tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30396831801673522762024-03-05T13:07:47.221+00:00Igniteyour love of reading. Books, authors, new publications.Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12841961223771293021noreply@blogger.comBlogger667125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039683180167352276.post-51101482146868026822020-01-01T10:38:00.003+00:002020-01-01T10:38:52.588+00:00Blood Orange<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There's been a lot of stir about this book and for once, I don't think it was misplaced.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKzMGHuS12qf4d7JvG4TsUIKfZNdIZI3F5sbcROfGWKZ_B0OGs_-TU2Tno1msRqmTryuynor_ibTzFk0tTf_I4FxBZ_30Rk3Uzo3U0R2OibMUUy5YDZmRS_6FVlrTp2Y_QRUsoi7sGowQ/s1600/Blood+Orange.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="326" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKzMGHuS12qf4d7JvG4TsUIKfZNdIZI3F5sbcROfGWKZ_B0OGs_-TU2Tno1msRqmTryuynor_ibTzFk0tTf_I4FxBZ_30Rk3Uzo3U0R2OibMUUy5YDZmRS_6FVlrTp2Y_QRUsoi7sGowQ/s320/Blood+Orange.jpg" width="208" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blood-Orange-Harriet-Tyce-ebook/dp/B0791HFBVX" target="_blank">Amazon UK link</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Blood-Orange-Harriet-Tyce-ebook/dp/B0791HFBVX" target="_blank">Amazon US link</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Book description</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">Alison has it all. A doting husband, adorable daughter, and a career on the rise - she's just been given her first murder case to defend. But all is never as it seems...</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><i>Just one more night. Then I'll end it.</i></b><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">Alison drinks too much. She's neglecting her family. And she's having an affair with a colleague whose taste for pushing boundaries may be more than she can handle.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><i>I did it. I killed him. I should be locked up.</i></b><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">Alison's client doesn't deny that she stabbed her husband - she wants to plead guilty. And yet something about her story is deeply amiss. Saving this woman may be the first step to Alison saving herself.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><i>I'm watching you. I know what you're doing.</i></b><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">But someone knows Alison's secrets. Someone who wants to make her pay for what she's done, and who won't stop until she's lost everything....</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">A disturbing, toxic and compelling novel that explores the power of fear and desire, jealousy and betrayal, love and hate, BLOOD ORANGE introduces a stunning new voice in psychological suspense.</b></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My review</span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Alison
is a lawyer and is given her first murder case. It should be a great point in
her career but she’s on a path to self-destruction. Her marriage is on the
rocks, she’s drinking hard and she’s embarked upon an abusive affair. I can’t count
the number of times I wanted to shake her! The tension is high in this story
and the outcome uncertain. The unfolding of the murder case shows parallels in
Alison’s own life and I found these quite dramatic and not over-stated. It
certainly kept me gripped.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">About the author</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Harriet Tyce was born and grew up in Edinburgh. She graduated from the University of Oxford in 1994 with a degree in English Literature before gaining legal qualifications. She worked as a criminal barrister for ten years, leaving after the birth of her first child. She completed an MA in Creative Writing - Crime Fiction at UEA where she wrote Blood Orange, which is her first novel.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just a thought</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.</span><br style="background-color: white; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">― </span><span class="authorOrTitle" style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">Joseph Brodsky</span></span></span></div>
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<b style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></b>Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12841961223771293021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039683180167352276.post-17424222618494876102019-12-29T11:52:00.003+00:002019-12-29T11:52:57.506+00:00Blood Rights<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The fourth in the excellent DCI Jack le Claire murder mysteries set on beautiful Jersey. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1KwDYZOFyAQFaufYT8aL8FY8UjfOgwRfheW8EPwUW0t73hnchk9uOkHeB75GJPJzb7LClwEndJHJWvP9o3GqW-Fl_Q8ebHvAI3lCJ_qjbfh_8Ld7HRainlsa4M6vDYNOdqltWjwIi8uw/s1600/49183874._SY475_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="316" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1KwDYZOFyAQFaufYT8aL8FY8UjfOgwRfheW8EPwUW0t73hnchk9uOkHeB75GJPJzb7LClwEndJHJWvP9o3GqW-Fl_Q8ebHvAI3lCJ_qjbfh_8Ld7HRainlsa4M6vDYNOdqltWjwIi8uw/s320/49183874._SY475_.jpg" width="212" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blood-Rights-Jack-Claire-Mystery-ebook/dp/B082GKZ7B1" target="_blank">Amazon UK link</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Blood-Rights-Jack-Claire-Mystery-ebook/dp/B082GKZ7B1" target="_blank">Amazon US links</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Book description</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">DCI Jack Le Claire is investigating the death of a high-profile resident on the Island of Jersey. But the killing has only just begun.</span></i></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kurt Englebrook has it all. He’s a hedge fund tycoon with a gorgeous younger wife, two grown sons and a loyal team around him. But Kurt has a secret; somebody knows what it is and is determined to make him suffer. Meanwhile, an argument rages over an ancient right-of-way and a historic tower.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kurt’s sister-in-law, Chloe Marsden, is grateful to inhabit his world of privilege and plenty. But what Chloe cares most about can’t be bought.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They've killed once and crossed a line. Now there's no going back.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A brutal death reveals the widening cracks that threaten to break apart the Englebrooks and those connected to them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A killer is on the rampage, but what do they want?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As the deaths mount up, Le Claire must trap a vicious killer, although he has numerous suspects and very few leads.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My review </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A
resident of the island of Jersey is found dead. He’s got enemies and it’s going
to be a tough job for DCI Jack Le Claire to sort out the truth. Life on an
idyllic island isn’t all it seems. Kelly Clayton is excellent at building
tension and throwing in red herrings so that you don’t find out right to the
end what has really gone on. I think this could be read alone, but if you’ve
read the other three in the series you’ll appreciate the background. You’ll
also have some idea what Le Claire has looming in his own past. It’s a very
good story and will leave you wanting the next.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; margin-bottom: 14px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">About the author</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #111111;">Kelly Clayton has lived in the Channel Island of Jersey for most of her life. An avid reader, Kelly has been writing for as long as she can remember but decided to get serious a few years back. The reason why is a story in itself and there is a TV clip that can be accessed through Kelly's Facebook page that explains what lay behind her motivation to get that first book published.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><span style="color: #111111;">Kelly's first novel, Blood In The Sand, was published in 2015, followed by Blood Ties and Blood On The Rock. The three books are part of The Jack Le Claire Mystery series, mainly set in Jersey but venturing to other locations as well. They can be read as part of the series or as stand-alones.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><span style="color: #111111;">In 2018, Kelly co-authored Cyber Sisters, about 4 women, online crime and whether you choose to fall down or fight back. The co-author is her husband, Grant Collins.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><span style="color: #111111;">Kelly has also published a historical romance/murder-mystery, Fortune's Hostage, under the pen-name of Julia Hardy.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><span style="color: #111111;">Kelly also has a busy day job, working in the finance industry. Although she loves what she does, Kelly adores the escapism of writing, of crafting stories and characters and putting them into and, hopefully, getting them out of peril.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><span style="color: #111111;">Kelly, her husband and their three cats live in a home overlooking the sea.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just a thought</span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="text-align: left;">Some stories have to be written because no one would believe the absurdity of it all</span><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">― </span><span class="authorOrTitle" style="text-align: left;">Shannon L. Alder</span></span></div>
Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12841961223771293021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039683180167352276.post-44137320188635648652019-12-29T11:31:00.003+00:002019-12-29T11:31:38.062+00:00The Lost Children<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm a new reader to Theresa Talbot's work but I really enjoyed this book.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoCofTkePtOvxMLbdYsSNCgwgWzj7BtL9XXFerm3eCHBBNI0oLBJKH4yd6EZqz4vXiauNHMiCEOpL6NNMaRswzseblbiAXpcYoS0Hfi4ZGRjtVY5R3LRQL7Rh3vQXqvYEa9vf0rqtLyFs/s1600/51n15GwgVCL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="327" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoCofTkePtOvxMLbdYsSNCgwgWzj7BtL9XXFerm3eCHBBNI0oLBJKH4yd6EZqz4vXiauNHMiCEOpL6NNMaRswzseblbiAXpcYoS0Hfi4ZGRjtVY5R3LRQL7Rh3vQXqvYEa9vf0rqtLyFs/s320/51n15GwgVCL.jpg" width="209" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lost-Children-gripping-thriller-hooked-ebook/dp/B0798S5LN1" target="_blank">Amazon UK link</a></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Children-gripping-thriller-hooked-ebook/dp/B0798S5LN1" target="_blank">Amazon US link</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Book description </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Investigative journalist Oonagh O'Neil's instincts tell her when a story is worth pursuing. And the death of an elderly priest on the altar of his Glasgow church, just as she is about to expose the shocking truth behind the closure of an infamous Magdalene Institution, tells her a sinister cover up is in play.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">DI Alec Davies is appointed to investigate the priest's death. He and Oonagh go way back. But now they're united in uncovering not only what happened to the lost babies secretly born in the Institution, but what happened to the young women that survived by vowing loyalty to one another... forever.</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The doors of the Magdalene laundries hid the most harrowing secrets from the world – secrets Oonagh is determined to reveal, whatever the price...</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'The Lost Children is Theresa's debut crime novel.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My review </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Oonagh
O’Neil, the main character in the book, is an Irish-born investigative
journalist living in Glasgow. The book is a long one but covers so many threads
which the author cleverly weaves together so it seems to fly by. She is
investigating the stories of the Magdalene Houses where young girls were sent to
have their illegitimate babies. They were effectively prisoners and those who
put them in that condition were, in some cases, those who should have been
their protectors. Oonagh becomes embroiled in the story to her own detriment
and the denouement is exciting. I was completely in thrall to this book and
