Review - Call Time by Steve Jones

Call Time by Steve Jones

Publisher: Michael Joseph

Release date: 11 May 2023

Back cover blurb: Bob Bloomfield is, in the words of his best friend's wife, a 'selfish, arrogant a*sehole', who hasn't spent a great deal of time making friends in his 49 years on earth. But what if he could change? What if Bob could stop the very thing that has made him the man he is, the death of his younger brother, Tom in 1986. If he could save Tom, could he save himself? . . And what if all it took was a phone call?

Call Time is Steve Jones' debut novel, and I really hope it isn't a one off. What a clever, funny book this is!

Bob Bloomfield is a high flying exec, extremely successful at what he does, having largely closed himself off to the outside world and concentrated on work. 

For the most part is extremely unlikeable. His character and barriers built on the trauma of losing his Brother at a young age. 

He is, as his best friend's wife once described him, "a selfish, arrogant a**ehole".

But deep down, if he really took the time to examine his life, Bob is lonely. He has never really gotten over his Brother's death and the guilt and responsibility he feels for that day still remain.

When he agrees to go to fancy dress party with his best friend Scotty, he does so reluctantly and only on the agreement that they will get so drunk that they won't remember a thing the following day. 

Bob's fancy dress costume isn't exactly his first choice, but it was late when they got to the shop, and it comes complete with the ultimate accessory - a brick of a 1980s mobile phone.

Later in the evening he realises it is a working device. For a laugh he dials his old home telephone number, not expecting anyone to answer. Particularly not the person that does.

By the time Bob realises he can use the device to call the past, he is so drunk (and high) that he thinks he's hallucinating.

But the following day when nothing is what it seems, he begins to wonder. If he can contact people in the past, maybe he can stop certain events happening?

What follows are a series of events, where we really see Bob develop as a character and become a lot more likeable as he begins to understand himself as others see him.

I can't say too much more as I don't want to give anything away. But I really loved this book, and I can't wait to read more from Mr. Jones.

Call Time 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 Silk Code by Deborah Swift

The Silk Code by Deborah Swift

Publisher: HQ Digital

Release date: 17 May 2023

Back cover blurb: England, 1943: Deciding to throw herself into war work, Nancy Callaghan joins the Special Operations Executive in Baker Street. There, she begins solving ‘indecipherables’ – scrambled messages from agents in the field. Then Nancy meets Tom Lockwood, a quiet genius when it comes to coding. Together they come up with the idea of printing codes on silk, so agents can hide them in their clothing to avoid detection by the enemy. Nancy and Tom grow close, and soon she is hopelessly in love. But there is a traitor in Baker Street, and suspicions turn towards Tom. When Nancy is asked to spy on Tom, she must make the ultimate sacrifice and complete a near-impossible mission. Could the man she loves be the enemy?

Heartbroken Nancy Callaghan decides to move to London following a betrayal of the worst kind by her (now ex) fiancé and a so called friend. Her Brother is based there, and it seems the logical thing to do to room with him for a while until she can find her feet.

She lands herself a role quicker than expected due to a natural gift for languages, and a cool and sensible demeanor. She had no idea that her Brother was working for the secret services, but of course she wouldn't, because that would defeat the object...

Having landed a secretive role herself, Nancy takes to decoding work at the Special Operations Executive (SOE) immediately and competently. Soon she is deciphering the most difficult of messages, and spotting anomalies and pointing them out to her superior, Tom Lockwood.

Despite an almost instant attraction between them, Tom and Nancy are (at first) determined to remain professional. Nancy herself is reluctant to trust another so soon after her last relationship. But Tom is very different to her ex-fiancé, and she realises that she can trust him to the ends of the earth.

Or can she?

At first believing her Brother is jealous of her relationship, she dismisses his concerns about Tom. But when she is called in to a meeting with senior staff at SOE, she begins to wonder if she shouldn't have been so quick to trust.

What she doesn't know, is that the traitor in question is closer and more devastating than she could ever imagine.. 

A wonderfully researched WW2 novel, that I highly recommend and can't wait to read more from this author. 

