Review: All Through The Night by M.P.Wright

All Through the Night by M.P. Wright

Publisher: Black & White Publishing

Release date: 14 April 2016

Rating: *** and a half

Back cover blurb: “It’s quite simple Mr Ellington. When you find Fowler, just ask where we can find the truth.” With these words, private detective JT Ellington embarks on a seemingly simple case of tracking down a local GP with a dubious reputation and retrieving a set of stolen documents from him. For Ellington, however, things are rarely straightforward. Dr Fowler is hiding a terrible secret and when he is gunned down outside a Bristol pub, his dying words send JT in pursuit of a truth more disturbing and deadly than he could possibly have imagined. 

All Through The Night is Mark Wright (or M.P. Wright)'s second novel to feature J.T. Ellington, his first, Heartlands was long-listed for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award in 2015.

J.T. Ellington has arrived in the UK from the Caribbean, a man with a former Police career but a troubled background, he is now trying to make a living as a Private Investigator based in Bristol.

When he agrees to help a local woman who runs an orphanage to retrieve some stolen goods, he believes that the job will be a straightforward affair, and that he is doing a good dead.

Unfortunately he couldn't be more wrong.

What follows is a novel that doesn't allow you stop to breath as you follow J.T. Ellington through so many twists and turns that you won't know if you're coming or going!

It's hard to say more without giving away the plot, so I will leave it there, but I will say...

All Through The Night is very much a character driven novel, so if you are usually a reader of the Police procedural novel and are looking for something a little different, then this is definitely for you.

  All Through The Night is available to buy now from; Amazon online and Black & White Publishing.       Thank you to the publisher who sent me an advanced copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Review: Everyone Brave Is Forgiven by Chris Cleave

Everyone Brave Is Forgiven by Chris Cleave

Publisher: Sceptre/ Simon & Schuster

Release date: 21 April / 3 May 2016

Rating: *****

Back cover blurb: It’s 1939 and Mary, a young socialite, is determined to shock her blueblood political family by volunteering for the war effort. She is assigned as a teacher to children who were evacuated from London and have been rejected by the countryside because they are infirm, mentally disabled, or—like Mary’s favourite student, Zachary—have coloured skin. Tom, an education administrator, is distraught when his best friend, Alastair, enlists. Alastair, an art restorer, has always seemed far removed from the violent life to which he has now condemned himself. But Tom finds distraction in Mary, first as her employer and then as their relationship quickly develops in the emotionally charged times. When Mary meets Alastair, the three are drawn into a tragic love triangle and—while war escalates and bombs begin falling around them—further into a new world unlike any they’ve ever known. A sweeping epic Contd...

 

I have been intrigued by this novel ever since I saw a very early proof on Twitter last year. I was on holiday in Malta at the time, and I remember thinking, I must read that!

 

Mary North is at a finishing school in Switzerland when she hears of the outbreak of World War Two. By noon she has signed up to volunteer in the war effort determined to have done so before her Mother can say 'No'.

 

Mary returns from Switzerland with illusions of becoming a spy or attache to a general's staff because of her privileged background and Father's political status. In War her name means little and she is swiftly dispatched to the local school to teach the children before being expected to accompany them to the countryside when they are duly evacuated prior to the Blitz.

 

Unfortunately for Mary after discovering that she loves teaching, she is told that she is not suited to the role and must leave her teaching post. As she fights to reinstate her position she meets Tom, an education administrator. And although Mary's sole purpose is to get Tom to allow her to teach again, she quickly falls in love with him.

 

Meanwhile Tom's housemate Alistair is embroiled in the full force of the War when he enlists and is sent at first to France and later to Malta. When he comes home on leave and meets with Tom, Mary and Mary's best friend Hilda, the intention is for Hilda and Alistair to become a couple, like Mary and Tom.

 

But there is an unspoken and unmistakable attraction between Mary and Alistair, and as the first bombs of the Blitz begin to fall, a chain of events begin that will change all of their lives forever.

 

Everyone Brave Is Forgiven is a beautifully written World War Two novel that exposes the brutality of way, along with the social injustices of the time without detracting from the wonderful love story at its heart.

 

Everyone Brave Is Forgiven is available now from Amazon online and all good book shops.

