Veronika Jordan's Blog, page 77

The Caulder’s Well Trial of 1648 by Cat on a Piano Productions / Theatrephonic

There is a great evil abroad, but it’s not what you might think.

A woman sits shackled in a cage waiting for the two witchfinders, March and Dale, to pronounce their verdict.

But wait a minute. This woman appears to have done nothing but good. Easing pain and curing illness goes against the will of God, they tell the townsfolk. They are punishments for evil and the sins of Eve.

The witchfinders are still building the pyre.
Five wise women burnt at the stake in just one year – there is a great evil abroad.

And charred bones are easier to hide than corpses.

I loved this short story. Absolutely brilliant.

A short story written by Silvandar

Read by Emma Wilkes

Produced by Cat on a Piano Productions

Music:
Yonder Hill and Dale by Aaron Kenny

The Theatrephonic Theme tune was composed by Jackson Pentland
Performed by
Jackson Pentland
Mollie Fyfe Taylor
Emmeline Braefield

Cat on a Piano Productions produce and edit feature films, sketches and radio plays.

Their latest project is called @Theatrephonic, a podcast of standalone radio plays and short stories performed by professional actors. You can catch Theatrephonic on Spotify and other platforms.

For more information about the Theatrephonic Podcast, go to catonapiano.uk/theatrephonic, Tweet or Instagram @theatrephonic, or visit their Facebook page.

And if you really enjoyed this week’s episode, listen to Theatrephonic’s other plays and short stories and consider becoming a patron by clicking here…

The Shadow Child by Rachel Hancox

Eighteen-year-old Emma has loving parents and a promising future ahead of her. So why, one morning, does she leave home without a trace?

Her parents, Cath and Jim, are devastated. They have no idea why Emma left, where she is – or even whether she is still alive. A year later, Cath and Jim are still tormented by the unanswered questions Emma left behind and clinging desperately to the hope of finding her.

#TheShadowChild #RachelHancox @centurybooksuk @PenguinUKBooks #RandomThingsTours @annecater @RandomTTours #blogtour

Meanwhile, tantalisingly close to home, Emma is also struggling with her new existence –
and with the trauma that shattered her life.

For all of them, reconciliation seems an impossible dream. Does the way forward lie in facing up to the secrets of the past – secrets that have been hidden for years? Secrets that have the power to heal them, or to destroy their family forever.

The Shadow Child is a book of hope and reconciliation, of coming to terms with trauma and learning to love again. Most of all, it’s about how you can never quite escape from the shadows of your past – especially when one of those shadows is a child …

My Review

This is a story about loss and love, guilt, grief and secrets. And reconciliation.

It’s the story of an ordinary couple – Cath and Jim – and the teenage daughter who walked out one day and never came back. I can’t imagine what that must be like, the uncertainty, the not knowing.

Emma had a twin called Rose. We know something bad happened to her, but it takes a while before we discover the whole story.

A year after Emma disappeared, Cath and Jim have bought a cottage. It’s ideal to rent out, they just need to find the perfect tenants. And they do – in Nick and Lara, a young married couple for whom life seems idyllic. But one of them has a secret that lies so deeply buried, it is in danger of tearing everything apart.

My favourite part of the book is when we hear from Emma’s point of view. Her reasons for running away stem from guilt, rather than anger. It was heartbreaking. Her room-mate Jeannie also has her own secrets and her story is one of the saddest of all.

I deeply sympathised with all the characters, apart from Jim. While it’s no surprise that he lies about something he’s done (no spoilers), I could not understand why he lies about certain other things, or rather he decides not to tell Cath. In fact everything he does could break Cath’s heart all over again. Poor Cath. She doesn’t deserve the hurt inflicted upon her.

You’ll need plenty of tissues towards the end. I certainly did, but what a wonderful, heartfelt book that all mothers will be able to identify with.

