Veronika Jordan's Blog, page 74

Nobody’s Agent by Stuart Field

In the small town of Finchley, upstate New York, three bodies are discovered in an old mine. Soon after, Sheriff Doug Harrison contacts the FBI for help.

Ronin Nash is an ex-FBI special agent who wanted nothing more than to finish restoring the old family lake house. Now, Nash’s old boss wants him back and on the Finchley case.

#NobodysAgent @StuartField14 @NextChapterPB @Zooloo’s Book Tours @zooloo2008 #ZooloosBookTours #blogtour

Nash takes the job and travels to Finchley, expecting to solve the case quickly, but it turns out that things are not not as clear-cut as he thought. Someone in the small town has a secret, and they’re willing to go to any lengths to protect it.

A riveting crime thriller, Nobody’s Agent is the first book in Stuart Field’s Ronin Nash series.

My Review

Ex-FBI special agent Ronin Nash is happy in his new life restoring his family’s lake house. But when his old boss turns up and asks him to help with a case, he is definitely not keen. Intrigued – yes – keen – no. What the hell, intrigue wins and soon he’s on his way to New York to join the team of the newly formed IIB. He just hopes he still has the knack of solving crimes in his own inimitable way.

Cracking good stuff this, with a hero who is a bit 007 crossed with maverick cop Harry Callaghan. I love that Nash wears a suit top half with jeans and boots. And a hat. I can just imagine that hat.

So now our intrepid hero is on his way to the small town of Finchley in upstate New York, where everything and everyone seems a bit too perfect. Especially for a town where a grisly murder took place in the old Mason factory and three bodies have been discovered in a disused mine. So why are the FBI involved in a case of supposedly three homeless people who crept into a mine and died of exposure? Because maybe that’s not what happened.

But nothing is as it seems in Finchley. Nash being there makes everyone nervous, in fact police officer Jordan Fox has been tasked with ‘babysitting’ him.

What’s even stranger is that self-made millionaire Robert Somersby and former resident of Finchley is ploughing money into a town that is dying on its feet. So what’s going on? Nash is trying to find out but everyone seems to be against him. Apart from his dad Mac, who has managed to get involved.

It’s a brilliant, fast-paced read which is going to become what I’m sure will be a great series.

Many thanks to @zooloo2008 for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the Author

Stuart Field is a British Army veteran who now works in security after serving twenty-two years in the British Army. As well as working full time he writes in his spare time.

Stuart was born and raised in the West Midlands in the UK. His love for travel has been an inspiration in some of his work with his John Steel and Ronin Nash thriller series.

As well as future John Steel novels, Stuart is working on a new series and standalone novels.

Follow him at:
Facebook : www.facebook.com/stuart.field.5811
Twitter: www.twitter.com/StuartField14
Website : stuartfieldauthorshomepage.wordpress.com

Buy Links
Amazon – https://geni.us/vOno4M7

The Binding Room by Nadine Matheson (Inspector Anjelica Henley #2)

Detective Anjelica Henley confronts a series of ritualistic murders in this heart-pounding thriller about race, power and the corrupt institutions that threaten us.

When Detective Anjelica Henley is called to investigate the murder of a popular preacher in his own church, she discovers a second victim, tortured and tied to a bed in an upstairs room. He is alive, but barely, and his body shows signs of a dark religious ritual.

With a revolving list of suspects and the media spotlight firmly on her, Henley is left with more questions than answers as she attempts to untangle both crimes. But when another body appears, the case takes on a new urgency. Unless she can apprehend the killer, the next victim may just be Henley herself.

Drawing on her experiences as a criminal attorney, Nadine Matheson deftly explores issues of race, class and justice through an action-packed story that will hold you captive until the last terrifying page.

My Review

I do love a ritualistic killing (in books peeps, in books only) and this was SO good. We start with the murder of a preacher Caleb Annan in his own church. He’s been stabbed 49 times in a frenzied attack and left bleeding to death on the floor.

But that is only the beginning of the puzzle. In a locked room, Detective Inspector Anjelica Henley and her team find the body of a young man in a locked room upstairs. He’s been tied to a bed, tortured and his body shows signs of a dark religious ritual. But amazingly this one is still alive – just. If he survives, maybe he can tell the police who did this to him. Was it Caleb? Or did his torturer kill the preacher? Or maybe they are not related at all.

Caleb’s body was discovered by his cleaner Uliana Piontek. But is she lying when she says he was already dead when she entered the church and why was she there late at night? Did she kill him? She had both motive and opportunity. But then so did Caleb’s wife, the indomitable and frankly terrifying Serena.

Then another victim turns up and the case is blown wide open. We now have more suspects and more motives. And it turns out that Caleb wasn’t all he was cracked up to be.

