Review - The Book of Lost Hours by Hayley Gelfuso

The Book of Lost Hours by Hayley Gelfuso
Publisher: Atlantic Books

Release date: 6 November 2025

Back cover blurb: Escape through time. Save their stories. Make people remember. Nuremberg, 1938. Lisavet Levy's watchmaker father saves her from the Nazis by pushing her through a mysterious doorway. There, she discovers the Time Space - a vast, magical library where the memories of everyone who has ever lived are stored in books. Her father promises to follow, but he never comes. Trapped in the library, she encounters timekeepers, who decide whose memories survive and whose are destroyed. Lisavet tries to save as many memories as she can, but when she falls in love with a timekeeper, the whole course of history could be at stake...

A beautifully written historical fiction/timeslip novel. I will profess to not necessarily understanding all of it, but I absolutely adored it just the same.

Lisavet Levy is a watchmakers daughter. A watchmaker who is known for his expertise, although or perhaps in spite of the fact that he is Jewish.

He has secured his family's passage to America, but realising he may already be too late, he forces his daughter into the time space. A magical library where the memories of anyone who has ever lived are stored.

She will never see her father again, for he has saved her, rather than himself on what turns out to be Kristallnacht. Lisavet will be safe and ignorant of the Nazi atrocities for many years to come.

As she travels through time, she understands that history is something that can be erased from people's memories. Whether it is something that should happen is perhaps a different story.

But Lisavet is a good human being and has everyone's best interests at heart. The question is, how can she keep everyone happy, whilst keeping herself safe, and rewriting the past.

The Book of Lost Hours is available now via Amazon online and all good book shops.

Thank You to the publishers who approved my request via netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Review - The Drop by S.R. Masters

The Drop by S.R. Masters
Publisher: One More Chapter [Harper Collins UK]
Release date: 4 December 2025

Back cover blurb: A high octane fast-paced locked-room thriller with a killer twist. Only the bravest dare to ride the highest roller coaster in the world, Hysteria… You’re a thrill seeker who loves an adrenaline rush. You’re offered the chance to ride a roller coaster. The highest one in the world. A once in a lifetime opportunity, after hours, no queuing, no restrictions. But then the roller coaster stops. 200 metres above ground. You realise no one is around. No one can hear your scream. You’re stranded. There is no help coming. How will you escape?

Firstly, a disclaimer. I absolutely love roller coasters. So that was what initially drew me to this thriller with a difference.

The Drop (and some of it's characters are seriously unhinged. But in the best way...

The story is mainly told from Cady's perspective, a roller coaster fanatic and successful youtuber. 

When an old university friend, Danson invites her to ride a new roller coaster in a brand new theme park that is not yet open to the public, before anyone else in the world gets to ride it, she jumps at the chance.

It's simply an offer she can't refuse.

Even if she didn't have her YouTube channel, her love of roller coasters themselves would have been enough to persuade her. It's an opportunity of a lifetime.

When Cady arrives in the middle east where the theme park is situated, she is surprised to find the rest of the 'no tomorrow' gang, her best mates from university. She hadn't know that any of them were invited, and is thrilled to see them, even if the last meeting between them all was a little 'different'.

What none of them know is that Danson has an ulterior motive for inviting them all together again. And it is more deadly than any of them could ever imagine...

The Drop is available to pre-order now via Amazon online and all book shops.

Thank You to the publishers who approved my request via netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Review - Her Husband's Return by Suzanne Goldring

Her Husband's Return by Suzanne Goldring
Publisher: Bookouture
Release date: 16 October 2025

Back cover blurb: London, 1941: When Frankie receives the telegram telling her that her husband Dickie is missing, presumed dead, she does not weep, or crumble. Instead, she feels a freedom that she’s not felt since her wedding day, the day her husband’s eyes didn’t light up when he saw her walk down the aisle. She wishes she could tell someone the truth about her marriage, but she is too ashamed to share the secrets hidden behind their black front door. Now she is free to live her life, even as the skies above London darken with enemy planes. She doesn’t think about what will happen if Dickie returns…Present day: Charlotte is so happy to move into the tall London house with the black front door. She can’t wait to raise a family in their forever home, picturing a pram under the pear tree in the garden. But when she discovers a chest of drawers filled with unworn baby clothes, and learns that the house was left to a daughter who cannot be traced, she knows she needs to find out more about the old lady who lived in the house before them…As Charlotte delves deeper into Frankie’s life, she finds out that she was hiding a shocking wartime secret. Can an old friend of Frankie’s help Charlotte solve the mystery that haunts her new home, and lay the ghosts of its sad past to rest?