The Silk Code 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 Girl with the Red Hair by Buzzy Jackson

The Girl with the Red Hair by Buzzy Jackson

Publisher: Michael Joseph

Release date: 11 May 2023
Back cover blurb: 1940, Amsterdam. You're nineteen years old. The war has stolen your future and your country is under siege. The people you love are no longer safe. Will you stand aside as the menace of Nazi evil tightens its grip on your homeland? Or do you unleash your fury, joining forces with your enemies' enemies, plotting to strike? Because if not you, then who? You're drawn deep into a web of plots, disguises and assassinations. The Resistance trained you for this. You flash your enemies a smile and beckon them closer. Little do they know you've grown used to the weight of a gun in your hand. Soon, they will all know your name . . .

The Girl with the Red Hair is based on the astonishing true story of Hannie Schaft (the girl with the red hair of the title).

Hannie is nineteen, at University in Amsterdam when she sort of falls in to joining the resistance. She has never agreed with the German occupation of her home country but she hasn’t considered fighting back until she understands with horrifying certainty what could happen to her new found university friends who are both Jewish.

Having lived in the countryside prior to university, Hannie hasn’t exactly been sheltered from the war, but her arrival in the city of Amsterdam has certainly opened her eyes to the horrors of the Nazi rule, and the complicity of some of her fellow countrymen.

Determined to help her friends, her rebellion against the occupiers starts in a small way, but she is soon one of the most active members of the resistance putting her life in danger every day, to help save others. 

When the Nazi's ramp up their rouding up of Jews, Hannie only has one solution to save her friends. Take them to her quiet countryside home town, and hope her Mother and Father have the same level of morality that she does.

Hannie's family would not be unique in hiding those in need, there are many many stories from the period of those who put their lives on the line to help other to safety. But I don't believe any if them are as unique as Hannie's.

I can't say too much more about this remarkable book without giving anything away. However, I was surprised to find that this book was the authors debut. 

I really look forward to reading more from them.

The Girl with the Red Hair 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 - In a thousand different ways by Cecelia Ahern

In a thousand different ways by Cecelia Ahern
Publisher: Harper Collins UK
Release date: 13 April 2023

Back cover blurb: Finding your way is never a simple journey… Alice sees the worst in people. She also sees the best. She sees a thousand different emotions and knows exactly what everyone around her is feeling. Every. Single. Day. But it’s the dark thoughts. The sadness. The rage. These are the things she can’t get out of her head. The things that overwhelm her. Where will the journey to find herself begin? 

This is a very different novel to anything that I have read recently, and I loved it.

Alice Kelly is just 8 years old when she notices that everyone has a colour. She calls an ambulance as she believes her Mother is dead, as she is surrounded in a deathly hue. In reality her Mother is comatose having drunk copious amounts of alcohol and passed out prior to her Daughter's arrival home from school.

She doesn't realise her ability until the ambulance crew departs, and the colours surrounding her Mother turn red. She is livid. Alice realises she is able to see emotions as colours, but doesn't fully understand this until much later in life.

Alice has synaesthesia, which is where a percept or concept (such as words, sounds or touch) automatically triggers an experience in another modality (such as colour, space or taste) (link). Unable to cope with bright lights, Alice starts wearing sunglasses to school. When she refused to take them off in a lesson, and the teacher won't listen to her reasoning, she is labelled a trouble maker.

Alice is sent to a secondary school for those who have behavioural issues. There she makes a good friend who sees her for who she truly is. By the time she finishes school and plans to move away, her Mother has become ill and needs full time care, her older brother has moved overseas and her younger brother is in prison.

Despite their fractured relationship, it is up to Alice to care for her Mother.

When she finally leaves the family home to start her own life in London, Alice could be described as a little 'odd'. She wears a mask, sunglasses and gloves wherever she goes, and won't make physical contact with anyone. In an unknown period in time, (presumably pre-covid) this doesn't go down well when interviewees are wanting to shake her hand, and initially she struggles to find work.

Then one day on the tube, something remarkable happens there is a man sat opposite her who doesn't display any colours at all. Alice doesn't know what this means, but she does know that she must find out who he is, and get to know him.