Apart from the murders, The Binding Room also delves into Henley’s past, her PTSD, her marriage to Rob, her previous relationship with her boss Stephen Pellacia, her friendship with her partner DC Ramouter and much more that follows on from book one which I have to admit I haven’t read. I wish I had, but you can still enjoy The Binding Room without having done so.

A great heart-pumping, fast-paced police procedural which I thoroughly enjoyed in spite of some of the grisly descriptions of the ritualistic murders. But then I’m OK with those so long as no babies or animals are harmed in the story.

Many thanks to The Pigeonhole, and my fellow Pigeons for making this such an enjoyable read. 

About the Author

Nadine Matheson was born and lives in London. She began her working life at the BBC and now practices as a criminal defence lawyer. In 2016, she won the City University Crime Writing Competition and completed the Creative Writing (Crime/Thriller Novels) MA at City University of London with Distinction in 2018. Her crime fiction novel, The Jigsaw Man, was published by HQ on 18 February 2021 and Hanover Square Press on 16 March 2021. The Jigsaw Man has been optioned for TV by Monumental Television.

You can find Nadine Matheson here:
www.twitter.com/NadineMatheson
www.nadinematheson.com
www.instagram.com/queennads

No Secrets by David Jackson

THEY ALL BELIEVE HIM
BUT SHE KNOWS HE’S LYING

Izzy is cursed. She has highly developed empathic abilities that mean she can read the emotions of those close to her. And she can always tell when they are lying. As a child she sparked her parents’ divorce by revealing her father’s infidelity. As an adult she has cut herself off from almost everyone except her partner, the only person she knows who has nothing to hide.

But no matter how she tries, Izzy’s abilities cannot be controlled. Young girls are going missing, and the police have no suspects. But when Izzy sees her old school caretaker being interviewed, she knows his story about seeing the latest victim being bundled into a car isn’t true. But why would Kenneth Plumley lie? And when the police won’t take her seriously, Izzy risks everything to discover the truth herself…

My Review

Is Izzy’s gift a curse? How would you feel if you knew when someone was lying? It sounds great but in actual fact it would be a nightmare. It already landed her in trouble when she revealed her father’s infidelity to her mother and triggered their divorce. Now she tries not to get too close to people, because the better she knows them, the more she can see through their untruths.

Talking of untruths, I promised myself I wouldn’t make any comments about politics, but where have you been Izzy? We’ve needed you.

Unfortunately the police don’t believe her when she tells them that her old school caretaker Kenneth Plummer is lying when he says he witnessed the abduction of a teenage girl. She got to know ‘Plummers’ quite well when she was at school (a bit strange – would definitely have been discouraged when I was at school and safeguarding wasn’t what it was back then compared to now), so she can tell he’s making it up.

But why would he lie? The police think Izzy is a crackpot, an attention seeker. Even the lovely DS Josh Frendy is doubtful, though he is the only one who keeps an open mind. Not about Kenneth being involved as Izzy suggests, but about her ‘superpower’.

And Izzy never gives up. She is determined to prove she is correct till even her partner Andy starts getting fed up. Not to mention that trailing someone you suspect of being a murderer is rather risky. Particularly when it includes hanging around his house and following him into dark, lonely places.

No-one writes a serial killer thriller like David Jackson. He can combine kidnapping, abduction, grisly murder and dark humour in one novel without ever veering into the realms of bad taste. One minute you’re burying a body and the next you are laughing out loud.

I desperately wanted to give this book 5 stars. I loved The Resident and The Rule and I loved 95% of No Secrets. I just had a couple of teeny weeny reservations, only I can’t say what.

Still a definite 4.5/5 stars

Many thanks to The Pigeonhole, and my fellow Pigeons for making this such an enjoyable read.

About the Author

From David himself: “I am the author of a series of crime thrillers featuring Irish-American NYPD Detective Callum Doyle. The first in the series, Pariah, was Highly Commended in the Crime Writers Association Debut Dagger Awards. It is published by Pan Macmillan. The follow-ups are The Helper and Marked, and I am hard at work on the fourth in the series. My writing influences include Ed McBain, Dennis Lehane, George Pelecanos, Robert Crais, Michael Connelly and Harlan Coben, amongst many others. My favourite quote about my work is one from the Guardian, now carried on the front of my novels: ‘Recalls Harlan Coben – though for my money Jackson is the better writer.’”

Night Shadows by Eva Bjorg AEgisdottir translated by Victoria Cribb

The small community of Akranes is devastated when a young man dies in a mysterious house fire, and when Detective Elma and her colleagues from West Iceland CID discover the fire was arson, they become embroiled in an increasingly perplexing case involving multiple suspects. What’s more, the dead man’s final online search raises fears that they could be investigating not one murder, but two.