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

About the Author

RACHEL HANCOX read Medicine and Social and Political Science at Cambridge, qualified as a doctor three months after getting married, and has juggled her family, her career and a passion for writing ever since. She worked in Paediatrics and Public Health for twenty years, writing short stories alongside NHS policy reports, and drafting novels during successive bouts of maternity leave. Rachel has five children, three dogs and a cat. She lives in Oxford with her husband and youngest children.

Lost Property by Helen Paris

One lost purse. One lost woman.
A chance encounter that changes everything.

Dot Watson has lost her way. Wracked with guilt and struggling with grief, she has tucked herself away in the London Transport Lost Property office, finding solace in the process of cataloguing misplaced things. It’s not glamorous or exciting, but it’s solitary – just the way Dot likes it.

#LostPropertyBook @drhelenparis @DoubleDayUK #RandomThingsTours @annecater @RandomTTours #blogtour

That is, until elderly Mr Appleby walks through the door in search of his late wife’s purse and Dot immediately feels a connection to him. Determined to help, she sets off on an extraordinary journey, one that could lead Dot to reclaim her life and find where she truly belongs…

My Review

Each year I wait for that one book that grabs me by the heart and won’t let go. One of those books is Lost Property. Every phrase, every sentence, in this wonderful story needs to be savoured. You can’t read this beautiful book too quickly or you will miss something worthwhile.

There is a very poignant moment where Dot remembers her father’s death and how her mother was washing and ironing his clothes to give them away to the charity shop. Dot is furious and can’t understand her mum’s behaviour. I remember a friend whose mum had taken her own life and how cross she was that her sister had started to clear their mum’s house a few days later. She thought it was disrespectful. We have to remember that everyone handles grief in their own way. For some that clearance is cathartic, while for others it’s too painful. My mum died in hospital in 1992 but had been living in a nursing home and my brother and I had four days to clear her belongings from her room. They already had a new patient, but at the time it was terrible. In hindsight I can understand, especially as my mother-in-law passed away recently and we had to do the same thing.

I was at times reminded of The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan (one of my favourite books of all time) just because each lost item has its own ‘identity’. Like in Keeper, Dot gives some items their own back story. Dot also collects lost travel guides which have not been collected, taking them home and arranging them by country or other criteria. Occasionally she finds a duplicate which she then pops into the pocket of a lost coat or bag, very carefully matching the guide to the owner.

I cannot even begin to describe how much I loved this book. How much I laughed and how much I cried. The saddest parts of the story are when Dot visits her mum in The Pines care home, where she is suffering from dementia. I cried while reading – it was so beautifully written – Dot so desperate for her mum to remember something, anything. Just for a glimpse of the woman who sang like an angel.

I know one criticism is that Dot seems much older than she is, but that’s the whole point isn’t it? She is old before her time. I think she is only about late thirties – maybe 40 – but she dresses and behaves like someone’s maiden aunt. Until she finds herself again.

Her journey of rediscovery begins when Dot goes looking for an elderly gentleman named Mr Appleby, to reunite him with his leather holdall and his late wife’s purse. The only clues that Dot has to go on are a receipt from a coffee shop called Judges, that the town has a funicular railway and fisherman’s huts and that it overlooks the channel. I guessed immediately!!

But her greatest grief is over the death of her father and the guilt she feels. ‘Loss is the price we pay for love,’ says Mr Appleby. How true.

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

About the Author

Helen Paris worked in the performing arts for two decades, touring internationally with her London-based theatre company Curious. After several years living in San Francisco and working as a theatre professor at Stanford University, she returned to the UK to focus on writing fiction. As part of her research for a performance called ‘Lost & Found’, Paris shadowed employees in the Baker Street Lost Property office for a week, an experience that sparked her imagination and inspired this novel.

Lost Property is her first novel.

A note from Helen:
“Although entirely a work of fiction Lost Property was influenced by the short time I spent in Lost Property, Baker Street shadowing different employees as research for a performance. Whether it’s a designer bag left in the back of a black cab or a woolly scarf forgotten on the number 44 bus, loss touches all of us. It is pervasive, and it never ends – as Dot Watson might say, ‘It’s reliable like that.’