I can't say too much more, as I don't want to give anything away, but I strongly recommend this novel if you are looking for something beautifully written, and a little bit different... 

In a thousand different ways 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 Last Passenger by Will Dean

The Last Passenger by Will Dean

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton 

Release date: 11 May 2023

Back cover blurb: Caz Ripley, a cafe owner from a small, ordinary town, boards the RMS Atlantica with her boyfriend Pete and a thousand fellow passengers destined for New York. The next morning, she wakes to discover that everyone else on board has disappeared. And that's just the beginning. Caz must prepare for a crossing that will be anything but plain sailing ...

Caz Ripley a café owner, and first time cruiser is excited but apprehensive about boarding a transatlantic crossing with the boyfriend Pete. They haven't been together particularly long, but she is old enough to know that he is one of the good ones, and hopes that they will have a great holiday together.

As a seasoned cruiser, before I get in to too much detail I just want to applaud the attention to detail. Who wouldn't want to board a wonderful transatlantic crossing to New York? And those passengers that Caz encounters at dinner - every cruise line has them!

When Caz wakes up to her first morning at sea, she discovers that Pete isn't next to her in the cabin. At first she thinks he just woke up early and isn't too bothered that he may have chosen to go exploring without her, he'll be back soon enough.

It isn't until she leaves the cabin herself that she understands the horrifying truth, there is no one else on board the ship. She is completely alone. But that simply cannot be. How is ship steering if there are no bridge crew on board?

Caz searches the ship frantically looking for signs of life, she enters restricted crew areas, hoping for answers, clues, anything... Then she does the unthinkable and enters the most restricted area of the ship, the bridge, to find it empty. 

No Captain, No first officers, No second officers ....  nothing.

It is difficult to say too much more without giving anything away, but this is definitely a novel that you need to experience for yourself.

The ending is one that will no doubt divide opinion, but I absolutely loved it. Thought it ended the novel brilliantly, and left the door open for a possible sequel. Though that is probably just wishful thinking of my behalf.

The Last Passenger is available from 11 May 2023. You can pre-order now via Amazon online and all good book shops.

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

Review - The Collaborator's Daughter by Eva Glyn

The Collaborator's Daughter by Eva Glyn

Publisher: Harper Collins UK

Release date: 1 April 2023

Back cover blurb: In 1944 in war-torn Dubrobvnik Branko Milisic holds his newborn daughter Safranka and wishes her a better future. But while the Nazis are finally retreating, the arrival of the partisans brings new dangers for Branko, his wife Dragica and their new baby… As older sister to two half-siblings, Fran has always known she has to fit in. But now, for the first time in her life Fran is facing questions about who she is and where she comes from. All Fran knows about her real father is that he was a hero, and her mother had to flee Dubrovnik after the war. But when she travels to the city of her birth to uncover the truth, she is devastated to discover her father was executed by the partisans in 1944, accused of being a collaborator. But the past isn’t always what it seems…

I enjoyed this novel, it was perhaps a little different to what I was expecting, but an enjoyable read nonetheless.

Following the death of her step father (who she has always seen has her father), Fran decides that the time has come to learn more about her real father. She knows that her Mother loved him very much and was devastated to leave Dubrovnik after the war.

There is little information for her to go on, so she decides to travel to Dubrovnik to see if she can find out more for herself. She is unprepared for, and devastated by the truth. Her Father's name is on a list of Nazi collaborators, and far from dying a hero, he was executed in shame.

Fran isn't sure that she wants to know any more, but she does wonder if there could possibly be more to the story. Should she really write him off without giving him a fair hearing? She decides to investigate further, with the help of a few friendly locals.

It is understood that not everyone wants to talk about the war, even decades later, and even less want to talk about the executions that happened, so getting to the bottom of her Father's story is somewhat problematic for Fran.

Luckily she is a strong individual, who has great relationships with her friends and family, who are there to offer a helping hand to support and guide her through the trickiest of personal journeys.

Told in a dual timeline from Fran's perspective in the present, and her Father's in the past, this is a beautifully written novel, about a country in WW2 that I really knew very little about, despite my fondness for this period in time in historical fiction. 

Recommended.  

The Collaborator's Daughter is available to buy 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.