#NightShadows #IcelandicNoir #ForbiddenIceland @evaaegisdottir @OrendaBooks @victoriacribb  #RandomThingsTours @annecater @RandomTTours #blogtour

A few months before the fire, a young Dutch woman takes a job as an au pair in Iceland, desperate to make a new life for herself after the death of her father. But the seemingly perfect family who employs her turns out to have problems of its own and she soon discovers she is running out of people to turn to.

As the police begin to home in on the truth, Elma, already struggling to come to terms with a life-changing event, finds herself in mortal danger as it becomes clear that someone has secrets they’ll do anything to hide…

My Review

I’ve said many times that Scandi Noir is different to our crime books – ‘there’s something that makes it different from our own crime novels and police procedurals. It’s stripped back, realistic, never shies away from anything.‘ However, Eva Bjorg AEgisdottir’s books are a bit different and this is the third one I’ve read. The main character is Detective Elma, who we met in the other two books A Creak On The Stairs and Girls Who Lie, plus her colleagues from West Iceland CID, her sister Dagny and her mother – we don’t see her father as much.

In the last book Elma was in a relationship with one of her colleagues Sævar, and this is still continuing in Night Shadows. Her boss Hordur, lost his wife Gigja at the end of Girls Who Lie, but is back to lead the current investigation.

So on to the main story. A young man called Marino has died in suspicious circumstances in a fire, which turns out to be arson. Elma and her team begin to investigate and soon realise that this case is far more complicated than it seems at first. The victim had a number of friends, all of whom appear to know nothing about what happened that night. But someone does, because someone poured petrol on the floor and set light to it.

A few months earlier, 19-year-old Lise from Amsterdam took a job as an au pair with a family whose son Andri was friends with Marino. She was hired to look after Klara and Anna, the two younger siblings. But the family have secrets of their own, particularly the father, Unnar, who leads a double life and is rumoured to have love affairs all over Iceland.

I’m not going to go into more detail about the plot as it’s far too complicated, suffice to say that there are a number of interwoven relationships and some not very nice people involved. It’s beautifully written and perfectly translated by Victoria Cribb. It’s quite a slow burn so don’t expect the usual concoction of grisly murders, sex trafficking, drugs and ritualistic killings that you often get with Scandi Noir. But don’t be put off! This is the story of a seemingly ordinary family whose darker side is bubbling under the surface, waiting for its secrets to rise to the fore. It’s also a fascinating look at a country which appears so innocent to an outsider, but obviously has hidden depths waiting to erupt like its famous volcano in a cloud of fire and ash.

Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #RandomThingsTours

About the Author

Born in Akranes in 1988, Eva moved to Trondheim, Norway to study my MSc in Globalisation when she was 25. After moving back home having completed her MSc, she knew it was time to start working on her novel. Eva has wanted to write books since she was 15 years old, having won a
short story contest in Iceland. Eva worked as a stewardess to make ends meet while she wrote her first novel, The Creak on the Stairs. The book went on to win the CWA Debut Dagger, the Blackbird Award, was shortlisted (twice) for the Capital Crime Readers’ Awards, and became a number one bestseller in Iceland. The critically acclaimed Girls Who Lie (book two in the Forbidden Iceland series) soon followed, with Night Shadows (book three) following suit in July 2022. Eva lives with her husband and three children in Reykjavík.

Orenda Books is a small independent publishing company specialising in literary fiction with a heavy emphasis on crime/thrillers, and approximately half the list in translation. They’ve been twice shortlisted for the Nick Robinson Best Newcomer Award at the IPG awards, and publisher and owner Karen Sullivan was a Bookseller Rising Star in 2016. In 2018, they were awarded a prestigious Creative Europe grant for their translated books programme. Three authors, including Agnes Ravatn, Matt Wesolowski and Amanda Jennings have been WHSmith Fresh Talent picks, and Ravatn’s The Bird Tribunal was shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award, won an English PEN Translation Award, and adapted for BBC Radio Four ’s Book at Bedtime. Six titles have been short- or long-listed for the CWA Daggers. Launched in 2014 with a mission to bring more international literature to the UK market, Orenda Books publishes a host of debuts, many of which have gone on to sell millions worldwide, and looks for fresh, exciting new voices that push the genre in new directions. Bestselling authors include Ragnar Jonasson, Antti Tuomainen, Gunnar Staalesen, Michael J. Malone, Kjell Ola Dahl, Louise Beech, Johana Gustawsson, Lilja Sigurðardóttir and Sarah Stovell.

Good Husbands by Cate Ray

Three wives, one letter, and an explosive secret that will change everything. He said, she said. Who do you believe?

Jessica, Stephanie and Priyanka are complete strangers, but they have one thing in common: they’ve each received a letter accusing their husbands of committing a sexual assault more than two decades prior. Is the accusation true or is there more to the story? It was a secret that remained buried for years.