I have always been fascinated by the memories that objects hold, how even the most every day object – a pipe, a bag, a small purse – can help us recall a place or a person or a particular time in life. Objects can be totemic, portals to the past. Tactile memory – the memories triggered by holding familiar objects – can be profound. Some objects almost let us time-travel back to the places we yearn to be, to the people no longer with us, and linger there, if only for a moment.”

A Man Of Understanding by Diana Janney

It takes a man of understanding to rebuild a shattered soul, a man with a deep and learned grasp of philosophy and poetry, a man who can nurture and inspire an enquiring mind, a man with the wit and humour to bring the world alive. 

That enigmatic man is Horatio Hennessy. His grandson Blue is that shattered soul. 

#AManOfUnderstanding #DianaJanney @RKbookpublicist #RandomThingsTours @annecater @RandomTTours #blogtour

Following the death of twelve-year-old Blue’s parents, his new home is a Finca in the mountains of Mallorca, with the grandfather he has never met before. But is Horatio up to the challenge, or is he merely trying, through Blue, to make good his past?  Gradually a bond evolves between them through a shared love of poetry. 

But when secrets are uncovered, will understanding turn to misunderstanding?  Will two souls be shattered this time? 

Absorbing, moving, witty and profound, A Man of Understanding is a beautifully-told story of the search for a higher understanding of the self and others, interlaced with poetry, philosophy and love.

My Review

Blue and Granga – this is the story of a twelve-year-old boy who has lost both his parents in a car accident, and his grandfather Horatio Hennessey. Rufus Ellerton has gone to Mallorca to stay with his Granga, an elderly man he has never met. A man who decides to call him Blue, like the sky.

As soon as Blue arrives at Granga’s Finca in the mountains, they are off to Morocco and then to the South of France. It’s an exciting whirlwind and wherever they go, everyone seems to know Horatio.

Then one day, while staying in France, Blue finds a book of poems called Verses of a Solitary Fellow by Horatio R Hennessey. These are Granga’s poems.

‘I opened the book at the first page. Five words marked the Dedication: To Sophia, my beloved wife.’

And so begins the relationship between Blue and Granga. It’s not always an easy one and there were times I wanted to bang their heads together. Granga talks, philosophises, teaches Blue about poetry, good food and Aristotle and the Golden Mean. But in reality he says nothing to make Blue feel wanted or loved. And Blue often reacts annoyingly, but I have to remember he’s only twelve. Sometimes I think Granga forgets as well.

I’d love to live in their village in Mallorca. The beautiful weather, the sea, the wonderful food and the freedom. But is it the right place for a boy who needs an education? Or would he be better off at boarding school?

My favourite part of the book apart from the poems which alone deserve 5 stars, is the part where Blue meets twelve sheep in a field. He talks to them like they are dogs or fluffy people. Then at Granga’s birthday barbeque, they have lamb and Blue is overcome with emotion. As a vegetarian, I understand how he feels. Have they eaten one of his new friends? Will there only be eleven sheep in the field tomorrow? I’ll leave you to find out.

This book could have been pretentious, snobby and aimed at a reader with an MA in philosophy at least to understand it, let alone appreciate its beauty. But it isn’t. You don’t need to like poetry (though I do) or have read Aristotle or Kant (I haven’t) to love it. It’s just beautiful and it made me cry.

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

About the Author

DIANA JANNEY is the author of the novels The Choice and The Infinite Wisdom of Harriet Rose, which has been translated into four languages (Spanish, German, Dutch, Portuguese), produced as an audiobook by the BBC, and the film rights were sold to a British film company. Formerly she practised as a barrister in London after having qualified as a solicitor at a leading City of London international law firm. She read Philosophy at University College, London, where she received a First for her Masters thesis on Kant and Hume, and three Scholarships. Diana has received international acclaim for her writing, which combines her philosophical knowledge with her wit, poetry and keen observation of human nature.

The Fields (Riley Fisher #1) by Erin Young

A breakneck procedural that is beautifully written and masterfully crafted, Erin Young’s The Fields is a dynamite debut—crime fiction at its very finest.