 

 

 

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

Blog tour: (Review) Abigale Hall by Lauren A. Forry

Abigale Hall by Lauren A. Forry

Publisher: Black & White Publishing
Release date: 20 April 2016.

Rating: *** and a half

Back cover blurb: Two orphaned sisters in a house of secrets… On a foggy evening in 1947, seventeen-year-old Eliza and her troubled little sister Rebecca are banished by their aunt and sent to work at an isolated Welsh mansion. But there are rumours of missing maidservants and a ghost that stalks the deserted halls... Wandering through the mansion’s dusty rooms, Eliza finds blood-spattered books, crumpled photographs and portraits of a mysterious woman – clues to a terrible past that might just become Eliza’s future. As Eliza unravels a mystery that has endured for decades, Rebecca falls under the spell of cruel housekeeper Mrs Pollard, who will stop at nothing to keep the house’s secrets. But can the sisters uncover the truth and escape back to London before they meet a dreadful fate?




Eliza and Rebecca are victims to the horror of the Second World War, their Mother killed by a bomb, their Father driven to Suicide.

They are sent to live with their aunt in London, but she has problems of her own to deal with and Eliza and Rebecca soon find themselves isolated in the Welsh countryside in a creepy mansion.

Forced into work that neither of them want to do, instead of growing closer due to their shared desperate situation, Eliza and Rebecca begin to drift apart. Rebecca has always been troubled but begins to push her sister away.

Used to having to constantly look after Rebecca, once she has become used to her sisters rejection, Eliza becomes curious about the house they are living in. Against the housekeepers wishes she begins to explore its depths whilst no one is looking.

What she finds scares her.

And as Rebecca falls under the spell of the mysterious and vicious housekeeper Mrs Pollard, Eliza is more determined than ever to get them out of the Welsh countryside and back to London where they belong.

Abigale Hall is a beautifully written novel, full of rumours, intrigue, love and loss.

 

Abigale Hall is available now from Amazon online and Black &White publishing.

Don't forget to check out the rest of the blog tour;
 

 

Thank you to the publishers who sent me an advanced proof of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Review: When I was Invisible by Dorothy Koomson

When I Was Invisible by Dorothy Koomson Publisher: Century Release date: 5 May 2016 Rating: ***** Back cover blurb: In 1988, two girls with identical names and the same love of ballet meet for the first time. They seem destined to be best friends forever and to become professional dancers. Years later, however, they have both been dealt so many cruel and unexpected blows that they walk away from each other into very different futures - one enters a convent, the other becomes a minor celebrity. Will these new, 'invisible' lives be the ones they were meant to live, or will they only find that kind of salvation when they are reunited twenty years later?                   Dorothy Koomson is an author that I've only become familiar with recently, I'm not entirely sure where I've been if I'm honest?    But to date, I've only read one of her other novels; the Ice Cream Girls (also brilliant) and I wish I had read more.   Veronica Harper (Roni) knows instantly that she is going to be best friends with Veronika (Nika) Harper when they meet at school. They are bound together not only through their names, but also their love of ballet.    Both are destined to be professional dancers.    Both are torn apart by the actions of someone close to them, tearing their friendship apart in the process.    In the present day their lives could not be more different, Roni has found God and is a former Nun, whilst Nika has been a minor celebrity and is now a cleaner in an upscale hotel.    Their paths are destined to cross again and some might say that fate has drawn them back together.    But can either of them truly forget the past in order to truly live in the present?   When I was Invisible is a gritty, emotional and beautifully written novel about love, loss, friendship, heartache and the ultimate betrayal of trust.   

When I Was Invisible is available from 5 May 2016.

You can pre-order it now via Amazon online.

Thank you to lovereading.co.uk who sent me an advanced proof copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Blog Tour: All Through the Night by M.P. Wright - Author guest post

“It’s quite simple Mr Ellington. When you find Fowler, just ask where we can find the truth.” With these words, private detective JT Ellington embarks on a seemingly simple case of tracking down a local GP with a dubious reputation and retrieving a set of stolen documents from him. For Ellington, however, things are rarely straightforward. Dr Fowler is hiding a terrible secret and when he is gunned down outside a Bristol pub, his dying words send JT in pursuit of a truth more disturbing and deadly than he could possibly have imagined. 