With their worlds suddenly turned upside down, they don’t know who to trust—a complete stranger or the men they love and built their lives with. The three women come together to embark on a hunt for the truth, but they are hardly prepared for what they will discover. Who is the victim, and will justice ultimately be served?

My Review

I’m so conflicted. This is like reading Jodi Picoult. You try to see all sides and end up confused, angry, sympathetic. Ultimately I felt for the children most of all.

What would I do if it was my husband? Well let me say firstly that I trust him totally after 42 years together. I wouldn’t believe the letter and I would show it to him immediately. And that’s the difference.

The fact that they believe it shows that they have always had doubts about their husbands’ integrity. Stephanie’s husband Dan comes over as the worst, exerting coercive control over his wife, throwing his weight about. Her three girls can see it – middle daughter Rosie keeps warning her – but Stephanie is in denial.

I felt particularly sorry for Priyanka – Beau is so little and Andy has been a great father. Is that more important? And Jess is the driving force of the three. But even if there is no doubt about Nicky’s accusations, and we are not sure, I don’t always approve of their methods.

To play devil’s advocate here (don’t judge me) – I am simply opening a narrative, that’s all – the book can sometimes seem a bit man-hating. They must be guilty because they are – men. I also wanted some kind of redemption for at least one of the husbands. Can anyone ever confess their sins, serve their time and be forgiven? Not forgiven enough for their wives to take them back, but for them to be allowed to see their children (for the children’s sake not theirs). At times it was heartbreaking, especially for Beau.

This book opens up so much emotion and rage. Rage at the three men and their unforgivable crime against a vulnerable young woman. Can there ever be any excuse? They were all drunk. No excuse. They were all young. No excuse. Can you ever forgive your partner’s crime? Assault? Revenge? Murder? Maybe even murder. But rape – never.

Can the rapist ever be sorry for their crime and try to make amends? Or do we just throw away the key? I certainly don’t know the answer and wouldn’t pretend to.

Many thanks to The Pigeonhole, and my fellow Pigeons for making this such an enjoyable read. Without them to discuss this book I would have been even more frustrated.

About the Author

Cate Ray is the author of four novels published in the UK as Cath Weeks and she was named an “Author to Watch” by ELLE. Her novel GOOD HUSBANDS is an Apple Best Book of June, a Barnes & Noble Booksellers’ Favourite, a Walmart Canada Read of the Month and a Kobo Best Mystery & Thriller. You can follow Cate on Instagram & Twitter @CateRaywriter, or visit her website: www.CateRay.co.uk

Outcast by Claire Voet

In 1945 Molly Hazleton is heartbroken when her fiancé doesn’t return from the war after being reported “missing in action.”  So when Aunt Daphne comes to visit with news of having bought a 17th century manor house at auction in Scotland, Molly welcomes the opportunity to start afresh and help her aunt turn Aberdoch Manor into a hotel.
 
With a strange sense of déjà vu, Molly struggles to understand her connection with the property having never stepped foot inside of it or even Scotland for that matter. Ross McDaniel, the newly appointed gardener, knows more than he is letting on.

#Outcast #ClaireVoet #BlossomSpringPublishing @Zooloo’s Book Tours @zooloo2008 #ZooloosBookTours #blogtour

And when he shows Molly an ancient yew tree named by the locals as The Ghost Tree, after touching it, Molly discovers a remarkable ability to vividly see and experience her own past life – a life of extreme danger and hardship on the road with the Jacobite in 1745, hunted by the Red Coats for crimes she hasn’t committed.

She is also in love with a brave, Scot warrior, leader of the McDaniel clan who soon becomes her husband. Stirring up forgotten memories and an uncontrollable yearning to be back with those she once loved, Molly is hopelessly torn between very different worlds, two hundred years apart!

My Review

What a jolly good romp this was, jumping back and forth from 1745 to 1945, from the Jacobite rebellion (a friend at my convent school refused to sing the National Anthem and toasted the King over the water instead much to the disgust of the nuns) to Molly and her Aunt Daphne’s escapades at the much haunted Aberdoch Manor. Daphne has inherited the Manor and plans to turn it into a hotel.

This story has everything – romance, clan rivalry, bloody battles and hauntings a-plenty, plus the main character believing she has lived before as Ella, the heroine of the 1745 time. This is wonderful stuff and there is a huge amount of historical detail, fabulously researched, plus a great deal of humour – not something you find often in a historical ghost story. Unless it’s Oscar Wilde of course.

Aunt Daphne is a middle-aged dragon who says exactly what comes into her head and particularly dislikes Vicar Norman, even though he’s really a very nice chap. And he has a ginger cat called Carrot. If I was to get a ginger cat I would definitely call it Carrot. His wife Joan is the typical vicar’s wife, all cups of tea and home-baked cakes. A bit Mary Berry though Norman is definitely no Paul Hollywood.