heartily recommend it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">About the author</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Theresa Talbot is a freelance writer, journalist and radio presenter, perhaps best known as the voice of Traffic and Travel on BBC Radio Scotland and as the host of The Beechgrove Potting Shed. Prior to working with the BBC she was with Radio Clyde and the AA Roadwatch team. Theresa worked in various roles before entering the media as an assistant in children's homes, a Pepsi Challenge girl and a library assistant. She ended up at the BBC because of an eavesdropped conversation on a no.66 bus in Glasgow. Her passions include rescuing chickens, gardening, music and yoga.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just a thought</span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="text-align: left;">A book is more than the sum of its materials. It is an artifact of the human mind and hand -</span><br style="text-align: left;" /><span class="authorOrTitle" style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="authorOrTitle" style="text-align: left;">Geraldine Brooks</span></span></div>
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Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12841961223771293021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039683180167352276.post-45586170523379885292019-12-16T11:37:00.000+00:002019-12-16T11:37:25.539+00:00The Assistant<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I love The Ice Twins by S K Tremayne, and when offered the chance to review this, I leapt!</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK1CH9vLkTayYr8tdm0IM7TTHRubVQeoQLWdkTvFqa3tCBVXvXFJhjJNfMEBIp0GAy0Wyx3uIZeHoaPn-eNqzw4RTARk9ItjFRDsiJ-1GHXjKyLJekPdaoS0S53fMjLob8v9eXDKNloVs/s1600/43714671._SY475_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="309" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK1CH9vLkTayYr8tdm0IM7TTHRubVQeoQLWdkTvFqa3tCBVXvXFJhjJNfMEBIp0GAy0Wyx3uIZeHoaPn-eNqzw4RTARk9ItjFRDsiJ-1GHXjKyLJekPdaoS0S53fMjLob8v9eXDKNloVs/s320/43714671._SY475_.jpg" width="208" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Assistant-gripping-original-psychological-thriller-ebook/dp/B07MKXJS8K" target="_blank">Amazon UK link</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Assistant-gripping-original-psychological-thriller-ebook/dp/B07MKXJS8K" target="_blank">Amazon US link</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Book description</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What would you do if your home assistant turned evil?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">She’s in your house. She controls your life. Now she’s going to destroy it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">She watches you constantly.<br />Newly divorced Jo is delighted to move into her best friend’s spare room almost rent-free. The high-tech luxury Camden flat is managed by a meticulous Home Assistant, called Electra, that takes care of the heating, the lights – and sometimes Jo even turns to her for company.<br /><br />She knows all your secrets.<br />Until, late one night, Electra says one sentence that rips Jo’s fragile world in two: ‘I know what you did.’ And Jo is horrified. Because in her past she did do something terrible. Something unforgivable.<br /><br />Now she wants to destroy you.<br />Only two other people in the whole world know Jo’s secret. And they would never tell anyone. Would they? As a fierce winter brings London to a standstill, Jo begins to understand that the Assistant on the shelf doesn’t just want to control Jo; it wants to destroy her.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My review</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I
was engaged by the concept that electronic Assistants in the home (this one’s Electra)
may work with a sinister purpose. I was blown away by the execution of the
story. There was a relentless feel to the way it evolved and I couldn’t see a
way out for poor Jo. It’s a fear many of us have, that we don’t want to put our
life in the hands of a piece of technology. In a way, Jo has had no option as
she’s living in a friend’s flat and these things are part of the deal. The last
part of the book is very exciting. I read the ending breathlessly and I wholeheartedly
recommend this book to you.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">About the author</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;">Sean Thomas is the real name of thriller author S K Tremayne. Sean writes books where real places becoming menacing, and where ordinary people experience something extraordinary.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;">Born in Devon, Sean now lives in London, but he travels a lot in his second job as a journalist, sometimes visiting places which inspire the books. His first S K Tremayne thriller, THE ICE TWINS, was a number one Sunday Times bestseller. The S K Tremayne novels have been translated into thirty languages, and have been bestsellers around the globe.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">~~~</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just a thought</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">A good book should leave you....slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it.</span><br style="background-color: white; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">― </span><span class="authorOrTitle" style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">William Styron</span></span></span></div>
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Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12841961223771293021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039683180167352276.post-57191565043671692892019-12-09T13:42:00.002+00:002019-12-09T13:42:35.632+00:00Silent Winter<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Maggie James gives a real insight into the results of sensory deprivation in this new psychological thriller.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyjB1PZh67HMHfmLRwE96qfJfOryz4tYnx-qA24N6co_t6Zt7s1AK1BG_2tYpnoAy6puMQlI-1CmIA33mq3Q8RXcii1tfMIOuA2sMbwmfIcyZ6tiQa3f9TeGyUtrt-PwLORCZ0TfU-l5A/s1600/48332902._SY475_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="316" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyjB1PZh67HMHfmLRwE96qfJfOryz4tYnx-qA24N6co_t6Zt7s1AK1BG_2tYpnoAy6puMQlI-1CmIA33mq3Q8RXcii1tfMIOuA2sMbwmfIcyZ6tiQa3f9TeGyUtrt-PwLORCZ0TfU-l5A/s320/48332902._SY475_.jpg" width="212" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Silent-Winter-Maggie-James-ebook/dp/B07YLBT768" target="_blank">Amazon UK link</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Silent-Winter-Maggie-James-ebook/dp/B07YLBT768" target="_blank">Amazon US link</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Book description</span><br />
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<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; margin-bottom: 14px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On an icy November night, Drew Blackmore is beaten unconscious, then abducted. He awakes to find himself in total darkness, naked and chained to the floor. Fed just enough to keep him alive, Drew is unable to identify his captor, or the reason for his incarceration. As reality fades, hallucinations take over. Can Drew escape his prison before madness claims him?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Meanwhile Drew's wife, Holly, despairing of ever seeing him again, turns to his brother for comfort. As the worst winter in decades sweeps the UK, she learns of Drew's tragic past. Could his disappearance be connected with that of a prostitute years before? </span></div>
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<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; margin-bottom: 14px; margin-top: -4px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My review</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Drew
is abducted and kept in a dark place for four months, chained to the floor and
with very low food and water. Maggie James brilliantly describes the
psychological effects of this and the hallucinations it brings on. At home, his
wife, brother and sister-in-law struggle to cope too. Drew is released, in a
very bad way both physically and mentally, presumably by one of his abductors.
His imprisonment takes up the first part of the book and the ensuing changes in
his mental and physical health and the family relationships take up the rest.
It’s a very good read and throws up some surprises towards the end. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; margin-bottom: 14px; margin-top: -4px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">About the author</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #111111;">Maggie James is a British author who lives near Newcastle. She writes psychological suspense novels.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><span style="color: #111111;">Before turning her hand to writing, Maggie worked mainly as an accountant, with a diversion into practising as a nutritional therapist. Diet and health remain high on her list of interests, along with travel. Accountancy does not, but then it never did. The urge to pack a bag and go off travelling is always lurking in the background! When not writing, going to the gym, practising yoga or travelling, Maggie can be found seeking new four-legged friends to pet; animals are a lifelong love</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">~~~</span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just a thought</span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="text-align: left;">What is reading but silent conversation </span><span style="text-align: left;">― </span><span class="authorOrTitle" style="text-align: left;">Walter Savage Landor</span></span></div>
Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12841961223771293021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039683180167352276.post-74317282374570170632019-12-02T10:00:00.003+00:002019-12-02T10:00:51.464+00:00The Penmaker's Wife<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is a bit of a departure for Steve Robinson and I really enjoyed the way my view of a character changed as the story progressed.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2fbQ1MyStLsC9zc8pbrRJVQ0VEdsjsucmKcMIm801JO9-ROHxIAe9oJJrLRdGJLN6luLCsQULfmxmDF9bFFLcLj_1n7gAcvY1gvN6HHfJxqn98jRNaGzRKid4S3dAODWvhm5tfynlEAQ/s1600/45034259.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="990" data-original-width="660" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2fbQ1MyStLsC9zc8pbrRJVQ0VEdsjsucmKcMIm801JO9-ROHxIAe9oJJrLRdGJLN6luLCsQULfmxmDF9bFFLcLj_1n7gAcvY1gvN6HHfJxqn98jRNaGzRKid4S3dAODWvhm5tfynlEAQ/s320/45034259.jpg" width="213" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Penmakers-Wife-Steve-Robinson-ebook/dp/B07Q8TBHD1" target="_blank">Amazon UK link</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Penmakers-Wife-Steve-Robinson-ebook/dp/B07Q8TBHD1" target="_blank">Amazon US link</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Book description</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span id="freeText17478012431245129198" style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;"><b>In Victorian England, a mother is on the run from her past—and the truth about what she did.</b><br /><br />Birmingham, 1880. Angelica Chastain has fled from London with her young son, William. She promises him a better life, far away from the terrors they left behind.<br /><br />Securing a job as a governess, Angelica captures the attention of wealthy widower Stanley Hampton. Soon they marry and the successful future Angelica envisaged for William starts to fall into place.<br /><br />But the past will not let Angelica go. As the people in her husband’s circle, once captivated by her charm, begin to question her motives, it becomes clear that forgetting where she came from—and who she ran from—is impossible.<br /><br />When tragedy threatens to expose her and destroy everything she’s built for herself and William, how far will she go to keep her secrets safe? And when does the love for one’s child tip over into dangerous obsession?<br /><br /><b><i>Alias Grace</i> meets <i>Peaky Blinders</i> in this tale of obsession, ambition and murder in Victorian England.</b></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My review - </span><br />
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<table border="0" cellspacing="1" class="myActivity" style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 12px; table-layout: fixed; width: 100%px;"><tbody>
<tr><td colspan="2" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span class="readable reviewText" style="line-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This stand-alone novel from Steve Robinson, hitherto known for his Jefferson Tayte genealogical series, is a real eye opener. I mean I read it with my eyes opening wider as the story progressed. In the Victorian era, Angelica and her small son William really evoked my sympathy at the dramatic opening of the book. She embarks upon a new life which she determines to be all for the good of William. As the story unfolds and the lies begin to turn back on her it becomes very exciting and I really enjoyed it. Some of the twists and turns had a great impact, I felt. It’s a bit of a shocker in places. Strap yourself in for a wild ride.</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">About the author</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">Steve Robinson is a London-based crime writer. He was sixteen when his first magazine article was published and he’s been writing ever since. A love for genealogy inspired his first bestselling series, the Jefferson Tayte Genealogical Mysteries, and with The Penmaker's Wife he is now expanding his writing to historical crime, another area he is passionate about. He can be contacted via his website, </span><a href="http://www.steve-robinson.me/" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #00635d; font-size: 14px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">www.steve-robinson.me</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">, or his Facebook page, </span><a href="http://www.facebook.com/SteveRobinsonAuthor" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #00635d; font-size: 14px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">www.facebook.com/SteveRobinsonAuthor</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-size: 14px;">, where you can also keep up to date with his latest news.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just a thought -</span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">~~~</span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">When we are collecting books, we are collecting happiness </span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">― </span><span class="authorOrTitle" style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">Vincent Starrett</span></span></div>
