BLOG TOUR ~ The Fear by C.L. Taylor

Hi Everyone,

Today is my stop on the Blog Tour for The Fear by C.L. Taylor where I welcome Cally to my blog where she has kindly provided me with an extract from her latest novel. I was thrilled to be asked by Sabah Khan from Avon Books to take part along with some other fab book bloggers. You can find out who else is taking part in this fabulous Blog Tour at the end of this piece so without further ado, here it is:

I push open the doors to Greensleeves Garden Centre. As I step inside the woman behind the counter, dressed in a red polo shirt, shouts that they’ll be closing soon. I ignore her and speed through the shop, barely registering the shelves of bird food and ornaments and the displays of garden furniture and houseplants. The only other customer is a heavily pregnant woman pushing a trolley full of fertiliser and decorative fencing with bedding plants piled on the top.

    I glance at my watch as I step through the large double doors next to the restaurant. 17.53. Seven minutes until they close. If Mike’s not out here, in the yard amongst the plants, shrubs and timber, I’ll head round the back, see if there’s some kind of loading bay. I don’t want to have to come here again or go back to his house. I want to get this over and done with now.

   I walk along the length of the aisles, pausing to peer down each one as I pass. The place is deserted. I’ll just do one last loop of the yard and then head round the-

REVIEW ~ To Catch A Rabbit by Helen Cadbury

When a dead woman is slumped against the door of a grubby trailer. She's on Sean Denton's patch, but who is she, how did she get there, and why doesn't CID want to investigate? As Doncaster's youngest PCSO, Denton takes the case into his own hands, but he's way out of his depth.

And when people are been reported missing and Denton must work backwards, before anyone else falls prey to South Yorkshire's murky underworld of migrants and the sex trade.

To Catch A Rabbit is the debut crime novel from Helen Cadbury and the introduction to a new series and a great character in the shape of a young Community Support Officer, Sean Denton.

I really loved this book and it had me gripped from the first few pages, right until the end and to be honest I can't believe this was a debut novel, it was put together so well. I'd so many suspicions and didn't know who to trust. It reminded me a little bit of an episode of The Bill also as I was reading it and I really loved that show. I'm just sorry that I never read Helen's books before she sadly passed away almost 2 years ago but I'm delighted I started reading her series after having a few people recommend Helen's books to me. I look forward to reading the next installment in the Sean Denton series which is Bones in the Nest.

To Catch A Rabbit is available from all good bookstores, libraries and on Kindle where it is currently £1.89 at the time of publication if this review.

REVIEW ~ With Our Blessing by Jo Spain

It's true what they say . . . revenge is sweet.

The story opens in 1975 with a baby, minutes old, is forcibly removed from it's devastated mother which causes trauma for the mother from that moment and causes a ripple effect down through the years with many more young girls which go unnoticed.

Fast forward 35 years to 2010 where the body of an elderly woman is found in a Dublin public park in the depths of winter.  Her murder scene is a resemblence to the crucifixition of Jesus Christ.

Detective Inspector Tom Reynolds is the lead detective working the case along with his team. He's convinced the murder is linked to historical events that took place in the notorious Magdalene Laundries.  Reynolds and his team follow the trail to an isolated convent in the Irish countryside. But once inside, it becomes disturbingly clear that the killer is amongst them and is determined to exact further vengeance for the sins of the past.

I absolutely LOVED With Our Blessing, I was gripped right from the start, it is tense, shocking and completely addictive.  I didn't know who to trust and I'd so many suspects as to who the killer was. Jo has written about the Magdalene Laundries which were real here in Ireland for years run by the nuns for young girls who were brought to these places when they were pregnant outside of wedlock and believe me the stories I've heard growing up about these homes were barbaric and true.  I also went to both Primary & Secondary School's in Dublin run by the nuns and you were terrified of stepping out of line as you didn't want to feel or hear the wrath from them but Jo has managed to really put the barbaric events into words but has handled it all with great sensitivity.

This is Jo Spain's debut novel and it was fantastic, it was so well written and researched, I couldn't believe this was a debut.  There are another 3 books as part of the DI Tom Reynolds series and I'm really looking forward to reading the next 2 installments which are Beneath The Surface and Sleeping Beauties before the release of the fourth book titled The Darkest Place which is due for release in 2018.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

With Our Blessing is available in all good bookshops, libraries and on Kindle where it is currently £0.99 at the time of publication of this review.

BLOG TOUR ~ Hold My Hand by M.J. Ford

Hi Everyone,

Today is my stop on the Blog Tour for Hold My Hand by M.J. Ford where I welcome M.J. to my blog where he has kindly provided me with an extract of his debut novel. I was thrilled to be asked by Sabah Khan from Avon Books to take part along with some other fab book bloggers. You can find out who else is taking part in this fabulous Blog Tour at the end of this extract so without further ado, here it is:

The sign for the Hanover Homes development loomed large over the hedgerows at the side of the B3109. The space promised 240 units, ‘built to house the local community’, whatever that was supposed to mean, here in the middle of nowhere. The road was spattered with mud from the procession of vehicles using the site, and when Jo turned into the entrance, her small car rocked and bounced over the hard ruts in the ground. It hadn’t rained for weeks, and the weather forecasters were saying it was already the driest summer on record. 