When Molly and Daphne arrive at Aberdoch Manor, they meet the newly appointed gardener Ross McDaniel, with whom Molly becomes friends. But Ross is hiding something from Molly; is it something to do with the house, or is it to do with his ancestors? Or both? Then one day Ross shows Molly the ancient Ghost Tree as it’s known locally. They say if you touch the carved heart where the initial E & F are carved you can speak to the dead. But Molly has an even more unnerving experience. She finds she can see and experience her own past life – a life of extreme danger and hardship on the road with the Jacobite in 1745. She can also see her true love, Fergus, the leader of the McDaniel clan and Laird of Aberdoch.

There are plenty of surprises too in this book, which comes as no shock as it turns out there is to be a sequel – I kind of guessed the very last twist and I can’t wait to see how it all turns out in book two.

Many thanks to @zooloo2008 for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the Author

Claire Voet is an English author, born in Gosport across the shores of Portsmouth Harbour. Claire started writing in 2010 and has since then written a number of books to include The Ghost of Bluebell Cottage, The Other Daddy A World Away, Captain Hawkes, short story A Helping Hand, Echoes In The Mist and the Outcast series.

Claire demonstrates her love for history and also the supernatural in many of her spellbinding stories. As a commercial participator for the BBC Children in Need Appeal, Claire donates money from her book sales once a year.

Follow her at:
Website : www.clairevoet.com

Buy Links
Amazon – https://geni.us/w6NoOv

My Top 8 Books of 2022 – Part Two

Here are my favourite eight books of the second quarter of 2022. You will notice that it doesn’t include any crime dramas, detective novels or serial killer thrillers. While I love those genres, they rarely bring something totally new to the table and my favourites tend to be feel-good, whimsical or magical realism. Or totally original or make me cry. There are a couple of historical fiction in there too.

The Trial of Lotta Rae by Siobhan MacGowan

Working class 15-year-old Lotta Rae, having been brutally attacked and assaulted by a man of high standing, an investor at the company where she works, is persuaded to have him prosecuted for rape. In fact it’s her father, Pap, who reports the crime and so the divide between rich and poor becomes obvious.

Because when Lotta is defended by barrister William Linden, little does she know that those in power will simply throw her to the wolves. ‘Evidence’ comes to light that she is not a virgin, so her accusation of rape is dismissed, because she is obviously ‘a woman of ill-repute’ and her attacker walks free, HIS reputation intact.

For my full review click here

Broken by Anna Legat

I adored this book. I read it in two days – I even woke up in the middle of the night and read a few chapters. I just couldn’t put it down. The old cliche but so true.

It starts off like many other books, following the lives of the two main characters. Camilla, a bored middle aged housewife, is married to stuffy barrister Hugh. Their son, Christopher, has been convicted of fraud and sentenced to a lengthy time in prison. He blames his accomplice, but she can’t defend herself as she took an overdose.

For my full review click here

The Turn Of The Tide (The Sturmtaucher Trilogy #3) by Alan Jones

For me, as a woman, it’s the use of violent sex as torture, more so than the beatings, the starvation and the gas chambers that haunts me (I apologise as I already mentioned this in my review of Flight Of The Shearwater). Rape used as a weapon, often in front of the husband or other family members, the stripping naked and parading in front of the guards and other inmates, all designed to humiliate and take away identity and pride.

As we saw at the end of the previous book, some women preferred to be beaten to death rather than be raped, while others survived by ‘working’ in the camp brothels. How can any of us in our comfy homes in 2022 even begin to imagine which choice we would have made? Would we have chosen an honourable death or have done anything to survive?

For my full review click here

A Tidy Ending by Joanna Cannon

When I was asked to read and review A Tidy Ending, I read the blurb and immediately said yes. It was only when I started reading that I discovered that the author also wrote The Trouble With Goats and Sheep which I read and enjoyed a few years ago. I knew therefore that I would love it. And I did.

Linda is the main character and we are reading in her voice. She is so naive, there are times when I cringed as I dreaded what she was going to do or say next. Still at the beck and call of her mother Eunice (who is one of my favourite characters in the book), Linda’s confidence has been knocked from early childhood, made to believe she is big and clumsy, yet her mother still keeps feeding her cake and puddings.

For my full review click here

The Safe House by Louise Mumford

Following a severe asthma attack that nearly killed her when she was five years old, Esther has been living in a ‘prepper’-style bunker in the middle of nowhere, with her mother Hannah. How they arrived there forms quite a large part of the story, but as it progresses, we realise that Hannah has become obsessive over Esther’s safety to the point where Esther has not left the House for sixteen years. Because ‘What keeps us safe? – the House.’