When Charlotte (Charlie) and Dan move into their new forever home, neither of them is prepared for the history lesson about to begin.

The house's previous occupant has recently passed, but had lived in a care home in the years prior to her death, leaving the house inhabited for a number of years.

1940's London, Frankie and Bertie are the best of friends, wanting to do more for the war effort than wait for the men to come home. 

What Frankie is unable to tell her best friend (or anyone else) is that she couldn't care less if her husband returns from the war or not.

When Charlie makes a discovery in the house, she is determined to find out more about its previous owner, so enlists the help of a local café owner and her Mother, who knew of Mrs. F Wilson, the house's previous owner.

Slowly the pieces of the puzzle begin to fit neatly together, but there is still something not quite right.

And then Charlie makes one final horrific discovery which will change Charlie's life forever, as it did Frankie's.

Her Husband's Return is available now via Amazon online and all good book shops.

Thank You to the publishers who approved my request via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Review - the Butcher's Daughter by David Demchuk & Corrine Leigh Clark

The Butcher's Daughter by David Demchuk & Corrine Leigh Clark

Publisher: Titan Books

Release date: 11 November 2025

Back cover blurb: London, England, 1887: At the abandoned apartment of a missing young woman, a dossier of evidence is collected and sent to the Chief Inspector of the London Police for review. It contains a curious correspondence between an inquisitive journalist, Miss Emily Gibson, and the woman Gibson thinks may be the infamous Mrs. Lovett - Sweeney Todd’s accomplice, who baked men into pies and sold them in her pie shop on Fleet Street. Rumours have swirled about Mrs. Lovett since the disappearance of hundreds of unwitting men decades ago -but is it actually Lovett, even if the suspected woman swears against it? As the woman relays the harrowing account of her life - from her upbringing on Butcher’s Row in the unruly and perilous streets of Victorian London to her daring escape from a mad doctor - the correspondence unlocks an intricate mystery that brings Miss Gibson closer to the truth, even as that truth may cost her dearly. 

Journalist Miss Emily Gibson believes that she has tracked down the infamous Mrs. Lovett to a convent. She is determined to uncover the truth even if it costs her her own life.

Meg Evans is bought up on 'Butchers' Row' in the City, helping her Father perform butchery that will both assist and damage her future.

Young Meg impresses a Doctor when she performs a crude amputation after seeing a young boy being run over by a passing cart.

When her Father passes away, the family is forced to sell the business, and Meg is sent away to service, where she encounters the Doctor once more.

At first she is in awe of the mysterious Doctor and his many secret rooms which she is forbidden to enter without prior permission. But she soon realises that the Doctor is not all he seems, and is a very dangerous man. 

She runs, and unfortunately finds herself immediately inhabiting a very different life to the one she has become accosted to whilst awaiting the birth of her unwanted child. A victim of rape by a man that she previously trusted, Meg vows to avenge his crimes. Especially so when her baby is cruelly taken from her at birth.

On the run once again Meg stumbles across an abandoned Butchers' shop, with a Barber shop above it, and the rest as they say, is history.

But how did she come to be in a convent? Well, you will have to read the novel to find out, I promise that you won't be disappointed! This is a brilliantly dark thriller of a historical fiction novel, that I definitely recommend.

The Butcher's Daughter is available now via Amazon online and all good book shops.

Thank You to the publishers who approved my request via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Review - The Surgeon by John Nicholl

The Surgeon by John Nicholl

Publisher: Boldwood Books

Release date: 19 October 2025

Back cover blurb: Your life is in his hands… Exactly where he wants it 👀 When an eminent surgeon is arrested for murder, he knows he didn’t do it. He knows what it’s like to feel a person die on his operating table, but he didn’t inflict the wounds that ended the life of the girl they say he killed.  So, when the real perpetrator comes forward, and he is released, he feels vindicated. What nobody knows – not the officer who arrested him, nor the influencer who petitioned for his freedom, nor the girl who escaped a killer years before – is that while he was incarcerated, he was making a plan. Because revenge is sweet. But murder is sweeter…

The Surgeon is a man who I believe to be a sociopath. So full of his own self importance that he doesn't believe himself capable of wrongdoing.

But the Surgeon has committed many crimes, all of which he has gotten away with, but he did not commit the one that he has been imprisoned for, and he wants out.

When the crime's true perpetrator comes to light and he is eventually released, he wants revenge. 