Some things don’t stay buried.

It starts with a body—a young woman found dead in an Iowa cornfield, on one of the few family farms still managing to compete with the giants of Big Agriculture.

When Sergeant Riley Fisher, newly promoted to head of investigations for the Black Hawk County Sheriff’s Office, arrives on the scene, an already horrific crime becomes personal when she discovers the victim was a childhood friend, connected to a dark past she thought she’d left behind.

The investigation grows complicated as more victims are found. Drawn deeper in, Riley soon discovers implications far beyond her Midwest town.

My Review

I’m not going to pretend this novel is perfect. There are a few things that didn’t quite work – it was a bit far-fetched at times, particularly the ending and Riley’s behaviour is that typical ‘don’t go down in the cellar’, but then she does scenario. With no backup. Of course, or it wouldn’t be as exciting and suspenseful as it is.

And it is exciting and suspenseful. Worthy of my five stars. I absolutely loved it and couldn’t wait to read on. I didn’t always like Riley. As soon as you know she went hunting with her grandfather, the hackles rose, but that’s because we are very sensitive about that kind of thing in the UK. In rural America it’s very different. But let’s not have a debate here about killing animals and gun culture.

Apart from Riley, with her traumatic past, we have Logan, a vegan cop from out of state (sounds like a contradiction in terms), her ghastly, idiot ex Jackson Cole, useless brother Ethan, his teenage daughter Maddie, Rose and Lori and baby Ben – the list is endless. But they are all well-drawn, rounded characters, which is why I remember them all so clearly.

Then we have the victims, including one of Riley’s school friends, who and why, a fierce political battle between Hamilton and Cook, small farmers trying to survive and avoid being aggressively taken over by giant Agri-Co and involvement from the FBI. I secretly hoped there might be a bit of romance for Riley with Agent Klein (though Logan is also on the cards). Maybe in the next book – I can see this is the first in a series.

The plot is complicated with many threads, the grisly murders being just one of them. We have political espionage, climate change, agricultural terrorism, genetically modified crops, you name it – it’s there.

My only criticism is that there is too much exposition at the end – I prefer to see it gradually revealed throughout the story, but in this case the truth is rather too complicated to have been handled any other way. Brilliant book. Bring on the next one.

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

About the Author

Erin Young is the pseudonym of acclaimed historical novelist, Robyn Young, author of eight internationally bestselling novels.  She has been published in 19 languages in 22 countries, selling two million books worldwide.  The Fields is her first contemporary thriller.  She lives and writes in Brighton, England.

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

The Turn of the Tide is the third book in the Sturmtaucher Trilogy: a powerful and compelling story of two families torn apart by evil.

As Hitler’s greed turns eastwards to the fertile and oil rich Soviet heartlands, life for the Kästner and the Nussbaum families disintegrates and fragments as the Nazis tighten the noose on German and Polish Jews. Implementing Endlösung der Judenfrage, the ‘Final Solution to the Jewish Problem’, Hitler, Himmler, Heydrich and Eichmann plan to have Germany, and Europe, Judenrein, ‘cleansed of Jews’.

General Erich Kästner, increasingly alone, fights a losing battle to protect his friends, and their fellow Jews, putting himself and his family in jeopardy.

As the tide of war turns, he looks anxiously to the Soviets in the east, and to the Western Allies, desperately hoping, despite his patriotism, that Germany is defeated before there are no Jews left in the countries occupied by the Third Reich.

When an assassination attempt on Hitler and his henchmen fails, Erich Kästner himself comes under the scrutiny of the Gestapo, and his own survival, and that of his family, becomes uncertain.

As the war draws to an end, with Germany in ruins, time is running out for the Kästners and the Nussbaums…

My Review

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?

Incidentally, men were also stripped – for executions (including German ‘traitors’ like those involved in the plot to kill Hitler in 1944, their naked bodies left to rot still attached to the noose) and inmates before being sent to the gas chambers.