According to ‘Mother’, Esther’s father was killed in an explosion at the steelworks where he was employed, and Out There ie where the rest of us live, is too dangerous for Esther. Her only friend is a stuffed velvet whale called Mr Wiffles who speaks to Esther, apart from her inhaler of course.

For my full review click here

Only May by Carol Lovekin

Sometimes it takes a while for a story to sink in and it’s only afterwards that you realise you have read something really special. This is such a book.

“When my bees swarm….I tell myself it is the death of a lie. I keep still, let the vibrations surround me….Come with us. And, as I am pulled into the hive mind, the bees lay a sleep spell on me. Their best remedy.”

It’s the 1950s. Just-turned-seventeen-year-old May lives with her mother Esme, her father Billy, seriously wounded and shell-shocked from his experiences in the second world war, and Esme’s sister Ffion. Esme, Billy and May live in the main family house, while somewhat-Bohemian Ffion lives in a caravan in the garden. May and Esme both work at the Drovers Hotel, owned by the indomitable and slightly scary Constance Cadwallader and her live-in lover Amelie Griffin.

For my full review click here

Angel Town by Fiona Cane

There’s nothing I like better than a story about a religious cult and they don’t come much better than Angel Town. I read this in two sittings, it was that exciting, I just had to keep reading.

Activist Donna lives in Brighton, having brought up her three children on her own after her husband Rupert just upped and disappeared when the youngest, Jos, was only six months old. She never heard from him again. Sixteen years later, Jos has left home and moved into a squat, his behaviour having become more and more irrational. Then one day he vanishes and all she has to go on is that he left with someone called Naomi, and that he found a picture of his father.

For my full review click here

Nothing else by Louise Beech

I cried. I admit it. In fact I probably cried for most of the last third of the book. But don’t be put off by silly old me. This book is wonderful, tender, beautiful and uplifting but it’s also very sad. It broke my heart at times.

Louise Beech is one of my favourite authors and this book is one of my favourite reads of the second half of 2022. It pulls at the heart strings as well as the piano strings – see what I did there – the characters are so well drawn. I loved Heather, but I probably loved her little sister Harriet even more if that’s possible.

As children the two sisters were inseparable, playing the piano to drown out the violence in their home. Heather was trying to protect Harriet from hearing what was going on – their father hitting their mother. That two such young children should have to witness such horror is unimaginable. It really did break my heart.

For my full review click here

PS I was recently asked to join the blog tour for Lost Property by Helen Paris and I would love to include it in this list. However it was already on the list of my favourite eight books of the first quarter of 2021 so it wouldn’t really be fair to include it again. Otherwise I would have. It’s a book that will stay with me always.

Still Water by Rebecca Pert

When Jane Douglas returns to the Shetland Islands, she thinks she has escaped the dark shadows of her childhood. She carves out a simple life on the bleak, windswept island, working at the salmon fishery and spending quiet evenings at home. And for the first time in her life, she’s happy.

#StillWater Twitter @Rebecca_Pert Instagram @rebecca_pert_author @BoroughPress #RandomThingsTours @annecater @RandomTTours #blogtour

Then the body of Jane’s long-missing mother is found in a flooded quarry. Her mother disappeared when Jane was a teenager, following the death of Jane’s baby brother. Jane has spent her life running from her past, living in fear that she has inherited her mother’s demons. Now, Jane must face what actually happened on that fateful, tragic day twenty years ago…

My Review

What a stunning book. Beautifully written and so emotional. How it triggered my own personal memories, the parallels with my childhood and my mother’s mental illness (*see below); the fears of it being inherited, genetic.

Jane is not always the easiest person to like. She works in a mind-numbing job in a salmon processing factory. All she has to do is chop the heads off the fish. She lives alone in a run-down caravan even though she owns the cottage nearby. It has too many memories and has been left to fall to pieces. She has a lovely boyfriend called Mike whom she loves dearly, but he knows little of her past life. She is very closed about her childhood. We know it was traumatic and her problems revolved around her mother’s progressive illness and the death of her little brother.

Her mother Sylvia disappeared straight after her brother died and her body was never found – until now. Then Jane discovers her mother’s diaries and starts reading. This part was the most harrowing. We learn how Sylvia met Bobby at a wake, fell pregnant, had Jane (originally called Hannah – she changed her name) and moved from her home in Devon to the Shetlands. Bobby worked on the oil rigs and was away for two weeks at a time, leaving Sylvia lonely and unable to cope with a new baby.

The more Jane reads, the more she learns the truth about what really happened, the lies Bobby told, the death of her brother and why her mother disappeared. We understand the reasons Jane won’t live in the cottage and also what happened with next-door neighbour Maggie and her daughter Laura.