<br />Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12841961223771293021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039683180167352276.post-63227227434343864102019-11-27T11:37:00.000+00:002019-11-27T11:37:50.762+00:00Bone Snow<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another great horror tale from David Haynes.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSKXXGirCxY4NC-XBzwxNVooHp7FBGVWTFXs-8tb-bmBsN07lH0Sw1Fe9WqyFKLJwwcp4L3tuW7l1Xp0qa54WxB8hWssVSTR2lRIm59srp6h19ZPhy2cmPbFbFdOAp9C1zzkbL9Whw4RY/s1600/Bone+Snow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="317" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSKXXGirCxY4NC-XBzwxNVooHp7FBGVWTFXs-8tb-bmBsN07lH0Sw1Fe9WqyFKLJwwcp4L3tuW7l1Xp0qa54WxB8hWssVSTR2lRIm59srp6h19ZPhy2cmPbFbFdOAp9C1zzkbL9Whw4RY/s320/Bone+Snow.jpg" width="213" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bone-Snow-David-Haynes-ebook/dp/B081X938V9" target="_blank">Amazon UK link</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Bone-Snow-David-Haynes-ebook/dp/B081X938V9" target="_blank">Amazon US link</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Book description</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">When the snowstorm falls and the power fails, Leo Newman’s humble store acts as shelter</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">for a desperate group of people, all trapped there waiting for the dawn.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">As tensions rise among the teenage kids, neighbors, street thugs and an undercover cop,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Leo barely has time to consider the most harmless and innocent ones. The strangers in his</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">basement – the young girl and her baby.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">From the folk tales of Japanese myths, something insatiable has come to stalk the modern</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">world. The freezing snow rising inside Leo’s store is far hungrier and deadlier than anything</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">out in the dark.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My review </span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 18.4px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In a down-at-heel area in an American town, where gang culture is rife, a power failure in a snow storm traps a group of people together in a failing store. One of them, a vulnerable-seeming young woman with her baby, is not who she seems.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 18.4px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I found this a really claustrophobic story. There was no way anyone could escape from the others, trapped as they were by the elements and the failure of the store’s electric security shutters. There’s a creeping feeling that things are going bad. People lose their tempers and don’t understand why they feel like this. People die – horribly. I always enjoy the author’s books and it’s often the element of ancient myth that pulls me in tight. This one did. A really creepy chiller of a read.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 18.4px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">About the author</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 18.4px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;">David Haynes is a horror fan and has been since he picked up a copy of Salem's Lot by Stephen King.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;">He loves reading books in the horror genre as well as in other genres but he always comes back to horror.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;">He writes books in the genre he loves and he hopes the readers enjoy them as much as he enjoyed writing them.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;">He lives in the UK with his wife, son and dog.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just a thought</span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">Books fall open, you fall in </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">― </span><span class="authorOrTitle" style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">David McCord</span></span></div>
Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12841961223771293021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039683180167352276.post-66640212994385422912019-11-16T10:31:00.002+00:002019-11-16T10:31:35.661+00:00The Snow Killer<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are some authors who you know will give you a good read. Ross Greenwood is one of those and The Snow Killer's fantastic.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg56ln4eXcGRVOuM2JIBACaU7iuPLrtb36HmyQmB9X0fuKOTQ47SI5bnnW3oca403gpjGzkwLU_aNldsO54YWHTx6MvWyugu0sPxAI7GsdXbu04zQCOrbweT3butXjRs_EJt7sYVeYajvI/s1600/48255912._SY475_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="313" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg56ln4eXcGRVOuM2JIBACaU7iuPLrtb36HmyQmB9X0fuKOTQ47SI5bnnW3oca403gpjGzkwLU_aNldsO54YWHTx6MvWyugu0sPxAI7GsdXbu04zQCOrbweT3butXjRs_EJt7sYVeYajvI/s320/48255912._SY475_.jpg" width="210" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Snow-Killer-start-explosive-Barton-ebook/dp/B07XLFWZ7D" target="_blank">Amazon UK link</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Snow-Killer-start-explosive-Barton-ebook/dp/B07XLFWZ7D" target="_blank">Amazon US link</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Book description</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">‘Fear the north wind. Because no one will hear you scream…’</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A family is gunned down in the snow but one of the children survives. Three years on, that child takes revenge and the Snow Killer is born. But then, nothing - no further crimes are committed, and the case goes cold.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fifty years later, has the urge to kill been reawakened? As murder follows murder, the detective team tasked with solving the crimes struggle with the lack of leads. It’s a race against time and the weather – each time it snows another person dies.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As an exhausted and grizzled DI Barton and his team scrabble to put the pieces of the puzzle together, the killer is hiding in plain sight. Meanwhile, the murders continue…</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My review </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wrap
up warm and read this!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Part
of the story is in the words of a killer and part is a third person telling of
the team trying to solve the murders. It’s only when a cold case of fifty years
ago comes to light that detectives start to make connections. This looks like
the beginning of a good series. Interesting characters and guess what? The DI
is happily married and has kids. It’s a long time since I read a crime or
police procedural that didn’t feature a maverick with an alcohol problem. Ross
Greenwood doesn’t write clichés. What he has written here is a fast-paced,
action-filled puzzle of a story with believable characters and spiced with a
lot of humour. I want to meet Barton and Strange again!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">About the author</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;">I was born in 1973 in Peterborough and lived there until I was 20, attending The King's School in the city. I then began a rather nomadic existence, living and working all over the country and various parts of the world.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;">I found myself returning to Peterborough many times over the years, usually when things had gone wrong. It was on one of these occasions that I met my partner about 100 metres from my back door whilst walking a dog. Two children swiftly followed. I'm still a little stunned by the pace of it now.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;">Fifty Years of Fear book was started a long time ago but parenthood and then after working in sales management all my life, i randomly spent four years as a prison officer. Ironically it was the four a.m. feed which gave me the opportunity to finish the book as unable to get back to sleep I completed it in the early morning hours.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;">I've now written five further books. My second book, The Boy Inside, was picked up by a publisher, and Lazy Blood is also out. All my books are thought provoking, and told with a sense of humour. Reading the reviews has been great.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">~~~</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just a thought</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="text-align: left;">Get books, sit yourself down anywhere, and go to reading them yourself</span><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="text-align: left;">― </span><span class="authorOrTitle" style="text-align: left;">Abraham Lincoln</span></span></div>
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Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12841961223771293021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039683180167352276.post-85728359106144574452019-11-07T13:25:00.000+00:002019-11-07T13:44:21.099+00:00A Long Way from Home<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This Private Investigator story by Brian Caves is totally gripping. Set in Georgia in the early 1960s, it's a memorable story.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKwNGWFxsvVwfRh3Q90074wzA9NZRru2FslxR8GynbKF_eSdaQFfCayQ-f0iAKrYmNz98CChI9f-B-mI3hVcUcB8KUDaI6IYunHqFPk7f-dqAnV19YfWJNB79VKerUDIlsfA-NL58txaw/s1600/51V8SjNyoCL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="333" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKwNGWFxsvVwfRh3Q90074wzA9NZRru2FslxR8GynbKF_eSdaQFfCayQ-f0iAKrYmNz98CChI9f-B-mI3hVcUcB8KUDaI6IYunHqFPk7f-dqAnV19YfWJNB79VKerUDIlsfA-NL58txaw/s320/51V8SjNyoCL.jpg" width="213" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Long-Way-Home-Brian-Caves-ebook/dp/B06Y3KVCRT/" target="_blank">Amazon UK link</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Long-Way-Home-Brian-Caves-ebook/dp/B06Y3KVCRT/" target="_blank">Amazon US link</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Book description</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14px;">Set in Southern Georgia during President Kennedy's term in office, this novel centres around an ex Chicago homicide detective, Tom Bale, who is struggling to come to terms with his past. Six years ago, his wife was killed in a hit-and-run, the driver never found. Bale has slowly crawled his way back up from an alcoholic slide into depression and one day receives a phone call that turns his world upside down. He owes a debt to a friend and cannot refuse.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14px;">Bale travels a 1000 miles south to the sleepy town of Paradise Creek, Georgia, to find a missing girl. He is immediately at odds in a racially divided town where strangers are not welcome and secrets are kept hidden.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14px;">His investigations take him deep into the swamps to find the missing girl. She has been beaten, raped, left for dead. Bale delves further into the case and finds himself immersed in a web of corruption and lies that lead back to events spanning 15 years. Court trials have been manipulated, other girls have gone missing, never found, and innocent people have lost their lives. And it's down to Bale to stop history from repeating itself, even if it costs him his life.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My review - </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What
a powerful novel this is, set in the early 1960s in the small town of Paradise
Creek, Georgia. It stands against the background of the Civil Rights speeches
of Martin Luther King, who stirred up the demand for equality amongst the black
Americans. This, naturally, threatened the perceived superiority of the whites,
who enjoyed wielding the power and the money. I found it a gripping read. Tom
Bale is an incoming PI from Chicago who is searching for a missing black girl.