M.P. Wright’s debut novel Heartman was longlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association Ian Fleming Steel Dagger.

All Through the Night is published by Black & White publishing and was released on 14 April 2016.

I will be reviewing All Through the Night in a seperate blog post, please keep your eyes peeled for this :)

J T Ellington; Coming Out Of The Shadows

M. P. Wright had his first book, Heartman, published in 2014 by Black & White publishing. Last year Heartman was long listed in the worldwide Crime Writers Association, Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award. This April the second book in the series, All Through the Night, hits the shelves and is already garnering rave reviews. Mark writes about his characters, influences and the future.

Joseph Tremaine Ellington is certainly a figment of a vivid imagination. Of all the characters in my first book, Heartman, the current one, All Through the Night, and the latest novel, The Restless Coffins, Ellington is the one who cannot be identified as having a single, human person as his inspiration.

The same cannot be said of several other characters, including JT’s cousin Vic, whose aggressive attitude, sense of humour and, dare I say it, somewhat ambivalent attitude to law and order, mirrors my own.

Why is he a black Barbadian immigrant in Bristol? If my book sales matched the number of times I’d been asked that my books would global bestsellers!

The answer is complex and harks back to the books that I first read when I was a teenager and have stayed with me. J. T. Ellington had to be credible, so that involved hours of research. I have spent time in the Caribbean and the southern states of the USA and I have looked into the family histories of many émigrés who travelled to the UK in the 1950’s and 60’s and I was able to build a character that was not just believable, but readers could form a strong emotional bond with.

And the term ‘Bond’ strangely brings us to those amazing authors whose novels set the fire burning within me. I grew up in the arms of James Bond, not the films but the thrillers by Ian Fleming. At the same time I was reading Raymond Chandler, and his Philip Marlowe remains for me the quintessential private detective. In turn Marlowe’s character is reflected in Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade.

Ross MacDonald created Lew Archer, a southern Californian detective who can be depressed and world-weary; he is a worn-down and sardonic character who has to wade through the criminal world, and his credibility shouts from the page. In Philip Kerr’s "Berlin Noir" series, German detective Bernhard "Bernie" Gunther exemplifies the grittiness of the sardonic, hard-boiled investigator in a world he’d simply rather not be embedded in.

Perhaps the most direct influence on the creation of J. T. Ellington has been Dave Robicheaux from the books of James Lee Burke. Robicheaux is a Cajun detective. He’s a widower, recovering alcoholic, family man, highly moralistic and he has a vicious temper. His is a flawed, multi-faceted character and at times he can be dangerous, but such unpleasant and, on the face of it, unpopular traits shed an embracing light on the plots and bring the atmosphere of the Deep South to reverberating life.

I’ve never been keen on police procedurals and if I’m truthful rarely read modern crime fiction writers. Friends and colleagues in the crime fiction world write brilliantly about the intricacies of what goes on in police stations and in the relationships between partners serving on the ‘force’, but I do not have the slightest interest in coppers, serial killers or what goes on in a police interview room (I’ve been in to many of those, I can tell ya) or perhaps its because of my own background and my work at the sharp end of probation, risk assessment and dealing with all types of offenders, that I perhaps see it from a different side. There are police characters in Heartman and All Through the Night, but the emphasis is on character rather than their professions.

In the era when my books are set, the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, racism was rife: it was even considered normal in the psyche of most police officers whose first reaction to seeing a West Indian was: ‘they’re up to no good’. In the case of J. T. Ellington, they are picking on the wrong man; with JT’s cousin Vic, they’re probably closer to the truth than they know. Nevertheless that racist train of thought from a serving police officer no-matter what era was abhorrent and I hope my work truly reflects my distain for racism and discrimination in all its forms within the pages of my novels.

I am Leicestershire born and bred. My family were farmers and I went into the music business and ended up training and working in mental health. What possessed me to write a thriller based in Bristol and in an era when I was still in single figures?

Bristol has for hundreds of years had strong links to the Caribbean. It was a centre of the slave trade and in the middle of the last century became a magnet for an influx of West Indian immigrants, many of whom were badly treated, abused and forced into near ghettoes. It is no wonder that resentment grew in cramped, unhygienic living conditions, and where work was available, but of the most menial and lowest-paid kind. Greedy, smug white landlords made a fortune renting out squalid properties to newly arriving immigrants and with little other opportunity for housing those travelling from the West Indies soon found themselves in tatty two-up, two-down damp tenements, sometimes two or more families sharing a makeshift home and making ends meet on poor salaries whilst working their fingers to the bone in low-grade employment.