She passed a couple of temporary cabins, several stacks of scaffold and a concrete truck. A squad car was parked up alongside her boss Rob Bridges’ scarlet Volvo, along with a battered Discovery, a Toyota and a police-issue Vauxhall. DCI Bridges, in plain clothes, was talking to a woman in a hard hat, making notes in his book. 

Jo killed the engine and climbed out. 

‘Can I see?’ she said straight away.

‘Who’s this?’ said an older, silver-haired man whose grey pallor suggested he was at least one heart attack down. His suit looked thick, maybe woollen, and completely wrong for July. 

Jo frowned; there was something familiar about him.

‘Detective Jo Masters, meet Harry Ferman,’ said Bridges. ‘There’s a DS from Thames Valley round the back already.’

The older man held out a massive, paw-like hand, and Jo shook it.

‘Follow me,’ he said. His teeth seemed a little too big for his mouth, and she guessed they were dentures. 

As he led her under the secondary perimeter police tape and around a bend between overgrown hedges, Jo wondered who he was. He had police written all over him, but he had to be at least sixty. 

A substantial Georgian house came into view at the end of the drive. Though the stone was still pale in places, a lot of it was stained by sooty streaks, darker above the paneless window arches. The roof was a mess of exposed joists, many collapsed already. A uniformed officer took their details at a second line of tape by the side of the house and gestured them through.

‘Who found the remains?’ said Jo.

BLOG TOUR ~ 29 Seconds by TM Logan

Hi Everyone,

Today is my stop on the Blog Tour for 29 Seconds by T.M. Logan where I welcome T.M. to my blog where she has kindly provided me with an extract of his new novel. I was thrilled to be asked by Emily Burns from Bonnier Zaffre, now of BrandHive to take part along with some other fab book bloggers. You can find out who else is taking part in this fabulous Blog Tour at the end of this piece so without further ado, here it is:

The BMW swung through a series of turns and she knew they were leaving the campus. Sarah imagined the possibilities, her breath hot inside the bag. There still wasn’t enough air, but in this lying position she was able to shift her head on the seat, creating a tiny gap at her neck to allow more air through. She shivered involuntarily, a violent spasm that went through her whole body. The hand pushed down a little heavier on the top of her arm, pinning her in place on the BMW’s back seat.

Think. What about her dad? How long would it be before he raised the alarm when she didn’t come home? Another thought pierced her like a blade: what if these men were going to take Grace and Harry, too? In her head, she said a silent prayer: Please let this be about me, not about my children. Please let them be safe with my dad. The thought of Grace and Harry and her dad sitting around the kitchen table made her eyes fill with tears. She swallowed hard and fought them back.

This is no time for crying. Not now. 

Think.

She tried to count in her head, and guess how quickly the car was travelling. Were they on a fast road, a dual carriageway? No. Lots of traffic lights, twists and turns which suggested they were heading further into the city, rather than away. But the journey seemed to be taking forever. She began counting as best she could, one to sixty, then starting again. Not too fast. Count the minutes. The act of counting kept her mind off other possibilities, helped her stay calm.

She reached what she thought was fourteen minutes, near enough.

The car stopped.

Then the hand was on her arm again and she was pulled sideways, edging along the car seat and stepping carefully down onto hard ground, smelling diesel and rain and cold night air. Men talking in low voices, muffled through the hood. Car doors slamming. The grip on her upper arm loosened slightly. She was still hooded, but her hands were free and she had a sudden urge to rip the hood off and just make a run for it, look for a gap between these men and sprint through it, as fast as she could. She thanked the instinct that had made her wear flat shoes this morning. She could run in these shoes. She used to run for her school, and she had been good, too. 100 metres, 200 metres, 4 x 400 metres relay. It might be her last chance – her only chance. Instinctively, she knew that if it came it would only be a second or two and she would have to be ready to react without hesitation.

More voices, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying. The smell of cigarette smoke. The metallic chuck of the BMW’s doors being central-locked.

The hand came away from her arm.

Now.

She ran.

REVIEW ~ Friend Request by Laura Marshall

Maria wants to be friends.  But Maria is dead.

Louise did a very bad thing back in 1989 when she was in school to an unliked girl named Maria Weston which sadly resulted in her missing, presumed dead. Fast forward to 2016 where Louise lives everyday with the guilt and regret over what happened all those years ago Louise Williams receives a message from someone left long in the past she feels sick.

"Maria Weston wants to be friends on Facebook".

Maria Weston has been missing for over twenty years. She was last seen the night of a school leavers' party, and the world believes her to be dead. Particularly Louise, who has lived her adult life knowing herself responsible for Maria's disappearance. But now Maria is back and wants all the students that were in that year of 1989 to have a school reunion so when other past students receive the invite to the reunion, they think that maybe Maria is somehow alive, or is she??

Well, this was absolutely brilliant, I really loved it and couldn't turn the pages fast enough.  We all know how we've benefited from social media over the years with the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and dating apps but also the dangers that lurk of these platforms too as there's been many a story of people been stalked, harassed and even lives have been taken due to suicide.  This book is only too real of what could possibly happen and Laura researched this really well.  I didn't know who to trust or what to believe and I thought I'd had it worked out but was shocked as I got to the part where all was revealed.  When I finished this I did find myself going onto Facebook to make sure my privacy settings where still set to the way I wanted as you'd never know who would try and contact you, even from beyond the grave!!

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Friend Request is available in all good bookshops, libraries and on Kindle and is currently £1.99 at the time of publication of this review.