It’s a real story of small town corruption, covered up by those with something
to lose. It’s horrifying, exciting and a very good read.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">About the author</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Engineering, sales, marketing and operations, business consultancy, project management, procurement management. Ageing rock god with a three-piece blues/rock/funk band. And writer. Always a musician, always a writer.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Just a thought</span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">You want to remember that while you're judging the book, the book is also judging you </span><br style="background-color: white; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">― </span><span class="authorOrTitle" style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">Stephen King</span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"></span>Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12841961223771293021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039683180167352276.post-44761798547765469352019-10-31T12:12:00.003+00:002019-10-31T12:12:38.554+00:00The Lost Ones<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is the first book I've read by Anita Frank and it's a quality read for this time of year.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7sqD3Y_DMwL61qxkfRdQ0HcnqK-QJBG-eGaAXyh383LkaXVxwDxtd8ef_si6_zZRgN19tmeseX5lCBkPCg9mWQKF_ZTao_xnfEQU_iiF2Bacls__iYalBwAyuGC_LZ0nbCZLei-tyDYc/s1600/The+lost+Ones.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="218" data-original-width="141" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7sqD3Y_DMwL61qxkfRdQ0HcnqK-QJBG-eGaAXyh383LkaXVxwDxtd8ef_si6_zZRgN19tmeseX5lCBkPCg9mWQKF_ZTao_xnfEQU_iiF2Bacls__iYalBwAyuGC_LZ0nbCZLei-tyDYc/s1600/The+lost+Ones.jpg" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lost-Ones-Anita-Frank/dp/0008341222" target="_blank">Amazon UK link</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lost-Ones-Anita-Frank/dp/0008341222" target="_blank">Amazon US Link</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Book description</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; margin-bottom: 14px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some houses are never at peace.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">England, 1917</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; margin-bottom: 14px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Reeling from the death of her fiancé, Stella Marcham welcomes the opportunity to stay with her pregnant sister, Madeleine, at her imposing country mansion, Greyswick – but she arrives to discover a house of unease and her sister gripped by fear and suspicion.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Before long, strange incidents begin to trouble Stella – sobbing in the night, little footsteps on the stairs – and as events escalate, she finds herself drawn to the tragic history of the house.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Aided by a wounded war veteran, Stella sets about uncovering Greyswick’s dark and terrible secrets – secrets the dead whisper from the other side…</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; margin-bottom: 14px; margin-top: -4px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My review </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One
of the best ghost stories I’ve ever read and how fitting that it’s due for
publication on Halloween. Stella a VAD in the first world war, loses her
fiancé. In fact he dies in the field hospital where she was stationed. She’s
deemed to be unstable, even months after his death and her return to her
parents’ home. She visits her pregnant sister, now staying at her in-laws’
residence, taking her strange little maid Annie.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Something
awful had happened in that house. Little by little, we discover the
possibilities then finally the reality. The tension mounts and little incidents
from Stella Annie’s past become more important. I found this occasionally
almost claustrophobic in its intensity and beautifully written. I’d recommend
this book wholeheartedly.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; margin-bottom: 14px; margin-top: -4px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">About the author</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; margin-bottom: 14px; margin-top: -4px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Born in Shropshire, Anita studied English and American History at the University of East Anglia. She now lives in Berkshire with her husband and three children.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">~~~</span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just a thought</span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="text-align: left;">Never put off till tomorrow the book you can read today </span><span style="text-align: left;">― </span><span class="authorOrTitle" style="text-align: left;">Holbrook Jackson</span></span></div>
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Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12841961223771293021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039683180167352276.post-83677446836012705192019-10-28T11:36:00.000+00:002019-10-28T11:36:00.039+00:00Maureen's (Not So Great) British Cake Off<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another in the Maureen series, but you can read it as a stand-alone. It's short but funny. How do they keep getting better?</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXm4YctCq6xjaUZkBlzK6Q7kI-e4namkmYZjhiG0-4ka5Fx5Ovp4c6qS_w5D6rGGriJw3R9awokvqVV3dSIGO6L-HrUjC_XAiFqjv0u8nuw-6SapGo4w4sHfO55wJvM0iSQjISgDO1UnI/s1600/48588835._SX318_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="464" data-original-width="318" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXm4YctCq6xjaUZkBlzK6Q7kI-e4namkmYZjhiG0-4ka5Fx5Ovp4c6qS_w5D6rGGriJw3R9awokvqVV3dSIGO6L-HrUjC_XAiFqjv0u8nuw-6SapGo4w4sHfO55wJvM0iSQjISgDO1UnI/s320/48588835._SX318_.jpg" width="219" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Maureens-Not-Great-British-Cake-ebook/dp/B07ZMMRRY3" target="_blank">Amazon UK link</a></span><br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Maureens-Not-Great-British-Cake-ebook/dp/B07ZMMRRY3" target="_blank">Amazon US link</a><br />
<br />
Book description<br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">The smash hit comedy character returns in a brand new novella.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Maureen finally has her new garden and she sees the perfect chance to show it off by hosting a cake-baking contest for her friends.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Unfortunately, the guests (both invited and uninvited) seem determined not to allow the event to pass smoothly…</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">My review </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I’m
a great fan of Maureen’s and in my opinion these stories are getting better
each time. Mo has a new gardener and the place has never looked so good. It
seems a shame to waste it. She decides to hold a garden party to include a
baking contest. Picture the tent, the steely gaze of Paul Hollywood, the critical
but kind observations of Pru Leith. Well, it’s nothing like that. A pleasant
dream becomes a nightmare and her friends Louisa and Tim, surprisingly, still
help her out of her self-inflicted problems. Read it – it’s a laugh.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Author details</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;">Jonathan Hill is an author from Manchester, UK.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;">His work isn't confined to one genre, but he has already published a number of gay literary fiction books to high critical acclaim. His debut novel 'FAG', a hard-hitting story set in an English boarding school in the 1930s, was named as the overall winner in the Self-Published and Small Press 2014 Book Awards.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;">He has also penned the hit comedy series of Maureen books, in addition to numerous short stories and 100-word drabbles. Jonathan firmly believes that writing should not only entertain but also enhance and change the way readers view the world.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;">When he's not writing and working as a pharmacist, he enjoys painting, photography and going to the theatre.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">~~~</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">Just a thought </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">When we are collecting books, we are collecting happiness </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">― </span><span class="authorOrTitle" style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">Vincent Starrett</span></span></span></div>
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<br />Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12841961223771293021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039683180167352276.post-3679370706328483872019-10-20T10:39:00.002+01:002019-10-20T10:39:49.815+01:00Savage Children<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Third in a cracking Thriller/Adventure/Crime series by Peter Boland. The characters just spark off one another.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzSnCdRs6MPivgZ1eDs_P3EXfRncl2fbSCDIZ8JTjpn12leyz-2R9aJgpwZDWkIn80OUjjJ-wiKgc1cQpJHV_yM54Hi-OcQj0qa3l7la6x-QJ7gucGDUx2mmXfofXrNlcBhlttAAjufvs/s1600/47568288._SY475_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="297" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzSnCdRs6MPivgZ1eDs_P3EXfRncl2fbSCDIZ8JTjpn12leyz-2R9aJgpwZDWkIn80OUjjJ-wiKgc1cQpJHV_yM54Hi-OcQj0qa3l7la6x-QJ7gucGDUx2mmXfofXrNlcBhlttAAjufvs/s320/47568288._SY475_.jpg" width="200" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Savage-Children-John-Action-Thriller-ebook/dp/B07VYTJ1LQ" target="_blank">Amazon UK link</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Savage-Children-John-Action-Thriller-ebook/dp/B07VYTJ1LQ" target="_blank">Amazon US link</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Book description </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Children are disappearing from London parks. Caught on CCTV, they go in but never come out again…</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Days after each disappearance, the distraught parents receive a hand-drawn picture of their child as an angel. A sign they’ll never see them again. The police have no clues or leads. All they have is a nickname for the abductor – the Archangel.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">When Savage’s neighbour’s ten-year-old son Callum becomes a victim, he vows to find him, and catch this Archangel. Savage has his headstrong friend Tannaz to help him. This time it’s going to take more than her brilliant computer skills to find the truth. They’ll have to enlist the help of some new friends – and some old enemies.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">As more children go missing, Savage realises the Archangel is a formidable adversary. Clever, elusive and terrifying. Savage also has the police on his back, watching his every move. The deeper Savage becomes involved, the more he realises all is not what it seems…</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My review - </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Savage and his side-kick, the computer-whiz Tannaz, are on the search for someone kidnapping children. None have been returned and there are real fears for their lives. They become involved because the lad who lives next door to Savage is abducted. Police arrest him under suspicion as he often played football with the lad after school. This is a great story – Savage’s SAS training means he doesn’t back down even with a gang, and Tannaz is an expert hacker. She finds evidence but they can’t pass it to the police as she shouldn’t have it! It’s a rollicking good crime story and very exciting. I love this series.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">About the author</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;">After studying to be an architect, Pete realised he wasn't very good at it. He liked designing buildings he just couldn't make them stand up, which is a bit of a handicap in an industry that likes to keep things upright. So he switched to advertising, writing ads for everything from cruise lines to zombie video games.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;">After becoming disillusioned with working in ad agencies, he switched to writing thriller novels (or was it because he just wanted to work at home in his pyjamas?). He soon realised there's no magic formula. You just have to put one word in front of the other (and keep doing that for about a year). It also helps if you can resist the lure of surfing, playing Nintendo Switch with his son, watching America's Next Top Model with his daughter and drinking beer in a garden chair.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;"><br /></span></span>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">~~~</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">Just a thought </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">A book read by a thousand different people is a thousand different books</span><br style="background-color: white; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">― </span><span class="authorOrTitle" style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">Andrei Tarkovsky</span></span></div>
Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12841961223771293021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039683180167352276.post-44821534959809823052019-10-19T12:10:00.001+01:002019-10-19T12:10:14.937+01:00The Scent of Guilt<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Second in the DI Bliss series, this one really kept me turning the pages.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjABIs6sF90ukdmnH7WD7ocNBwGM-SmeGKd8qSefSrSXk_WNGNdDGcJJ-dHqh2r3ii7uSk9Y4HM8CY31lJ7rai88IwIurxXhjGkS6VlM_m4B3Y1lgryY11ZXK9D3FHqRuHBP_zT9dUfQhw/s1600/38120663.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="379" data-original-width="256" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjABIs6sF90ukdmnH7WD7ocNBwGM-SmeGKd8qSefSrSXk_WNGNdDGcJJ-dHqh2r3ii7uSk9Y4HM8CY31lJ7rai88IwIurxXhjGkS6VlM_m4B3Y1lgryY11ZXK9D3FHqRuHBP_zT9dUfQhw/s320/38120663.jpg" width="215" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Scent-Guilt-serial-killer-thriller-ebook/dp/B079H2PZLV" target="_blank">Amazon UK link</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Scent-Guilt-serial-killer-thriller-ebook/dp/B079H2PZLV" target="_blank">Amazon US link</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Book description</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Twelve years after he left Peterborough under a cloud, DI Bliss returns to the city and the major crimes team. Having spent years policing organised crime, Bliss is plunged straight into the heart of a serial murder investigation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Meanwhile, Penny Chandler has been promoted to DS and has been working in</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">London on the Met’s sexual crimes team. But when two rapes are reported on her old patch in Peterborough, Chandler volunteers to interview the victims.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Chandler joins the hunt for the attacker and soon notices a possible link between the rapes and Bliss’s murder investigation. Could the same man be responsible?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just as both cases seem to stall, a call comes in from an ex-policeman who knows of unsolved cases in the USA with a similar MO. Bliss finds himself travelling to California to hunt for a killer whose reach may have stretched further than anyone could possibly imagine.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But in order to catch the murderer, Bliss must discover the killer’s motive. A motive which should have remained buried in the past…</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My review -</span></div>
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<span style="color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is the second book featuring DI Jimmy Bliss. His sidekick from the first book, DS Penny Chandler, is on secondment but returns to pursue her own case. Naturally, they end up working together and it involves a trip to the States. The link is that the victims report a strong and vile body odour from their attacker. The characters are believable and the banter between them is good. The tension was well built and the red herrings had me fooled. A very enjoyable read.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">About the author</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #111111;">Tony J Forder is the author of the critically acclaimed and best-selling crime thriller series featuring detectives Jimmy Bliss and Penny Chandler. The first four books, Bad to the Bone, The Scent of Guilt, If Fear Wins, and The Reach of Shadows, were followed by The Death of Justice on 9 September 2019.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><span style="color: #111111;">Tony's dark, psychological crime thriller, Degrees of Darkness, featuring ex-detective Frank Rogers, was also published by Bloodhound Books. This is a stand-alone novel, and delves into the mind of a serial-killer.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><span style="color: #111111;">Scream Blue Murder was published in November 2017, and received praise from many, including fellow authors Mason Cross, Matt Hilton and Anita Waller. A sequel, Cold Winter Sun, was released in November 2018.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><span style="color: #111111;">Tony is now a full-time writer and lives with his wife in Peterborough, UK.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just a thought</span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="text-align: left;">The library is like a candy store where everything is free </span><span style="text-align: left;">― </span><span class="authorOrTitle" style="text-align: left;">Jamie Ford,</span></span></div>
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Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12841961223771293021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039683180167352276.post-78592900225686738292019-10-10T10:48:00.001+01:002019-10-10T10:50:14.131+01:00The Grace Year<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My first novel from Kim Liggett, The Grace Year, is a thundering good read.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpBnr_j6NShWwrqegfNGRSsVe31nDdDLWFblI4DLh6u9C8GuX5raCsx-gb_tWo3isQrnm_G2PEryeh-C7XmL3B8xwGDl8U883LkGo-_A5IS8V8GXkul3QbIMJgiekf4vgSF0dvzcQe_y8/s1600/43865368.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="410" data-original-width="255" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpBnr_j6NShWwrqegfNGRSsVe31nDdDLWFblI4DLh6u9C8GuX5raCsx-gb_tWo3isQrnm_G2PEryeh-C7XmL3B8xwGDl8U883LkGo-_A5IS8V8GXkul3QbIMJgiekf4vgSF0dvzcQe_y8/s320/43865368.jpg" width="199" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Grace-Year-Kim-Liggett/dp/1529100593" target="_blank">Amazon UK link</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Grace-Year-Kim-Liggett/dp/1529100593" target="_blank">Amazon US link</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Book description</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">No one speaks of the grace year.</i><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">It's forbidden.</i><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">We're told we have the power to lure grown men from their beds, make boys lose their minds, and drive the wives mad with jealousy. That's why we're banished for our sixteenth year, to release our magic into the wild before we're allowed to return to civilization.</i><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">But I don't feel powerful.</i><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I don't feel magical.</i><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Tierney James lives in an isolated village where girls are banished at sixteen to the northern forest to brave the wilderness - and each other - for a year. They must rid themselves of their dangerous magic before returning purified and ready to marry - if they're lucky.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">It is forbidden to speak of the grace year, but even so every girl knows that the coming year will change them - if they survive it...</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><i>The Grace Year </i>is </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><i>The Handmaid's Tale </i></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">meets <i>Lord of the Flies </i>- a page-turning feminist dystopia about a young woman trapped in an oppressive society, fighting to take control of her own life.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My review</span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I
absolutely love this book. I can see people drawing comparisons with Golding’s
Lord of the Flies but the boys were cast up on their island by accident. In The
Grace Year, all girls in their teens spend a year as a deliberately isolated group
in order to ‘rid them of their magic’. There are poachers in the vicinity to
pick off those girls who don’t make it back – often a high number. I enjoyed
the way the women were portrayed, both before and after the Grace Year in
question. It wasn’t simply the way they were downtrodden, but the underlying
conspiracy of women and their hidden strengths. It was easy to engage with the
characters, to take sides and to root for those you fell in love with. Tierney,
the star of the book, is determined to be herself. The way she does it is
exciting and marvellous. I became totally absorbed in this world and I highly
recommend the book.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Thanks
to Netgalley for the opportunity to read it before publication.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">About the author</span></span></div>
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<span id="freeTextContainerauthor6693411"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Kim Liggett, originally from the rural midwest, moved to New York City to pursue a career in the arts. She's the author of Blood and Salt, Heart of Ash, The Last Harvest (Bram Stoker Award Winner), The Unfortunates, and The Grace Year. Kim spends her free time studying tarot and scouring Manhattan for rare vials of perfume and the perfect egg white cocktail.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Just a thought</span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">You want to remember that while you're judging the book, the book is also judging you </span><br style="font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;" /><span style="font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">― </span><span class="authorOrTitle" style="font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">Stephen King,</span></span></div>
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<b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></b>Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12841961223771293021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039683180167352276.post-65130238925235349972019-10-08T10:35:00.001+01:002019-10-08T10:35:08.957+01:00Fiona and the Whale<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This book by Hannah Lynn is a delight to read. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Ym8O34InHT25U1dkpVgKKKp0OHYHPrajG1RU-GGr0ZucKE3ZzOZ8m9RujOVvpMYQXmWBw-OaPYdvOVtc8kfaa-A207QKO3EvwaChDB8hou7fNPw36SmATBBTr5xhZN-c-dMjaHKguWQ/s1600/48213130._SY475_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="310" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Ym8O34InHT25U1dkpVgKKKp0OHYHPrajG1RU-GGr0ZucKE3ZzOZ8m9RujOVvpMYQXmWBw-OaPYdvOVtc8kfaa-A207QKO3EvwaChDB8hou7fNPw36SmATBBTr5xhZN-c-dMjaHKguWQ/s320/48213130._SY475_.jpg" width="208" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fiona-Whale-uplifting-romance-whale-ebook/dp/B07XWSRRT9" target="_blank">Amazon UK link</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Fiona-Whale-uplifting-romance-whale-ebook/dp/B07XWSRRT9" target="_blank">Amazon US link</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Book description</span><br />
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<h3 style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.24; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 4px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">
<strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">With her life on the rocks, it is going to take a whale sized miracle to keep her afloat.</span></strong></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Event planner Fiona Reeves did not have her husband's sudden departure on her schedule. However, she’s certain that it's only a hiccup and he'll be back in no time, begging for forgiveness. Fortunately there’s a distraction of mammoth proportions swimming in the River Thames. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Absorbed by the story of Martha the sperm whale, Fiona attempts to carry on life as usual as she awaits her husband's return. However, nothing can prepare her for the dramatic turn of events that throw her life into ever greater turmoil. The road ahead has many paths and for Fiona it’s time to sink or swim.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My review -</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This
is the story of a woman in denial about the fact that her husband has left her.