What is also so poignant reading this right now is the parallels we are seeing with the war in Ukraine. At times I forgot I was reading about the second World War. Following the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Ruth comments: ‘that no-one will survive another war.‘ I hope we never find out.

Do the ‘ordinary’ Russian people believe Putin is right, like so many Germans did with Hitler, without knowing the real truth. Is: ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,‘ true? Are we all culpable if we turn our backs on what’s really going on? A conversation for another time.

There is much of this series that I find very personal, particularly in the first and third books. I will not repeat my family history as I have already written about it extensively in my review of The Gathering Storm and to a lesser extent in Shearwater. I also don’t want to go into the history of the war, the treatment of Jews and the horrors of the concentration camps. It is all on public record. I will still never understand why the Jews were so despised. Neither can I understand how people can inflict such cruelty on others.

A phenomenal book and a phenomenal series. I feel like I knew the Kästners and the Nussbaums and while I know they are fictional characters, they are representative of the many families for whom these horrors were a reality. So for me and others they are real.

I am dedicating this review to my late Polish father (who was not Jewish though he married a Jewesss, my mother, after the war), but he was a prisoner of war in Northern Russia. He once told me it was so cold that when the men took a pee outside, it froze as it hit the ground. And there is a reference to it in The Turn Of The Tide (not to my father obviously) and I had to smile. It always made me laugh when he told me the story when I was eight or nine years old. I know he only told me these things because the truth would have been too hard for him to bear and for me. Bless you Dad.

About the Author

Alan Jones is a Scottish author with three gritty crime stories to his name, the first two set in Glasgow, the third one based in London. He has now switched genres, and his WW2 trilogy will be published in August 2021. It is a Holocaust story set in Northern Germany.

He is married with four grown up children and four wonderful grandchildren.

He has recently retired as a mixed-practice vet in a small Scottish coastal town in Ayrshire and is one of the RNLI volunteer coxswains on the local lifeboat. He makes furniture in his spare time, and maintains and sails a 45-year-old yacht in the Irish Sea and on the beautiful west coast of Scotland. He loves reading, watching films and cooking. He still plays football despite being just the wrong side of sixty.

His crime novels are not for the faint-hearted, with some strong language, violence, and various degrees of sexual content. The first two books also contain a fair smattering of Glasgow slang.

He is one of the few self-published authors to be given a panel at Bloody Scotland and has done two pop-up book launches at the festival in Stirling.

He has spent the last five years researching and writing The Sturmtaucher Trilogy.

Front Page Story by Cat on a Piano Productions / Theatrephonic

Front Page Story
Art doesn’t exist in a vacuum

Rookie reporter Abby is working on a story about an affordable homes campaign.
But then a carving goes missing from the Franklin Museum. A pine cone carved out of wood. It was stolen in broad daylight during opening hours. Abby has written a story about it which proves to be really popular.

Then she gets a mysterious phone call. The man on the end of the phone says his name is Konrad. He has the pine cone, but he didn’t steal it. You can’t steal what is actually yours in the first place, he tells her.

This is a moving tale about an artefact stolen by the Nazis from a German Jewish family during World War Two. So how did it end up at the museum?

My Jewish mother and grandmother escaped from the Nazis in 1938. They lost everything when they fled Vienna, with just a few clothes and hidden items, so this story is particularly poignant for me.

Written by Barbara Jennings
Directed by Emmeline Braefield @ebraefield

With:
Rebecca Daines as Abby
Anthony Young as Frank
Zoe Cunningham as Mrs Dudley
And
Jonathan Legg as Conrad

Produced by Cat on a Piano Productions

Music:
News Room News by Spence
Newsroom by Riot

The Theatrephonic Theme tune was composed by Jackson Pentland
Performed by
Jackson Pentland
Mollie Fyfe Taylor
Emmeline Braefield

Cat on a Piano Productions produce and edit feature films, sketches and radio plays.

Their latest project is called @Theatrephonic, a podcast of standalone radio plays and short stories performed by professional actors. You can catch Theatrephonic on Spotify and other platforms.