The city of Bristol struck me as the right place for JT to live. He was with fellow immigrants in a land where everything was alien, forbidding and where the undercurrent of prejudice bubbled up to become a thread running through all aspects of life.

Next year the third Ellington novel, The Restless Coffins will find J. T. travelling back in the Caribbean and to his home of Barbados. The third book in my planned trilogy sees my wily Bajan finally face old ghosts and take on the corrupt police officers and the organised crime lords who pushed him out of his job and off his beloved island home. It’s the fitting denouement to the three stories. Following on the short stories Wendell Patin’s Pork Pie and Standing in The Shadows with the Ghost of Emmett Till. The next ‘big’ projects will be The Holy Bones Blues, which brings my writing back to a Leicester location. As a Leicester lad, that will be an exciting venture for me.

Don't forget to check out the rest of the blog tour;

All Through the Night is available to buy now -

via Amazon online and all good book shops.

    Many thanks to both the author and publisher for allowing me to be a part of the All Through the Night blog tour.

Review: The Missing by C.L. Taylor

The Missing by C.L. Taylor

Publisher: Avon Books UK

Release date: 7 April 2016

Rating: ****

Back cover blurb: You love your family. They make you feel safe. You trust them. Or do you…? When fifteen-year-old Billy Wilkinson goes missing in the middle of the night, his mother, Claire Wilkinson, blames herself. She's not the only one. There isn't a single member of Billy's family that doesn't feel guilty. But the Wilkinson’s are so used to keeping secrets from one another that it isn't until six months later, after an appeal for information goes horribly wrong, that the truth begins to surface. Claire is sure of two things – that Billy is still alive and that her friends and family had nothing to do with his disappearance. A mother's instinct is never wrong. Or is it?







The Missing is C.L. Taylor's third psychological thriller in as many years and they just continue to get better and better.

When Claire Wilkinson's Fifteen year old son Billy goes missing, her life is turned upside down.

Jake her elder son turns to the bottle, her relationship with her husband is breaking down, and Billy is nowhere to be found.

After Six Months, Claire fears the worst.

At a press conference to mark the six months since Billy's disappearance, things change within the family dynamic and we truly see the stress that the Wilkinson family is under.

As Billy's Mother, Claire is the strongest voice, but Claire Wilkinson is an unreliable narrator.

Usually these frustrate me, but this time around due to the strength of the writing I was as frustrated as Claire was for the answers, not frustrated with her...

Claire is suffering from brain fugues, or disassociative amnesia, her counsellor and G.P. believe are bought on by extreme stress. And Billy's disappearance is not the only thing causing this stress.

Desperate for answers about Billy's disappearance, Claire beings to visit the old haunts that Billy used to tag as a graffiti artist, certain that somebody knows something.

No one is prepared for the what she discovers and it changes, everything...

The Missing is available to buy now via Amazon online, Avon Books and all good book shops.

 

Review: Fowlowe by Eleanor Wasserberg

Foxlowe by Eleanor Wasserberg

Publisher: 4th Estate

Release date: 2 June 2016

Rating: *** and a half

Back cover blurb: We were the Family, and Foxlowe was our home. There was me – my name is Green – and my little sister, Blue. There was October, who we called Toby, and Ellensia, Dylan, Liberty, Pet and Egg. There was Richard, of course, who was one of the Founders. And there was Freya. We were the Family, but we weren’t just an ordinary family. We were a new, better kind of family. We didn’t need to go to school, because we had a new, better kind of education. We shared everything. We were close to the ancient way of living and the ancient landscape. We knew the moors, and the standing stones. We celebrated the solstice in the correct way, with honey and fruit and garlands of fresh flowers. We knew the Bad and we knew how to keep it away. And we had Foxlowe, our home. Where we were free. There really was no reason for anyone to want to leave.

The ‘Foxlowe’ of this novel’s title is an ancestral home, and a commune.

‘The Family’ living there are cultish in their actions and living arrangements, centered around the Solstice, and how the sun drives out the dark and ‘the Bad’; the (perceived) evilness that lives inside us all. 