She’s convinced that, so long as she keeps on as normal, running her business,
he’ll return. When a whale is stranded in the Thames, her priorities change
completely. This was a book in which there was plenty of action, not all good,
but I couldn’t help turning the pages to find out what happened. The whole book
is very satisfying and I enjoyed it a great deal.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">About the author</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #111111;">Hannah Lynn is an award-winning novelist. Publishing her first book, Amendments - a dark, dystopian speculative fiction novel, in 2015, she has since gone on to write The Afterlife of Walter Augustus - a contemporary fiction novel with a supernatural twist - which won the 2018 Kindle Storyteller Award and the delightfully funny and poignant Peas and Carrots series.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><span style="color: #111111;">While she freely moves between genres, her novels are recognisable for their character driven stories and wonderfully vivid description.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><span style="color: #111111;">She is currently working on a YA Vampire series and a reimaging of a classic Greek myth.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><span style="color: #111111;">Born in 1984, Hannah grew up in the Cotswolds, UK. After graduating from university, she spent ten years as a teacher of physics, first in the UK and then around Asia. It was during this time, inspired by the imaginations of the young people she taught, she began writing short stories for children, and later adult fiction. Now as a teacher, writer, wife and mother, she is currently living in the Austrian Alps.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just a thought</span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="text-align: left;">Books and doors are the same thing. You open them, and you go through into another world </span><span style="text-align: left;">― </span><span class="authorOrTitle" style="text-align: left;">Jeanette Winterson</span></span></div>
Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12841961223771293021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039683180167352276.post-66208622189337535012019-10-06T11:42:00.000+01:002019-10-06T11:42:29.654+01:00Births, Marriages and Death<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Debut novelist Will Templeton has produced a winner here.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNtSWRcKG7Z2dOPHC3dZ4T8hBetx0h3auItJ8dyXU31O_NTRo2EVJoBaIpcZLObLlDizfF4XYUCkrCEoO4AjeUKHt-PfLfcFlohHXe1HzYyWMg9oeOPGhoYwEOHMj6AbfVV8ghZ1wMV9o/s1600/48347691._SX318_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="318" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNtSWRcKG7Z2dOPHC3dZ4T8hBetx0h3auItJ8dyXU31O_NTRo2EVJoBaIpcZLObLlDizfF4XYUCkrCEoO4AjeUKHt-PfLfcFlohHXe1HzYyWMg9oeOPGhoYwEOHMj6AbfVV8ghZ1wMV9o/s320/48347691._SX318_.jpg" width="226" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Births-Marriages-Death-Will-Templeton-ebook/dp/B07YN91H9K" target="_blank">Amazon UK link</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Births-Marriages-Death-Will-Templeton-ebook/dp/B07YN91H9K" target="_blank">Amazon US link</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Book description</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Edward Maxey, Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages for a town in South Yorkshire, is approached by distressed Spanish girl Alicia for help in finding her erstwhile lover, and is so captivated by her childlike naivety and vulnerability that he is moved to assist her. When the man in question is found dead she becomes the prime suspect and Maxey himself is implicated. Convinced of the girl’s innocence Maxey jeopardises his career and his family by shielding Alicia from the attentions of the police, even though one of the detectives on the case is Maxey’s lifelong friend, Detective Sergeant Luke Preston. Wading through a maze of suspects and confusion Preston must juggle this investigation alongside the search for a group of missing children, whose safety is increasingly at risk.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My review -</span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This
is a fantastic debut novel, involving two best mates, one, Preston, a Detective
Inspector and the other, Maxey, a Registrar. There’s been a murder and a messy
one too. The victim had had an affair with a young girl in Spain when ‘on
business’ and she’s been writing to him. He’d given her his friend’s address so
she came to visit the wrong person. The friend’s son has been sucked into a
gang and involved in criminal activity – and other things. These two groups
finally mesh together in a clever bit of plotting. But Maxey finds himself
hiding important evidence from his friend. Can their friendship survive? Who
thought being a registrar could be so dangerous an occupation? I found this a
real page-turner of a book and I look forward to more from Will Templeton.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">About the author</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Many years ago Will Templeton worked briefly in the tax collectors' office, and, deciding that wasn't for him, he then tried his hand at such varied vocations as hairdresser, bricklayer and mechanic, before finally finding a place at Doncaster Register Office. He stayed there for over thirty years, working his way up from Receptionist to Superintendent Registrar, eventually throwing it all in to become a full-time scriptwriter. Over the years he has also written many plays which have been performed to glowing reviews. This is his first novel.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just a thought</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">You have to remember that it is impossible to commit a crime while reading a book -</span><br style="background-color: white; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">― </span><span class="authorOrTitle" style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">John Waters</span></span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"></span>Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12841961223771293021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039683180167352276.post-64342925945694469932019-10-02T09:45:00.000+01:002019-10-02T09:45:07.420+01:00Dig Two Graves<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">First of a series by Keith Nixon and it's off to a cracking start.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVDZb-oXwNJ2aUfIQ-6EqAQ4zLYgbPHkOBtjRe_ZuwMyzR_k24tMi66fH36Wn9DkOmUA_-KviBz7D3MVZNrBnOE279ycp6YZALdDhrSzGNp26GEPWZ3HSzMoKuZZKnCG1PTNlDn0rPQFk/s1600/46656833._SY475_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="304" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVDZb-oXwNJ2aUfIQ-6EqAQ4zLYgbPHkOBtjRe_ZuwMyzR_k24tMi66fH36Wn9DkOmUA_-KviBz7D3MVZNrBnOE279ycp6YZALdDhrSzGNp26GEPWZ3HSzMoKuZZKnCG1PTNlDn0rPQFk/s320/46656833._SY475_.jpg" width="204" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dig-Two-Graves-Gripping-Thriller-ebook/dp/B07J65KWZX" target="_blank">Amazon UK link</a></span><br />
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Dig-Two-Graves-Gripping-Thriller-ebook/dp/B07J65KWZX" target="_blank">Amazon US link</a><br />
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Book description<br />
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<b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">A cold, broken teenager lies beneath the looming shadow of his apartment building in an apparent suicide.</b><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Detective Gray stares, with tired eyes, at the body of Nick Buckingham, wondering why, at the age of 16, he would see no other choice but to jump from his balcony in such a final act ... but more importantly, wondering why this teenager, who he has never met, has Detective Solomon Gray's phone number stored in his phone ...</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Facing his demons, follow Detective Sergeant Solomon Gray as he tries to unravel a murky world of lies and corruption to find the answers he's desperate for.</b><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">My review </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This
is only my second Keith Nixon book but he tells a great story. There are enough
c</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">haracters (but not enough to confuse you) and plenty going on. The title comes
from a saying by Confucius: when you embark on revenge, dig two graves. This
tells you that things won’t go straightforwardly for someone. I found it fast
paced, engaging and I felt for the main character, Solomon Gray – and others in
the story. It’s the first of a series and it certainly makes me want to find
out more. Highly recommended.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">About the author</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;">Keith Nixon is the best selling author of fourteen novels, including the Margate based Solomon Gray series with 200,000 copies in circulation and reached no.1 on Amazon in the UK, US, Canada and Australia.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;">Keith lived near the gritty seaside town of Margate, where all his novels are based, for 17 years before relocating to the edge of the Peak District with his family where he lives today.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just a thought</span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind </span><br style="background-color: white; text-align: left;" /><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">― </span><span class="authorOrTitle" style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">James Russell Lowell</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"></span>Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12841961223771293021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039683180167352276.post-51341413781329597852019-09-30T10:14:00.002+01:002019-09-30T10:14:25.999+01:00Crime Bites Volume 2<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A second collection of excellent short stories from Susan Handley. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm9Ya7_ckYLyX2oabKxpTuSC0bOXLQLG0duSQpjBJbNLSzXrvO7B79ily11OM3yo5ZFJnOosiGx7NUFHV9_xhSkGGFaQKiSPSeoH-rn7kLz-paPr8jIPH97D4VlGd0AcOb9yRmq5xp3EI/s1600/81G9PPCjlvL._AC_UY218_ML3_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="218" data-original-width="136" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm9Ya7_ckYLyX2oabKxpTuSC0bOXLQLG0duSQpjBJbNLSzXrvO7B79ily11OM3yo5ZFJnOosiGx7NUFHV9_xhSkGGFaQKiSPSeoH-rn7kLz-paPr8jIPH97D4VlGd0AcOb9yRmq5xp3EI/s1600/81G9PPCjlvL._AC_UY218_ML3_.jpg" /></span></a></div>
<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Crime-Bites-delicious-collection-bite-size-ebook/dp/B07XSHY6QR" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Amazon UK link</span></a><div>
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Crime-Bites-delicious-collection-bite-size-ebook/dp/B07XSHY6QR" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Amazon US link</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Book description</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">A pick and mix collection of short stories designed to be devoured in one sitting. Put them on your phone or tablet and never be stuck for something to satisfy your appetite for crime.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">With stories ranging from light bites, where crime is served with a dollop of humour, to dark and delicious stories designed to get the pulse racing, there’s something to satisfy every palate.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My review </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In
this second ‘menu’ from Susan Handley we again have some unforgettable short
stories. Susan’s style is very readable and the tales have a kick at the end.
Many of them are quite funny too. If you’re a fan of shorts stories and crime
you are sure to enjoy this collection. I didn’t find a poor one in there.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">About the author</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;">Susan Handley grew up in the Midlands and despite a love of literature, and crime fiction in particular, she never dreamt of being able to carve out a career as a published writer. But the desire to write never left her and after years of writing by night she has at last been able to share the results of her efforts.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;">Susan now lives in a small village in rural Kent with her husband and three cats. When she's not indulging in her love of writing crime fiction she loves walking (the hillier the better), bike riding (the flatter the better) and tending her veggie patch.</span> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just a thought</span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">Books fall open, you fall in </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">― </span><span class="authorOrTitle" style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">David McCord</span></span></div>
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Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12841961223771293021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039683180167352276.post-23982828110025503332019-09-29T11:37:00.001+01:002019-09-29T11:37:19.614+01:00The Girl at the Window<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another great book by Rowan Coleman. I love it when the strands come together like this.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1DLowfdSkeVpQ5_W2Z_8-2xPjAyM9LV9_H0rQ7r6rSuJCzgSuKSgEXTRdnWR2im0AhM8YHN5_uowqxukGD_y0ACg6ToNOvu-dvpbYgwGNc6ldx3fTEH-ezI-z0i8JsN2c7OYVZYf1CMA/s1600/42778055._SY475_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="303" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1DLowfdSkeVpQ5_W2Z_8-2xPjAyM9LV9_H0rQ7r6rSuJCzgSuKSgEXTRdnWR2im0AhM8YHN5_uowqxukGD_y0ACg6ToNOvu-dvpbYgwGNc6ldx3fTEH-ezI-z0i8JsN2c7OYVZYf1CMA/s320/42778055._SY475_.jpg" width="204" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Girl-at-Window-Rowan-Coleman-ebook/dp/B07HMJJFHW" target="_blank">Amazon UK link</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Girl-at-Window-Rowan-Coleman-ebook/dp/B07HMJJFHW" target="_blank">Amazon US link</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Book description</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A house full of history is bound to have secrets...</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ponden Hall is a centuries-old house on the Yorkshire moors, a magical place full of stories. It's also where Trudy Heaton grew up. And where she ran away from...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now, after the devastating loss of her husband, she is returning home with her young son, Will, who refuses to believe his father is dead.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While Trudy tries to do her best for her son, she must also attempt to build bridges with her eccentric mother. And then there is the Hall itself: fallen into disrepair but generations of lives and loves still echo in its shadows, sometimes even reaching out to the present...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My review </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This
is definitely one for you if you love a ghost story. It’s got a historical
thread and a present day one, and in between, one concerning Emily Bronte. I
enjoy the author’s style and the tension built throughout the book as we realised
what had happened in the past and how it impacted on Ponden Hall in the
present. There were occasions when I tried to read faster to find out what was
happening – always a sign of a good page-turner. I found I cared about the
characters which also makes it a good read for me. I don’t believe in ghosts
but I do love a ghost story and this is definitely up there with the good ones.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; margin-bottom: 14px; margin-top: -4px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">About the author</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #111111;">Rowan Coleman’s first novel Growing Up Twice was a WHS Fresh Talent Winner. Since then, Rowan has written fifteen novels, including The Memory Book which was a Sunday Times bestseller. It was selected for the Richard and Judy Bookclub and awarded Love Reading Novel of the Year, as voted for by readers.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><span style="color: #111111;">Her latest novel, The Summer of Impossible Things, is a Zoe Ball TV Book Club selection.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><span style="color: #111111;">Rowan lives with her husband and their five children in a very full house in Hertfordshire, juggling writing novels with raising her family. She really wishes someone would invent time travel.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">~~~</span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just a thought</span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; text-align: left;">An unread book does nobody any good. Stories happen in the mind of a reader, not among symbols printed on a page </span><span style="font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; text-align: left;">― </span><span class="authorOrTitle" style="font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;">Brandon Mull</span></span></div>
Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12841961223771293021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039683180167352276.post-74849518969872698582019-09-26T11:48:00.001+01:002019-09-26T11:48:14.042+01:00Moorings<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Moorings is the third in David Blake's Norfolk Broads crime series. I've really enjoyed these and they seem to me to be getting better.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBNoOmRx9A4pAp8AJdTQaHs7ATHbYxOEX9wKcF6FywTV5Z4t4wEnoUbrl-DCBuRfW7N559ktgzZ1DZ-R2M-qr2LvpG9wN-WB9hqWsvnqe6vddOljp_IjDAleE1HtRrEHPYfZMRsGPEUF4/s1600/46367816._SY475_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="312" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBNoOmRx9A4pAp8AJdTQaHs7ATHbYxOEX9wKcF6FywTV5Z4t4wEnoUbrl-DCBuRfW7N559ktgzZ1DZ-R2M-qr2LvpG9wN-WB9hqWsvnqe6vddOljp_IjDAleE1HtRrEHPYfZMRsGPEUF4/s320/46367816._SY475_.jpg" width="210" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Moorings-chilling-Norfolk-thriller-Detective-ebook/dp/B07T7PDNBC" target="_blank">Amazon UK link</a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Moorings-chilling-Norfolk-thriller-Detective-ebook/dp/B07T7PDNBC" target="_blank">Amazon US link</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Book description</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">A war veteran murdered in his home, a property developer with links to organised crime, and an old family secret that seems unwilling to stay dead.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">When Harry Falcon, a wealthy boatyard owner and highly decorated World War Two veteran, is found drowned in his bath, DI John Tanner and DC Jenny Evans start by questioning his two sons, each with a motive for wanting him dead.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">But when the elder son is found with his head smashed in under a toppled yacht, and the younger son has been talking to a local property developer, one who’d spent months trying to buy the yard from his father, the investigation soon leads them towards a dark and dangerous secret, one which nobody can quite believe.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Set within the mysterious beauty of the Norfolk Broads, this fast-paced British detective series is a dark cozy murder mystery with a slice of humour and a touch of romance, one that will have you guessing until the very end, when the last shocking twist is finally revealed.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">My review</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></b>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tanner and Jenny have a new boat and a new mooring and someone’s building a block of flats right opposite. They’ve paid up a year’s rent too. Then the body of a 93 year-old turns up in his home nearby, discovered by his son. This is a great suspense story and it involves Tanner personally. There are various possible suspects and I honestly didn’t see the truth coming even though there was a clue earlier on. The climax of the book is particularly exciting. I am sure this series will go from strength to strength.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">About the author</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;">David is a full-time author living in North London. To date he has written sixteen books along with a collection of short stories. He's currently working on his seventeenth, Three Rivers, which is the next in his series of crime fiction thrillers, after Broadland, St. Benet's, and Moorings.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;">When not writing, David likes to spend his time mucking about in boats, often in the Norfolk Broads, where his crime fiction books are based.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">~~~</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">Just a thought - </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">Just the knowledge that a good book is awaiting one at the end of a long day makes that day happier </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">― </span><span class="authorOrTitle" style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">Kathleen Thompson Norris</span></span></div>
Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12841961223771293021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039683180167352276.post-59333455516963605302019-09-23T11:18:00.002+01:002019-09-23T11:18:49.299+01:00Bad to the Bone<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">First in a series and it's obviously from this strong start that it's going to be a good one.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC9VLSJIkTFVBNGxx0wlFo_b9nRXA_tpMyhKVcd1uY6bbrY9x1N8dm-WuP5x1KDSb2TnT7LLKSI5NhFFmGs6ZjA7XYqjmKcTXFQK4KBrEMhF6ADyIxZhyUBokOEZKr004O-mBD4airof8/s1600/33282277._SX318_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="432" data-original-width="318" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC9VLSJIkTFVBNGxx0wlFo_b9nRXA_tpMyhKVcd1uY6bbrY9x1N8dm-WuP5x1KDSb2TnT7LLKSI5NhFFmGs6ZjA7XYqjmKcTXFQK4KBrEMhF6ADyIxZhyUBokOEZKr004O-mBD4airof8/s320/33282277._SX318_.jpg" width="235" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bad-Bone-Bliss-Book-1-ebook/dp/B071KTJJBH" target="_blank">Amazon UK link</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Bone-Bliss-Book-1-ebook/dp/B071KTJJBH" target="_blank">Amazon US link</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Book description </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A skeletal body is unearthed in a wooded area of Peterborough, Cambridgeshire. DI James Bliss, together with DC Penny Chandler, investigate the case and discover that the young, female victim had been relocated from its original burial site.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A witness is convinced that a young female was struck by a vehicle back in the summer of 1990, and that police attended the scene. However, no record exists of either the accident or the reported victim. As the case develops, two retired police officers are murdered. The two are linked with others who were on duty at the time a road accident was reported.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As Bliss and Chandler delve deeper into the investigation, they start to question whether senior officers may have been involved in the murder of the young women who was buried in the woods.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As each link in the chain is put under duress, so is Bliss who clashes with superiors and the media.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When his team receives targeted warnings, Bliss will need to decide whether to drop the case or to pursue those responsible.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Will Bliss walk away in order to keep his career intact or will he fight no matter what the cost? </span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And is it possible the killer is much closer than they imagined?</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My review - </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I
thought it was about time I read some Tony Forder and I’m very glad I did.
Interestingly, I read it on my holiday which included at day trip to
Peterborough. It’s a delight to see the places you’re reading about on a
tourist map! DI Bliss and his sidekick Penny investigate a body which, the
pathologists say, has been exhumed and reburied. It’s an old case and therefore
harder to solve. This is the first book in a series and I’m glad to say that
the main characters in the book fall into place fully formed. Some of their
back-stories creep in as we read so it doesn’t have the info-dump boredom. I
thought this was very well done. I also loved the growing relationship between
Bliss and The Bone Woman, Emily Grant. The ending built very nicely to a result
I hadn’t foreseen and I enjoyed it very much.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">About the author</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-size: 13px;">Tony J Forder is the author of the critically acclaimed and best-selling crime thriller series featuring detectives Jimmy Bliss and Penny Chandler. The first four books, Bad to the Bone, The Scent of Guilt, If Fear Wins, and The Reach of Shadows, were followed by The Death of Justice on 9 September 2019.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-size: 13px;">Tony's dark, psychological crime thriller, Degrees of Darkness, featuring ex-detective Frank Rogers, was also published by Bloodhound Books. This is a stand-alone novel, and delves into the mind of a serial-killer.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-size: 13px;">Scream Blue Murder was published in November 2017, and received praise from many, including fellow authors Mason Cross, Matt Hilton and Anita Waller. A sequel, Cold Winter Sun, was released in November 2018.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-size: 13px;">Tony is now a full-time writer and lives with his wife in Peterborough, UK.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13px;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">~~~</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13px;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just a thought</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13px;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">There never yet have been, nor are there now, too many good books </span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">― </span><span class="authorOrTitle" style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">Martin Luther</span></span></span></div>
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Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12841961223771293021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039683180167352276.post-55366084624129105562019-09-11T11:22:00.002+01:002019-09-11T11:22:33.811+01:00The Lost Man<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The third book I've read by Jane Harper and for me, the best yet.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi52N5NrrG_7qQvdW5FEcIGasuxGGPqZLETaUnw9ibzq6Sws87f5B8Fk3aDXSAQz7ecEXzlI1xLzJ4F1BGp4yztgJeUzyQrVTiUQzP-HufSr4EGi-RgQDTZj5rWViPe2KqA9Bb0xxG7brI/s1600/39863488._SY475_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="313" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi52N5NrrG_7qQvdW5FEcIGasuxGGPqZLETaUnw9ibzq6Sws87f5B8Fk3aDXSAQz7ecEXzlI1xLzJ4F1BGp4yztgJeUzyQrVTiUQzP-HufSr4EGi-RgQDTZj5rWViPe2KqA9Bb0xxG7brI/s320/39863488._SY475_.jpg" width="210" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lost-Man-Jane-Harper-ebook/dp/B07DX23VP3" target="_blank">Amazon UK link</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Man-Jane-Harper-ebook/dp/B07DX23VP3" target="_blank">Amazon US link</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Book description</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">Two brothers meet at the border of their vast cattle properties under the unrelenting sun of outback Queensland, in this stunning new standalone novel from <i>New York Times</i> bestseller Jane Harper</b><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">They are at the stockman’s grave, a landmark so old, no one can remember who is buried there. But today, the scant shadow it casts was the last hope for their middle brother, Cameron. The Bright family’s quiet existence is thrown into grief and anguish. Something had been troubling Cameron. Did he lose hope and walk to his death? Because if he didn’t, the isolation of the outback leaves few suspects…</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My review -</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This
is an excellent story that emphasises the heat and loneliness of outback
living. Nathan, oldest of three brothers and divorced, finds his middle
brother, Cameron, has died by an old grave, known as the stockman’s grave. His
car is found some distance away, full of bottles of water and supplies. Did he
walk to his own death? It’s just before Christmas and the family say he was
troubled. Nathan, with troubles of his own, tries to find out what prompted his
brother to walk into the outback apparently to commit a painful suicide.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The
main protagonists in this story are members of one family and the dynamic
amongst them is uneasy, troubled. Not just because they’ve lost a member. The
reader feels the deep currents below the surface as bit by painful bit, the
truth comes out. I found this very gripping and for my money it’s Jane Harper’s
best book yet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">About the author</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jane Harper is the author of The Dry, winner of various awards including the 2015 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript, the 2017 Indie Award Book of the Year, the 2017 Australian Book Industry Awards Book of the Year Award and the CWA Gold Dagger Award for the best crime novel of 2017. Rights have been sold in 27 territories worldwide, and film rights optioned to Reese Witherspoon and Bruna Papandrea. Jane worked as a print journalist for thirteen years both in Australia and the UK and lives in Melbourne.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">~~~</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just a thought</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">Books, the children of the brain </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">― </span><span class="authorOrTitle" style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">Jonathan Swift,</span></span></span></div>
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<br />Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12841961223771293021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039683180167352276.post-13594544987111413852019-09-09T11:05:00.004+01:002019-09-09T11:05:43.120+01:00The Girl with Space in her Heart<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At last, a book with girl in the title that's about someone at primary school. A genuine girl</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU90qh_n0ULbzlmoNG4LUm6ZPTT7UzYwAZXyHyabgTJtJeQvJyXBR-nIkBfvJZpoU4Z5_oNS3MoHCEQE_2bPDDBwuHVAomip-bD0qldtggchvJf3AfoUVnEYwKLbANyE_Anu4NT_HAJX4/s1600/46803423._SY475_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="311" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU90qh_n0ULbzlmoNG4LUm6ZPTT7UzYwAZXyHyabgTJtJeQvJyXBR-nIkBfvJZpoU4Z5_oNS3MoHCEQE_2bPDDBwuHVAomip-bD0qldtggchvJf3AfoUVnEYwKLbANyE_Anu4NT_HAJX4/s320/46803423._SY475_.jpg" width="209" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Girl-Space-Her-Heart-ebook/dp/B07HYNLCWF" target="_blank">Amazon UK link</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Girl-Space-Her-Heart-ebook/dp/B07HYNLCWF" target="_blank">Amazon US link</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Book description</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; margin-bottom: 14px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mabel Mynt knows a lot about space...like how we feel connected to the stars because we are all made of stardust. And that Mum’s new boyfriend, Galactic Gavin, has eyes that twinkle like Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky. And that sometimes the perfect place for her sister Terrible Topaz would be a black hole.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; margin-bottom: 14px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But Mabel doesn’t know how to fill the space in her heart that Dad left when he walked out. And so she sets out on a mission of discovery...</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A heart-warming and laugh-out-loud story about learning that love is never lost and change doesn’t have to be scary.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My review </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I
really loved this delightful and sensitive book. Mabel is a child with a lot of
worries. She imagines a suitcase in her mind where she stuffs them, more and
more of them. Her father left home suddenly, her mum doesn’t want to speak
about him and now Mum has a boyfriend. He shares Mabel’s obsession with space,
stars, astronomy. Add into the mix an obnoxious older sister, now at secondary
school but always cross and angry, and Mabel’s not having a very good time of
it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The
story touches on many of a child’s worries. If things go wrong, is it my fault?