It’s a brilliant book. From about half-way through I couldn’t stop reading, till I finished at one in the morning. It became personal, even though my mother didn’t suffer from postpartum psychosis, but her behaviour was similar at times. And the fear of unlikely things happening I can understand – when my first child was a few weeks old I used to imagine someone would climb in through the window in the night and steal him away. And while I didn’t worry about nuclear war, I know others who did.

*The constant reminders of my mother. Her chronic anxiety and agoraphobia, getting worse with each child. The one she lost before I was born. The barbiturates, the ‘dolls’ she was weaned off after 29 years in a ‘mental hospital’, then the Valium she often took too much of. The lobotomy they put her through in the 1950s and the electric shock treatment. How it was different back then. The taking to her bed and staying there for eight years. And the what-ifs that led to my fear of heights. Why we couldn’t leave her alone. Would it be passed to me? I understand Jane and her fears. I understand totally.

Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #RandomThingsTours.

About the Author

Rebecca Pert was born in 1990, the youngest of four siblings. She grew up in a small town in Devon before attending Cardiff University, where she received an MA in Creative Writing. Rebecca was the winner of the first Cheltenham Festival First Novel Competition in 2018. She now lives in Gloucestershire with her husband, son and dog. Still Water is Rebecca’s first novel.

From Rebecca

Dear reader

‘Still Water came about in an unusual way. In 2018 I submitted the first three chapters of a fledgling novel, about a thalidomide survivor living on the Shetland Islands, to the Cheltenham Literature Festival’s First Novel competition. The winner would receive a £10,000 advance, a publishing contract with The Borough Press, and representation from LBA Books. I printed off my chapters, stapled them, stuck them in an envelope and sent them off. A few months came and went. And then, one grey Friday in February, sitting at my desk in the library where I worked, I got an email telling me that I’d won. I stared at the screen, feeling goosebumps prickle all over my body, reading the words over and over again. I wanted to shout for joy but couldn’t, obviously, because I was in a library. So I went and shut myself in an office and called my husband and parents instead and then had a little cry.

‘I had to submit the completed manuscript by August that year. I thought I could do it. I’d recently found out I was pregnant, and the baby was due around the same time as the novel, so I planned on taking early maternity leave in order to have a few months to write the book before the baby arrived.

‘I wrote like a fiend right up until the last minute – I was literally in labour when I submitted the manuscript, bouncing on a birthing ball as I pressed ‘send’ on the email to the publishers. My son arrived about 24 hours later. Then came feedback, and the structural edit. There was a lot of work that needed to be done. No problem, I thought. I’ll just work while the baby sleeps. Ha!

‘My son was absolutely angelic in every single way except that he just didn’t sleep. I was blissfully happy, in love with my baby, high on post-birth oxytocin, but I was also bone-achingly exhausted. Every time he slept, I’d fight the urge to doze off and instead would open the laptop and try to work on my manuscript. It was a losing battle. The more I worked on the story the more it fell apart. I got increasingly frustrated and exhausted and at one point I wrote an email to my editor telling her I was sorry, but I was giving up. I couldn’t write the book. Luckily, my husband convinced me not to hit send. I’ll always be grateful to him for that.

‘Gradually, my son got bigger. Gradually, he started to sleep longer. Gradually, it became obvious that the story I’d been trying to write wasn’t working. It just wasn’t talking to me anymore. And so I ripped it up and started again from scratch. This time the words just flowed – like water – and the story took on a different focus: motherhood, and specifically my darkest fears and anxieties about motherhood. All the stuff that had been percolating in my mind during those sleep-deprived months had somehow formed into a narrative, black and hard. I suddenly had something to say. I wanted to talk about what frightened me the most. Although the story is dark, I think it’s important to shed light on maternal mental health in a sensitive and compassionate way, so I hope I have achieved this in Still Water.

‘It still seems so strange to me that people – strangers – are reading this story which has been brewing in my head for so long. I didn’t share it with a soul, except my editor, the entire time I was working on it, and now it’s out there in the world. I know that’s the whole point of being an author, but it’s still an odd feeling. I really hope you enjoy Still Water.’

Thank you

Rebecca

Nothing Else by Louise Beech

Heather Harris is a piano teacher and professional musician, whose quiet life revolves around music, whose memories centre on a single song that haunts her. A song she longs to perform again.

A song she wrote as a child, to drown out the violence in their home. A song she played with her little sister, Harriet. But Harriet is gone … she disappeared when their parents died, and Heather
never saw her again.

#NothingElse @LouiseWriter @OrendaBooks #RandomThingsTours @annecater @RandomTTours #blogtour

When Heather is offered an opportunity to play piano on a cruise ship, she leaps at the chance. She’ll read her recently released childhood care records by day – searching for clues to her sister’s disappearance – and play piano by night … coming to terms with the truth about a past she’s done everything to forget.