‘The Family’ is led by Freya and they live simple, idealistic lives. It consists of ‘Growns’ (Grown-ups) and the ‘Ungrown’ (children).

The ‘ungrown’ are not schooled and free to wander Foxlowe’s grounds as long as they never venture outside the perimeter of the family home. 

Green, Toby and Blue are the ‘ungrown’ of the novel, they look out for one another, and all answer to Freya, who can be cruel and violent towards the children.

Green the novel’s protagonist, worships Freya, who could be her Mother – though this is never mentioned.

There is a cruelty and brutality about Foxlowe and ‘the Family’ that is palpable throughout the novel. At first you are not certain why, but then it becomes clear that the adults have made their own decision to live there whilst the children have not.

After a dramatic turn of events that splits Foxlowe entirely, we meet Green outside of Foxlowe, as Jess, where she is struggling to cope with the outside world.

Will she ever learn to adapt?

Will anything ever be the same again?

And can you really leave Foxlowe forever?

Foxlowe is a brilliantly atmospheric novel. Creepy and claustrophic with some deeply flawed characters. It will have you turning its pages frantically wanting to discover its ending which doesn't disappoint.

Foxlowe is available from 2 June 2016.

You can pre-order it now via Amazon online and 4th Estate books.

Many thanks to lovereading.co.uk and the publishers who provided me with an advance copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Review: the Disappearance by Annabel Kantaria

The Disappearance by Annabel Kantaria
Publisher: Mira UK
Release date: 21 April 2016
Rating: *** and a half

Back cover blurb: Audrey Templeton wants to spend her 70th birthday with her children on a once-in-a-lifetime cruise. Neither John or Lexi are overjoyed by a week with their widowed, increasingly forgetful mother, but reluctantly agree. Celebrating at the ship’s famous White Night party, Audrey reveals that although their domineering father left them nothing, when she dies John and Lexi will inherit a life-changing sum. With both children facing financial difficulties, the news is a huge relief. Then Audrey disappears. The search moves from the ship to the Mediterranean Sea beyond, but there is no trace – she has simply vanished. As John and Lexi investigate, clues to their mother’s past emerge – a past in India, of scandal and tragedy – hidden until now. Soon they start to wonder if they ever really knew Audrey, and whether they can trust one another…

 

Audrey Templeton has disappeared at Sea, leaving her twin son and daughter frantically searching the cruise ship for their missing Mother. The trip was meant to be Audrey's 'last Hurrah' her last big holiday, and a celebration of her 70th Birthday.

From the opening where we learn of Audrey's disappearance, we are then transported back several decades to Audrey on another ship, setting sail for India as a young adult to join one of her best friends who already has a life for herself out there.

Audrey's life is turned upside down when she meets Ralph Templeton, a charming, enigmatic and handsome man. They marry quickly, Audrey seduced by Ralph and the promise of a new life in India, so different from her life in England.

From here on we realise that things may not be quite as they seem.

Back in the present day and Alexandra (or Lexi) and her twin brother John are concerned about their Mother, Audrey. Her behaviour since being in a car crash has been increasingly erratic and John is concerned for her safety. Lexi is of course concerned about their Mother, but thinks John is overreacting and that his plans to put Audrey is some sort of residential care are too much too soon.

This novel is told in alternating parts, mainly from Audrey and Lexi's point of view. From the point that we meet Audrey, setting sail in India until the point that she disappears on the cruise, subtle hints are dropped to the reader about what might have happened.

As Lexi and John learn more and more about their Mother's past each begin to wonder about the other, and whether or not they can be trusted. This novel is by no means a fast paced thriller, but it will keep you guessing and hooked until the end none the less. 

The Disappearance is available from 21 April 2016.

You can pre-order it now via Amazon online.