Mabel is a child you can’t help but warm to and the book is a sensitive but
non-preachy exploration of the difficulties of absent parents, school
friendships, secrecy and the problems of trying to interpret the actions of
others without all the facts. It’s a really enjoyable read for upper primary
school children – and onwards.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I received a free paperback of this book from Amazon Vine.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">~~~</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just a thought </span></span></div>
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<h1 class="quoteText" style="background-color: white; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Fill your house with stacks of books, in all the crannies and all the nooks -</span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span class="authorOrTitle" style="color: #38761d; text-align: left;">Dr. Seuss</span></span></span></h1>
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Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12841961223771293021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039683180167352276.post-63969569281499373782019-08-29T10:20:00.004+01:002019-08-29T10:20:51.201+01:00The Art of Dying<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The second book by Ambrose Parry, a collaboration between author Christopher Brookmyre and his wife Marisa Haetzman, an anaesthetist. I loved it just as much as the first.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu5gr1Qw4H4IAmZBL2xuM-hlzA5u74J24I0yn3-xFL5xJTffD-_sqxc5PZLJpvg8RKjFrra-3q7PUcw1dknbRorECcyWMu_WcpYkC1fV2vrjI0l0BxXPl9kSD5VBnbDApH8Fad_BPlUds/s1600/44283559._SY475_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="301" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu5gr1Qw4H4IAmZBL2xuM-hlzA5u74J24I0yn3-xFL5xJTffD-_sqxc5PZLJpvg8RKjFrra-3q7PUcw1dknbRorECcyWMu_WcpYkC1fV2vrjI0l0BxXPl9kSD5VBnbDApH8Fad_BPlUds/s320/44283559._SY475_.jpg" width="202" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Dying-Ambrose-Parry-ebook/dp/B07NGRCVW1" target="_blank">Amazon UK link</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Art-Dying-Ambrose-Parry-ebook/dp/B07NGRCVW1" target="_blank">Amazon US link</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Book description</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Edinburgh, 1850. Despite being at the forefront of modern medicine, hordes of patients are dying all across the city, with doctors finding their remedies powerless. But it is not just the deaths that dismay the esteemed Dr James Simpson - a whispering campaign seeks to blame him for the death of a patient in suspicious circumstances.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Simpson's protege Will Raven and former housemaid Sarah Fisher are determined to clear their patron's name. But with Raven battling against the dark side of his own nature, and Sarah endeavouring to expand her own medical knowledge beyond what society deems acceptable for a woman, the pair struggle to understand the cause of the deaths.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Will and Sarah must unite and plunge into Edinburgh's deadliest streets to clear Simpson's name. But soon they discover that the true cause of these deaths has evaded suspicion purely because it is so unthinkable.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My review - </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In
the second of these excellent historical/medical murder mysteries we find Will
retuned from abroad to a married Sarah. Much angst. The two work together again
to unravel the mystery of several deaths exhibiting strange symptoms.
Nineteenth Century Edinburgh is once again well portrayed with its fine town
houses and its nasty tenements. Places to be seen in and places you wouldn’t be
seen dead in – or maybe you would. There are echoes from the previous book and
many dilemmas for Will, which I found quite gripping. Seeing which way he chose
to live his life, as he feared the devil within – his mother’s expression. The
ending of the book is both exciting and satisfying. I would highly recommend it
to all who love an historical mystery.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thanks
to Netgalley for a pre-publication copy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">About the author</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Amazon holds no author information for Ambrose Parry but it's no secret that this name belongs to the collabration between </span>author Christopher Brookmyre and his wife Marisa Haetzman, an anaesthetist. Long may they collaborate.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">~~~</span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just a thought</span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">Books fall open, you fall in </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">― </span><span class="authorOrTitle" style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">David McCord</span></span></div>
<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12841961223771293021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3039683180167352276.post-7126779236290825092019-08-27T11:33:00.002+01:002019-08-27T11:33:27.367+01:00Meredith's Dagger<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've never read a Debbie McGowan book I haven't enjoyed.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqSF-_WVAIMa9QlDSf8VudBIJSIISsXY39Z_J38qufZOhRc18IJebEcUnlfC7qoqWFnJpTj_pttXBrIweKkIjWnhz2KffiwWrnVwrnbeEBwIxBTH5cTRh1ehZVYOpu_b8Y_vftwmXQ0Y0/s1600/46644020._SY475_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="316" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqSF-_WVAIMa9QlDSf8VudBIJSIISsXY39Z_J38qufZOhRc18IJebEcUnlfC7qoqWFnJpTj_pttXBrIweKkIjWnhz2KffiwWrnVwrnbeEBwIxBTH5cTRh1ehZVYOpu_b8Y_vftwmXQ0Y0/s320/46644020._SY475_.jpg" width="212" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Merediths-Dagger-Debbie-McGowan-ebook/dp/B07TF9CL3C" target="_blank">Amazon UK link</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Merediths-Dagger-Debbie-McGowan-ebook/dp/B07TF9CL3C" target="_blank">Amazon US link</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Book description</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Huddled in a doorway, unseen by the men passing on great horses, Meredith watched from within the hood of her cloak. The pain of the cold, wet morning impaled her, rooting her in place, even as the cat rubbed against her shins with a force that should have felled her. She shooed him away. </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Go home.</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> But he would not.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">She wished she had died that night. She wished she had died, for to live like this was not to live at all.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">* * *</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">When Richie Moorcroft takes a housekeeping position to finance his studies, it means moving back to his childhood home: an ancient, almost-derelict cottage locals claim is haunted. But he never believed those stories; he knows where they came from, and in any case, he has a job to do: keeping nineteen-year-old Julian Denby on the straight and narrow without Julian realising his wealthy parents are paying Richie to do so.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Luckily, Julian’s not very astute, although the same can’t be said for their newest housemates: Richie’s bestie, Anneke, and Julian’s older sister, Tamara. Add in George, the cat who appeared from nowhere and is in no hurry to leave, and that makes five…about to uncover the sinister history of their new home.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My review -</span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You
always get a good story and credible characters in a Debbie McGowan book. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Take
a 17<sup>th</sup> C cottage. Add four young people from widely differing backgrounds,
a stray cat and a strange artefact discovered when renovating. There you have
the ingredients for a gripping story with a historic layer beneath. We move
back and forth in time between the Meredith of the title and the four in the
cottage. There are numerous other characters involved and the story goes much
deeper than its slightly spooky surface. It makes us think about a woman’s
right of self-determination – then and now. Such a good story on so many
levels.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">About the author</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Debbie McGowan is an award-winning author of contemporary fiction that celebrates life, love and relationships in all their diversity. Since the publication in 2004 of her debut novel, Champagne--based on a stage show co-written and co-produced with her husband--she has published many further works--novels, short stories and novellas--including two ongoing series: Hiding Behind The Couch (a literary 'soap opera' centring on the lives of nine long-term friends) and Checking Him Out (LGBTQ romance). Debbie has been a finalist in both the Rainbow Awards and the Bisexual Book Awards, and in 2016, she won the Lambda Literary Award (Lammy) for her novel, When Skies Have Fallen: a British historical romance spanning twenty-three years, from the end of WWII to the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967. Through her independent publishing company, Debbie gives voices to other authors whose work would be deemed unprofitable by mainstream publishing houses.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just a thought</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #38761d; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A good book should leave you... slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it - William Styron</span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"></span>Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12841961223771293021noreply@blogger.com0