My Review

I cried. I admit it. In fact I probably cried for most of the last third of the book. But don’t be put off by silly old me. This book is wonderful, tender, beautiful and uplifting but it’s also very sad. It broke my heart at times.

Louise Beech is one of my favourite authors and this book is one of my favourite reads of the second half of 2022. It pulls at the heart strings as well as the piano strings – see what I did there – the characters are so well drawn. I loved Heather, but I probably loved her little sister Harriet even more if that’s possible.

As children the two sisters were inseparable, playing the piano to drown out the violence in their home. Heather was trying to protect Harriet from hearing what was going on – their father hitting their mother. That two such young children should have to witness such horror is unimaginable. It really did break my heart.

Now in their forties, Heather hasn’t seen Harriet since the day she disappeared from the children’s home where they were living after their parents were killed in an accident. She has no idea what happened to her or even if she is still alive.

When they were little, they composed a song which they called Nothing Else and it still haunts Heather today. How can she ever play it without her sister sitting on her left side – her secondo to Heather’s primo.

Scared to look for Harriet properly throughout her adult life, Heather finally decides to ask for her care records in case something written there might help her find her sister. She has been offered the opportunity to play piano on a cruise ship, so she can read through them in her cabin when she is not playing.

I just loved this book so much. I loved their piano teacher, who the girls visited in secret. I felt for their poor mum, who suffered so terribly throughout her married life. And of course I adored the sisters and hoped they would find peace and happiness at last.

Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #RandomThingsTours.

About the Author

All six of Louise Beech’s books have been digital bestsellers. Her novels have been a Guardian Readers’ Choice, shortlisted for Not the Booker Prize, and shortlisted for the RNA Most Popular Romantic Novel Award. Her short fiction has won the Glass Woman Prize, the Eric Hoffer Award for Prose, and the Aesthetica Creative Works competition, as well as shortlisting for the Bridport Prize twice. Louise lives with her husband on the outskirts of Hull.

Follow her on Twitter @LouiseWriter 

The Apartment Upstairs by Lesley Kara

Scarlett’s aunt lived – and was brutally murdered – in the apartment upstairs. But Scarlett is determined that life should return to some kind of normal, even if that means living with just a ceiling between her and the scene of such a devastating crime. After all, this is her home. She’s safe here. Isn’t she?

Dee is busy balancing her job as a funeral director with organizing an event to mark the disappearance of her best friend, ten years ago. So she’s got enough on her plate without worrying about the threatening messages that are appearing on her company’s Facebook page.

When Scarlett approaches Dee about planning her aunt’s funeral, an unexpected link between them emerges. Together, the two women could uncover secrets that have long been buried. Even while someone wants to stop them digging. 

My Review

Looking at other reviews I can see that this book is going to be marmite – some loving it enough to give it 5 stars and some not at all.

For me it was more soap opera than high end drama. The characters were not particularly likeable – apart from Scarlett. Dee was OK but so judgmental where her friend Lindsay was concerned. I know Lindsay’s behaviour was terrible at times, but did Dee ever ask herself why. What underlying problems might her friend have had? Could she have helped instead of calling her names? No spoilers, so can’t say more.

Scarlett’s brother Ollie comes across as a bit untrustworthy, his best mate Mickey is just a yob (Scarlett what were you thinking), and all Dee’s friends seem to have secrets about something. We assume Aunt Rebecca was wonderful, but was she? All we know about her was that she was a teacher with a love of literature, and that she was suffering from early onset dementia (very young – I initially thought she was in her sixties at least, but she was only mid-fifties). This could have been explored in more depth and with great sensitivity – I would have found that a more interesting storyline.

I expected a really interesting twist, but by the end I was, as someone else said, underwhelmed and there was one massive event that was left unanswered – again something I was interested in but it ended ‘not with a bang but a whimper.’ And it wasn’t the only loose end.

Ultimately I found the ending a bit grubby and incestuous (metaphorically speaking) and it could have been so good. I just wanted something more dramatic and new.

To be fair, it was well written and the characters were adequately drawn – I just didn’t like most of them.

3.5 / 5 stars

Many thanks to The Pigeonhole, and my fellow Pigeons for making this such an enjoyable read.

About the Author

Lesley Kara’s debut The Rumour was a Sunday Times bestseller and has been published in 18 countries and optioned for TV. The Rumour was the highest selling crime fiction debut of 2019 in the UK and a Kindle No. 1 bestseller. Her second novel Who Did You Tell? was also a Sunday Times bestseller. Her third novel The Dare was published on 2021 and her fourth The Apartment Upstairs was published in June 2022.

Lesley worked for many years as a lecturer and manager in a large college of further education in London. She now lives in Suffolk and writes full-time.