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

Review: Shtum by Jem Lester

Shtum by Jem Lester
Publisher: Orion
Release date: 7 April 2016

Rating: ****
Back cover blurb: The most important things are the hardest to say. Ben Jewell has hit breaking point. His ten-year-old son Jonah has severe autism and Ben and his wife, Emma, are struggling to cope. When Ben and Emma fake a separation - a strategic decision to further Jonah's case in an upcoming tribunal - Ben and Jonah move in with Georg, Ben's elderly father. In a small house in North London, three generations of men - one who can't talk; two who won't - are thrown together. As Ben battles single fatherhood, a string of well-meaning social workers and his own demons, he learns some difficult home truths. Jonah, blissful in his innocence, becomes the prism through which all the complicated strands of personal identity, family history and misunderstanding are finally untangled. Powerful, darkly funny and heart-breaking, Shtum is a sotry about fathers and sons, autism, and dysfunctional relationships.

 

 

 

I'll be honest, I'm not sure where to start, what I can possibly say about this wonderful novel, that hasn't been said already... but I must try! 

 

Ben Jewell is a broken man, in all senses. He has a drink problem, an employment problem, a marriage problem, and a severely autistic son, Jonah, who the local authorities seem to want to fail.

He and his wife, Emma, desperately need the authorities to rethink their decision regarding Jonah's secondary school placement. When Emma suggests faking a separation, Ben is skeptical, but Emma is convincing and so he and Jonah move in with Ben's elderly father Georg.

To say that Georg and Ben have a difficult relationship would be underplaying the situation slightly, but for me, this is where we really get to the heart of the story as we see these three men, thrown together in a desperate situation, struggling for survival.

Shtum is a fascinating insight in to the struggle that millions of parents must face with their local authorities to ensure that the are getting the best education, help and care possible for their beautiful children.

Jonah is a silent voice throughout much of the novel, but we live him through Ben and Georg, and he is a wonderful, wonderful character enhanced by the love that his father so clearly has for him even in the most exasperating of times.

Shtum at time makes for difficult reading, but its subject matter is tackled sensitively, and its a novel that needs to be on everyone's 'to read' lists this year.

Shtum is available now from Amazon online and all good book shops.

     Many thanks to the publishers who sent me an advanced copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Review: A Quiet Life by Natasha Walter

A Quiet Life by Natasha Walter

Publisher: The Borough Press (Harper Collins)

Release date:16 June 2016
Rating: ****

Back cover blurb: Wife. Mother. Spy. A double life is no life at all. Since the disappearance of her husband in 1951, Laura Leverett has been living in limbo with her daughter in Geneva. All others see is her conventional, charming exterior; nobody guesses the secret she is carrying. Her double life began years ago, when she stepped on to the boat which carried her across the Atlantic in 1939. Eager to learn, and eager to love, she found herself suddenly inspired by a young Communist woman she met on the boat. In London she begins to move between two different worlds – from the urbane society of her cousins and their upper class friends, to the anger of those who want to forge a new society. One night at a party she meets a man who seems to her to combine both worlds, but who is hiding a secret bigger than she could ever imagine. Impelled by desire, she finds herself caught up in his hidden life. Love grows, but so do fear and danger. Continued...

Natasha Walter is perhaps better known as the non-fiction author of The New Feminism and Living Dolls. Her first foray into fiction is a beauty and you would not know it is a debut.

The novel opens with us meeting its protagonist, Laura Last, the wife of a missing spy, who has been living with her daughter and (somewhat interfering though well intentioned Mother) in Geneva. To the outside world Laura is nothing but charming, if a little lonely and aloof. 

But Laura isn’t as in the dark over her husband’s disappeared as she seems to be, and she carries a huge secret of her own.

Laura’s story begins some years earlier in 1939 when she crossed the Atlantic by boat to live with relations in London, as the second world war gets underway Laura finds herself unable to leave the City and falls in love with Edward Last who she meets at a party one evening.

It soon becomes clear to Laura that Edward is not exactly the man she thought he was, but this only draws her to him more.

Soon Laura is caught up in Edward’s double life and begins some risky work of her own.

In the novel’s end notes Natasha Walter explains that she was inspired (in part) to write this novel by real life’s of the Cambridge spies, in particular the life of Melinda Marling, the wife of Donald Maclean. Donald Maclean defected in 1951 with his fellow spy Guy Burgess, leaving Melinda behind, pregnant with their child.

I look forward to Natasha Walters’ next foray into fiction and really hope it’s another historical epic.

 
A Quiet Life is available from 16 June 2016.

You can pre-order it now via Amazon online and Harper Collins.