Firstly there is the one that got away, his first crime's victim who managed to escape his clutches. He has unfinished business with her, and he won't let her get away so easily this time.

Then there is the Detective who helped put him away for a murder he did not commit. His revenge on her must be sweeter than anything he has ever known. He has big plans for the detective. 

The Surgeon is a man who is fascinated with the human body and behavioural traits, and believes that his twisted actions are entirely justified. He is a dangerous man, and must be stopped, but at what cost?

The Surgeon is available now via Amazon online and all good book shops.

Thank You to the publishers who approved my request via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. 

Review - the Psychiatrist by Emma Curtis

Psychiatrist by Emma Curtis

Publisher: Corvus

Release date: 2 October 2025

Back cover blurb: In the leafy suburbs of West London, status is paramount and reputation is everything... Recently qualified psychiatrist Dr Geddes is building her career at a prestigious practice when an unexpected encounter with a young male patient threatens to expose her darkest secret. Lorna Chilcott is delighted to befriend the glamorous Elise, wife of the ex-boyband star she had a crush on as a teenager. But when her daughter goes missing after leaving Elise's house, friendship turns to discord and  accusations fly. A single lie connects these two traumatic events - and its impact will be deadly...

The Psychiatrist was a bit of a mixed bag for me. I really wanted to love it, but for me it lacked a bit of pace, and the characters were so unlikeable that I just found myself not really caring about them.

That said, it was an enjoyable read, I just didn't love it as much as I had hoped. But you might...

Lorna Chilcott was obsessed with D.I.G.B.Y when she was younger, a boy band who's music was probably about as original as the use of their initials to create the bands name... D.I.G.B.Y. were once the hottest boy band around, and their lead singer and songwriter Dexter was every teenage girls ultimate fantasy. 

Including Lorna.

When Dexter and his family move into a house near to where Lorna lives, she can't wait to make friends with Dexter's wife. The extremely glamorous former West End star, Elise. Her daughter signs up for vocal coaching with the star, and Lorna is determined to be part of the 'in crowd'.

Amy [Dr. Geddes], the psychiatrist of the title makes an error of judgement when treating a patient that she knows is wrong, but doesn't realise just how disastrous the consequences will be until it is too late. Is her past also about to catch up with her? And how are these things all linked?

Well, of course you will have to read the Psychiatrist yourself to find out!

The Psychiatrist is available now via Amazon online and all book shops.

Thank You to the publishers who approved my request via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Review - The Witching Hour by Deborah Carr

The Witching Hour by Deborah Carr
Publisher: Harper Collins UK

Release date: 29 September 2025

Back cover blurb: A storm is brewing… Living in Jersey during the Nazi occupation, Briar Le Gros and her mother, Diana, are hiding a dangerous secret. Witchery runs in their blood. One night, as the coven gather, a storm crashes down and, late for curfew, Briar must shelter in the ruins of an old prison. With a flash of lightning she’s brought face to face with Xavier Giroye, a surprising stranger … from 1643. Briar and Diana must send Xavier back to his own time but when the spell goes wrong, Briar is transported to the past with him. Together, they go from Nazi suspicion to evading the notorious witchfinder! The clock is ticking to reset the balance and get Briar back to the present. But the choice is bittersweet; returning home means leaving Xavier, the one person she’ll ever love…

Another very different novel from Deborah Carr. Which I'll admit, I was drawn to because of the author, whose previous novels I have loved.

I am not normally a fan of novels that include witchcraft or those sorts of themes, but trust me when I say, this one is different.

1940's Jersey. Briar Le Gros is the daughter of a witch, and is reluctant to join the coven. She doesn't feel that she is ready. Although she can never quite explain to her Mother why. Possibly, she feels that they already have enough to deal with living under Nazi rule.

Her Mother and the other local witches are out and about, and Briar is visiting a friend when she loses track of time, and breaks the curfew. Forcing her to hide in the local castle grounds to evade discovery.

.

When Xavier Giroye is bought into her life, she begins to question everything. She feels that there is something familiar about him, though is certain that they have never met before. When he says he thinks it is 1643, she thinks he is trying to play some sort of trick on her.

When she realises that he is serious, she knows that she must return him to the past. But she can't do so without her Mother's help. Somehow both Briar and Xavier end up back in the 1640's and Briar is suddenly in danger from the notorious witchfinder.

Now it is Briar who must return to her own time, but how can she do that without her Mother?

The Witching Hour is available now via Amazon online and all good book shops.

Thank You to the publishers who approved my request via netgalley in exchange for an honest review.