.

All that being said the story itself worked as a stand alone and it was gripping. I couldn’t put it down.

I loved the sassy sarcastic attitude of spargo when it came to Curtis, they bounced off eachother so well, their parts together gave me a small break from the geology parts of the story which for me was something new and obviously fit in really well with the story I did find them a little overwhelming at times, I didn’t really understand how it worked and it went straight over my head 😂

I loved the investigation part of the story, it felt familiar and helped to stop me losing the plot completely.

Why were these people being murdered? Were they linked to bones that were found on the dig site? There were so many elements to this story that left me second guessing myself and I love it when that happens.

I enjoyed the story and it’s left me intrigued it find Richards previous works to see what else he’s written.

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Today is my stop on the blog tour for on the road not taken by Paul Dodgson, thank you to Anne at Random Things Tours for organising it and inviting me to take part and thank you to Paul and Unbound for my copy.

Pages: 288

Synopsis: On the Road Not Taken is a memoir about the transformational power of music . It begins with a boy growing up in a small town on the Kent coast in the 1970s, who learns to play the guitar and dreams of heading out on the open road with a head full of songs. But when the moment comes to make the choice he is not brave enough to try and do it for a living.

Time passes but the desire to explain the world through music never goes away. And as the years go by it gets harder and harder to risk looking like a fool, of doing the very thing he would most like to do, of actually being himself. Eventually, thirty-five years later, when it feels like time is running out, he walks out onto a stage in front of 500 people and begins to sing again.

What follows is an extraordinary period of self-discovery as he plays pubs, clubs, theatres and festivals, overcoming anxiety to experience the joy of performance.

My Rating: 🐧🐧🐧🐧🐧

My Thoughts: this story really took me on a journey with it, it was told in 2 different time lines, one when he was a small child and the second around 40 years later, each chapter is a new year and they eventually combine at the end so you really do get the full story.

To begin with the earlier chapters, the ones from his childhood were my favourite because he was just discovering music and although this is Paul story years later you could still feel the awe and amazement that he must have felt at the time

The scene at the dinner table with the family and him being laughed at actually made me tear up, I can’t imagine how awful that must have felt at the time.

But as Paul become older (still a child) I found him rather bossy and demanding, (no offence to you Paul 😂) so at that point although I still enjoyed the earlier chapters and appreciated the fact that they gave all the background, the older chapters where he started actually rediscovering the music became the best ones.

You could feel the nerves coming through the page & I found myself rooting for him even though I knew that the events had already happened.

I loved that each chapter was named after a song, that was a really nice touch and the fact that you also included the year helped me picture it in my head.

I listened to the audiobook for this, I’m not going to lie at first it was hard going, but once I got used to the speed and the tone and everything I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

Thank you Paul for being brave enough to write your story and showing others that it’s never too late to go after your dreams!

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Today is my stop on the blog tour for The Girl and the Stars by Mark Lawrence, thank you to Anne at Random Things Tours for organising it and inviting me to take part and thank you to Harper Voyager for my copy.

Pages: 480

Synopsis: Only when it’s darkest can you see the stars.

East of the Black Rock, out on the ice, lies a hole down which broken children are thrown

On the vastness of the ice there is no room for individuals. No one survives alone.
To resist the cold, to endure the months of night when even the air itself begins to freeze, requires a special breed. Variation is dangerous, difference is fatal. And Yaz is different.

Torn from her family, from the boy she thought she would spend her life with, Yaz has to carve a new path for herself in a world whose existence she never suspected. A world full of danger.

Beneath the ice, Yaz will learn that Abeth is older and stranger than she had ever imagined.
She will learn that her weaknesses are another kind of strength. And she will learn to challenge the cruel arithmetic of survival that has always governed her people.

My Rating: 🐧🐧🐧🐧

My Thoughts: I always love discovering a new author and this my first dive into one of Mark Lawrence’s books, and afternoon this one I will definitely be picking up more from him in the future.

We follow Yaz a member of the Ictha tribe who thrive in the cold, that’s their domain, it’s what they’re used to, the day has come to find out if the youngest members of the tribe have made it to adulthood, it’s a horrible tradition where they stand in front of the “pit of the missing” if the priest thinks you’re grown up you stay, if not you get pushed in!

The first book in this trilogy is all about Yaz’s journey in the pit (you’ll have to read the book to find out how she ends up down there, it’s not as straight forward as you think 😉) she soon discovers that the pit of the missing is not as it has been described from up top, there’s a whole civilisation down here! – can she integrate herself and find what she is looking for before it’s too late?

The story was absolutely magical and not just because our main character can control how bright the stars shine just by talking to them.

The world building was amazing, I was left feeling claustrophobic at times almost like I was actually down the pit with the characters of the story.

Seeing Yaz develop from a scared unsure ‘child’ into a woman who is not afraid to go after what she wants was so nice to see, who doesn’t love a bad ass female character?

It took me w while to be totally invested, adult fantasy series always start off slow because there is so much world building and character introducing to do, but by about 25% I was hooked and totally lost in the story.

Be prepared for long chapters, this isn’t something I’m used to, so was very strange to me, but it didn’t take away from the enjoyment of the story.

As with most first books, this one was left on one hell of a cliffhanger which has left me wanting book 2 now.

I NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS!

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