    Many thanks to lovereading.co.uk who provided me with an advance copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Review: This Secret We're Keeping by Rebecca Done

This Secret We're Keeping by Rebecca Done

Publisher: Michael Joseph

Release date: 7 April 2016

Rating: *****

Back cover blurb: One student. One teacher. A controversial story that breaks all the rules. Jess Hart has never forgotten Matthew Langley. He was her first love when she was fifteen -- but he was 10 years older and her maths teacher at school. It ended in scandal, with his arrest and imprisonment. Now 17 years later, a 42-year-old Matthew arrives back in Norfolk with a new identity, a long-term girlfriend and young daughter who know nothing of his past. Yet when he runs into Jess, long-suppressed memories of their love affair begin to be rekindled. But with so many secrets between them, will they ever be able to escape the damage they caused before?

This secret we're keeping is a controversial novel covering the ultimate taboo subject; a pupil - teacher relationship.

And what a brilliant novel it is!

Jess Hart is a successful business woman with her own events catering company. She has a loving boyfriend Zak who wants her to move to London with him, but her roots and history are in Norfolk and she is reluctant to leave.

Will Green has recently returned to the area with his partner Natalie, and daughter Charlotte. Natalie is renovating a house in the area, but Will is nervous about being on old territory, about who he might bump in to, and what they might say to Natalie or Charlotte, as neither of them know that he has spent time in prison.

But Jess does, and after a chance meeting with her, the past comes flooding back to both of them, and we learn that Will Green is Matthew Langley.

Seventeen years earlier, Matthew Langley is Jess Hart's Maths teacher and the pair of them are involved in an intense and forbidden affair. At just Fifteen to Matthew's Twenty Five, Jess is classed as a child in the eyes of the law, and the pair of them know that they would be in serious trouble if their affair should ever be discovered.

But Jess is only a few months short of her Sixteenth birthday and the relationship is so mature and true that they believe they can make it through - if no one suspects them. Matthew Langley doesn't only have Jess' heart though, and a fellow teacher could be about to make trouble for them if she doesn't get her own way...

Written in both present and past tense, from both Jess and Will/Matthew's view points, This Secret We're Keeping is a very different novel from anything that I have read for a while and I absolutely adored it. I am holding out hope that there may be a follow up as I would love to see what the future holds for both Jess and Will/Matthew.

This Secret We're Keeping is available from 7 April 2016.

You can pre-order it now via Amazon online and Michael Joseph.

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

Review: CXVI: Desperate Measures by Angie Smith

CVXI: Desperate Measures by Angie Smith

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing platform

Release date: 13 March 2016

Rating: ****

Back cover blurb: She’s missing – but does she want to be found? It is now three years since Detective Superintendent Greg Woods retired, and his life has been consumed with the desperate search for his former Detective Sergeant, Maria Barnes. This chaotic, and so far unsuccessful quest, has taken its toll on his physical and mental wellbeing. However, he finally receives a knock at the door with what he considers to be his most promising lead. He teams up with a young, spirited and extremely competent hacker, who also holds a vested interest in finding Barnes and his old adversary Faulkner-Brown. What they discover sends shockwaves around the globe and threatens international security. With Woods’ health dramatically failing he knows this is his final chance, success or failure, his last hurrah!

CXVI: Desperate Measures is the third novel of Angie Smith's CXVI Trilogy, and its a cracker!

If you haven't read the first two novels in the series, then this could easily be read as a standalone. But I wouldn't recommend it...

Instead I would thoroughly recommend that you get your hands on the previous two novels and start reading immediately!

Three years on from Secrets Broken, we meet a down and dishevelled retired DSI Greg Woods A broken man, not only from the disappearance of his ex colleague DS Maria Barnes, but also an underlying health problem.

When a young woman turns up on his doorstep claiming to know exactly where Maria is, Woods' first instinct is to throw her out. But she is persuasive and soon Wood finds himself on the way to Antigua with a woman half his age, searching for an ex-colleague.

What follows is a fast paced emotional rollercoaster ride of a novel that will leave you desperately wanting more.

Desperate Measures is the final instalment in the CXVI series. On the one hand, I am extremely sad that this is the last novel of the series, on the other, I am intrigued to see what (if anything) Angie may have up her sleeve next...

Desperate Measures is available now from Amazon online. Thank You to the author who provided me with an advance copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.