For more information about the Theatrephonic Podcast, go to catonapiano.uk/theatrephonic, Tweet or Instagram @theatrephonic, or visit their Facebook page.

And if you really enjoyed this week’s episode, listen to Theatrephonic’s other plays and short stories and consider becoming a patron by clicking here…

The Beach House by Beverley Jones

Published in paperback 21st April 2022!

The perfect place to hide. Or so she thought . . .

When Grace Jensen returns to her home in Lookout Beach one day, she finds a body in a pool of blood and a menacing gift left for her.

The community of Lookout Beach is shocked by such a brutal intrusion in their close-knit neighbourhood – particularly to a family as successful and well-liked as the Jensens – and a police investigation to find the trespasser begins.

But Grace knows who’s after her. She might have changed her name and moved across the world, deciding to hide on the Oregon coast, but she’s been waiting seventeen years for what happened in the small Welsh town where she grew up to catch up with her.

Grace might seem like the model neighbour and mother, but nobody in Lookout Beach – not even her devoted husband Elias – knows the real her. Or how much blood is on her hands.

The Beach House was published in paperback on 22nd April 2022.

#TheBeachHouse @bevjoneswriting @TheCrimeVault

My Review

This is an exciting book. You never know what’s going to happen next and however bad it is, Grace can never tell anyone. Because no-one, not even Elias, her lovely, giant bear of a husband, has any idea what happened one Halloween night in the Welsh village where she grew up.

Seventeen years ago, Grace was Laura Llewellyn, a teenager with a huge imagination and a knack for telling scary stories.

It used to be just Laura, Silas and Liam until Priss’s widowed father asks if Priss can join their ‘gang’. They are not keen but they don’t really have a choice. And Priss can be a rather nasty piece of work, though it’s not really surprising after losing her mother at such a young age. Laura, known to her friends as Lolly Pop, is teased by Priss who calls her Pissy Pants and shows everyone at school a photo of her after she spilled a drink down the front of her shorts, saying she wet herself. And she tries to ‘steal’ Silas from her, knowing how much Laura adores him. And that’s just for starters.

Then one night things turn much darker and Laura leaves the UK and moves to the Oregon coast, where she reinvents herself as Grace, marries Elias and has her daughter lovingly known as Terrible Tilly. They are well off and have an idyllic lifestyle with a beautiful house and a second home they are building, known as ‘the Project’.

But when Grace comes home one day and finds a body on the floor of her kitchen, lying face down in a pool of blood, the police become very interested in everyone, but for all the wrong reasons. And why did the intruder leave his special gifts – gifts that would only mean something to Grace or anyone who was there the night of the murder. How can Grace tell the police what or who she suspects when even her husband doesn’t know about that fateful night. Grace, however, is not the only one with secrets and eventually it must all come out. Unless Grace can keep it buried.

Always exciting, with more twists and turns than the Monte Carlo rally, this is a book that you won’t want to put down. I highly recommend it.

About the Author

Beverley Jones, also known as B E Jones, is a former journalist and police press officer, now a novelist and general book obsessive. Bev was born in a small village in the South Wales valleys, north of Cardiff. She started her journalism career with Trinity Mirror newspapers, writing stories for The Rhondda Leader and The Western Mail, before becoming a broadcast journalist with BBC Wales Today TV news, based in Cardiff. She has worked on all aspects of crime reporting (as well as community news and features) producing stories and content for newspapers and live TV.

Most recently Bev worked as a press officer for South Wales Police, dealing with the media and participating in criminal investigations, security operations and emergency planning.

Perhaps unsurprisingly she channels these experiences of ‘true crime,’ and her insight into the murkier side of human nature, into her dark, psychological thrillers set in and around South Wales.

Her latest novels, Where She Went, Halfway and Wilderness, are published by Little Brown under the name BE Jones. Wilderness has recently been optioned for a six part TV adaptation by Firebird Pictures. Her seventh novel, The Beach House, was released in June 2021 under the name Beverley Jones. Chat with her on Goodreads.co.uk under B E Jones or Beverley Jones and on Twitter and Instagram @bevjoneswriting. Bev is represented by The Ampersand Agency.

Social Media:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/bevjoneswriting
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bev.jones.9083477
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bevjoneswriting/
Website: http://bevjoneswriting.co.uk/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34040919-where-she-went
Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Beverley-Jones/e/B00F6I6XQG/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1 or https://www.amazon.co.uk/Beverley-Jones/e/B08YP9LFM6/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_ebooks_1

Purchase Links :

Amazon UK: https://amzn.to/3zSVNEv
Amazon US: https://amzn.to/3gSMU6m
Waterstones: https://bit.ly/3qmFtHA
Hive.co.uk: https://bit.ly/3zR0crv
Book Depository: https://bit.ly/3d92bOl

George Bunce and The Black Wave of Fear by Martin Geraghty

Meet George, a resident at the Four Seasons care home in a Scottish seaside town.
Meet Carrie, an occupational therapist at the Four Seasons care home.
Join them as they form an unlikely friendship.

Immerse yourself in their story as they discover second chances in life.
Cheer for them as they find laughter in the face of adversity.
Support them as they both finally learn to bury the ghosts of their pasts and learn to live again.

#GeorgeBunceAndTheBlackWaveOfFear @MartinGeraght1 @SpellBoundBks @Zooloo’s Book Tours @zooloo2008 #ZooloosBookTours #blogtour

Most importantly, allow George and Carrie to take you on a journey where you might just end up looking at the world differently.

George Bunce and The Black Wave of Fear is an extraordinary and poignant tale full of hope and humour.

My Review

I’ve read a number of books in the last couple of years where an elderly person is befriended by a much younger man or woman (usually a woman) and their unusual friendship has changed both their lives for the better. This is one such book.

George Bunce And The Black Wave Of Fear is a feel-good story that begins with grumpy 70-year-old George Bunce finding himself in the Four Seasons care home after burning down his flat. He hates it. Everyone around him appears to be old, decrepit or stark raving bonkers. Except George. There’s a man who lies under the bed with his legs sticking out while brandishing a spoon. He thinks he’s fixing a Ford Escort. He used to be a mechanic.

Luigi keeps asking if you ‘wanna one scoop or two’ (no prizes for guessing what he used to do) and there’s a lady whose catchphrase is ‘Calm down dear, it’s only a commercial.’ Who remembers Michael Winner saying that in an advert for Esure almost 20 years ago. It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad. But there’s a couple of old boys who play chess and watch Countdown – they seem better – and a couple of women who watch Naked Attraction which he thinks is disgusting. I have to say I agree with you there George.

And then there is Carrie. She works there and she’s one of those people who tries to make everyone happy. Well it won’t work on George. He’s happy being miserable. He just wants to be left alone, in silence and have poached eggs on toast for breakfast by himself. And the ruddy home can’t even poach an egg for goodness sake! He argues with everyone, including Carrie, who tries to tell him that the sooner he plays ball, the sooner he can move into an assisted living flat.

Poor George. It’s not really anger, it’s frustration and the ‘black wave of fear’. He’s terrified of change. He just wants his lonely life back. But does he really? And can Carrie and new friend Annabelle help him see a positive life ahead of him?

My only issue with this brilliant, emotional novel is that George in only 70. I’m 69 and most of my friends in my ‘boot camp’ (yes that’s correct) are my age or older. One will be 71 in July, another is 74 and yet another is 76. As well as our two to three times a week fitness class, we often go for a 6km walk. And yes, I can do it in kilometres, not miles.

The only reason I am boring you senseless with this is because I am trying to show you that 70 is the new 60 etc. My friends and I are not old, we are just not as young as we were, but we still love a challenge.

George is old before his time. I know he has his senior moments and he forgets people’s names, but don’t we all, though I never burnt my house down – yet. I think that’s why he is initially so grumpy. He’s been alone too long with just his memories and they are not all good.

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

About the Author

Martin is a 49-year-old Private Investigator from Glasgow, more Clouseau than Columbo. His debut novel, A Mind Polluted, was published by Crooked Cat Books in 2018. He has had short stories published by The Common Breath, Ellipsis Zine, Speculative Books and others.

Follow him at:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/martin.geraghty.9083
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/martin_geraghty72/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MartinGeraght1

Buy Links
Amazon UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/George-Bunce-Black-Wave-Fear-ebook/dp/B09QQRQTR9
Amazon US https://www.amazon.com/George-Bunce-Black-Wave-Fear-ebook/dp/B09QQRQTR9/

Broken by Anna Legat

What if you lost the memory of who you are? What if you had to pick up the loose ends of life that wasn’t yours? What if you had to fight somebody else’s battles? What would YOU do ?

Camilla’s life will never be the same after her beloved son Christopher is sent to prison. Father Joseph’s faith is sorely tested when a deranged psychopath uses the sanctity of the confessional to gloat about his most heinous crimes. Both Camilla and Joseph are paralysed by doubt and inaction. But then their lives collide…

#Broken @LegatWriter @Zooloo’s Book Tours @zooloo2008 #ZooloosBookTours #blogtour

BROKEN explores where it takes a stranger to break through one’s bindings and inhibitions in order to do the right thing. It is a story of a mother’s love for her son and a priest’s blind adherence to the seal of confession. It is a story about Fate’s intervention.

My Review

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.

Joseph is a Catholic priest at The Sacred Heart Church in a run-down area. Some of his parishioners, particularly the odious Mrs Keating, are smug and holier-than-though and believe that he should not be employing Jane Cuthbert as his cleaner. Poor Jane has had to resort to prostitution as her second job to put her son through university.

Father Joseph owns a barge, which he has renovated from scratch, and he enjoys a drink or five with fellow boat-dwellers Ruthie, her dad, Loki and Jeremiah. He doesn’t actually live on his boat, but he does stay there from time to time.

Camilla’s grandson lives with his mum and her partner Peter, but they are going on honeymoon to Australia for a month, so seven-year-old Joshua has to stay with Camilla, Hugh, and Hugh’s sister Auntie Yvonne. Christopher is obviously out of action for a while, the ‘cheating – thieving bastard’ as Peter calls him.

In the meantime, Father Joseph is getting nervous about one of his regular visitors to the confessional. He calls him the Prophet because he fancies himself a holy man. “‘I’ll be back,’ he says like he is the second coming of Arnold Schwarzenegger”. He is proud of what he has done and will continue to do. He knows he is protected by a Catholic priest’s seal of confession. He is evil but there is nothing Joseph can do. I have to admit that I guessed who he was pretty early on, but it didn’t spoil anything as this isn’t a whodunnit and his identity isn’t that important to the story.

Then one day the two lives collide in a most extraordinary way. I don’t want to say any more. This is the unusual twist and I loved it. The story became different and unique. You may believe that what happens is real or you may see it as a metaphor for the awakening of two souls ‘paralysed by doubt and inaction’. It really doesn’t matter either way. It’s just brilliant.

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

About the Author

Anna Legat is a Wiltshire-based author, best known for her DI Gillian Marsh murder mystery series. Murder isn’t the only thing on her mind. She dabbles in a wide variety of genres, ranging from dark humorous comedy, through magic realism to dystopian. A globe-trotter and Jack-of-all-trades, Anna has been an attorney, legal adviser, a silver-service waitress, a school teacher and a librarian. She has lived in far-flung places all over the world where she delighted in people-watching and collecting precious life experiences for her stories. Anna writes, reads, lives and breathes books and can no longer tell the difference between fact and fiction.

Follow her at:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/AnnaLegatAuthor/
Instagram: www.instagram.com/legatauthor
Twitter: www.twitter.com/LegatWriter
Website: https://annalegat.com/

Buy Links
Amazon UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/BROKEN-unsettling-domestic-thriller-guaranteed-ebook/dp/B09SRCGYRQ
Amazon US https://www.amazon.com/BROKEN-unsettling-domestic-thriller-guaranteed-ebook/dp/B09SRCGYRQ