Book Review & Giveaway: THE ONE BY JOHN MARRS (Psychological thriller)

Today I am thrilled to be the next stop on the blog tour for this amazing book!  I am sharing my review and also a fabulous giveaway for one copy of The One.

How far would you go to find THE ONE?

One simple mouth swab is all it takes.

One tiny DNA test to find your perfect partner - the one you're genetically made for.

A decade after scientists discover everyone has a gene they share with just one person, millions have taken the test, desperate to find true love.

Now, five more people take the test. But even soul mates have secrets. And some are more shocking - and deadlier - than others...

A psychological thriller with a difference, this is a truly unique novel which is guaranteed to keep you on the edge of your seat.

This is one of the most addictive books I have ever read.

The One follows five people who are all anxious to meet their perfect partner after they've been told that their DNA matches,

But none of the relationships is straightforward and there was shock after shock as each chapter ended on a cliffhanger and I was left stunned by one revelation after another.

From a serial killer to a scientist ........... was anyone who they seemed to be?  Twists and turns, this had everything a good thriller should have.

I just had to know what was going to happen next and I kept turning the pages into the early hours.

The One is compulsive, addictive, frightening, stunning ..... and very, very, good.

Del Rey

Published 4th May 2017

368 Pages

Check out the other bloggers on the tour for interviews, features, reviews etc.

You will not be able to forget this if you are lucky enough to read it!  Enter the giveaway for a chance of winning a copy.

Open to UK only
Entrants will be chosen at random by Rafflecopter and will be emailed for their address
Ends at midnight GMT on Sunday 5 Feb 2017.


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Book Review: THE BODY ON THE DOORSTEP BY A.J. MACKENZIE (Historical Mystery)

A Romney Marsh Mystery

Published by Zaffre 21 April 2016

Kent, 1796. Smugglers’ boats bring their illicit cargoes of brandy and tobacco from France to land on the beaches of the Channel coast.

Shocked to discover a dying man on his doorstep - and lucky to avoid a bullet himself – our alcoholic Reverend Hardcastle, with a colourful past, finds himself entrusted with the victim's cryptic last words.

Who is the young man? Where did he come from, and who killed him? Why, five minutes later, was a Customs officer shot and killed out on the Marsh? And who are the mysterious group of smugglers known as the Twelve Apostles and why is the leader of the local Customs service so reluctant to investigate?

Ably assisted by the ingenious Mrs Chaytor, Reverend Hardcastle sets out to solve the mystery for himself. But smugglers are not the only ones to lurk off the Kent coast, and the more he discovers, the more he realises he might have bitten off more than he can chew.

The Body on the Doorstep is the first Romney Marsh mystery and what a clever and entertaining mystery it was!

Reverend Hardcastle, the rector of a small village in Kent, enjoys a claret and a port and a brandy and the villagers look upon him as a harmless, alcoholic idiot. While most of them are involved in smuggling in some way he turns a blind eye and, in appreciation of his discretion, is often rewarded with a bottle of brandy on his doorstep.

But what he found on his doorstep one evening was not his favourite brand of brandy, it was the bloody body of a young man who's dying words are told to the reverend.

This starts Hardcastle on a quest to discover who he was and why he was killed. While out walking he meets a widow, Mrs Chaytor, who is also curious to know some answers and, together they form an unlikely partnership, which I thought worked really well in the story. The villagers would tell things to her that they wouldn't tell Hardcastle and vice versa.

This was a complex, but not complicated, story about smugglers, treason, traitors and spies ........ in a village fearful that the French would invade the country at any time.

Full of colourful characters, my favourite of whom was the Reverend Hardcastle who was a whole lot cleverer than his villagers thought he was; he spoke plainly, offending most people apart from the fascinating Amelia Chaytor who knew her own mind.

A well plotted, well written story that I very much enjoyed and eagerly look forward to the further adventures of Hardcastle and Chaytor!

At the beginning of the book there is a map of the area featured in the story - I could follow the characters and picture where they were which made it all the more enjoyable - I do love a map!

Not the actual map in the book

Huge thanks to Emily Burns at publishers Bonnier Zaffre for giving me the opportunity to read this novel.

About the Authors

A.J. MacKenzie is the pseudonym of Marilyn Livingstone and Morgen Witzel, a collaborative Anglo-Canadian husband-and-wife duo. Between them they have written more than twenty non-fiction and academic titles, with specialisms including management, medieval economic history and medieval warfare.

THE BODY ON THE DOORSTEP is their first novel.

@AJMacKnovels http://www.ajmackenzienovels.com/

Available from Amazon UK - Amazon US - Book Depository

Promo Blitz: PLANTED BY C.T. COLLIER (Cozy Mystery)

Cozy Mystery

Date Published: June 2016

Publisher: Asdee Press

It’s Monday of spring break when Professor Lyssa Pennington’s backyard garden project unearths a loaded revolver. With no record of violence at their address and no related cold case, the Tompkins Falls police have no interest. But the Penningtons and a friend with the State Police believe there’s a body somewhere. Whose? Where? And who pulled the trigger?

Excerpt

Lyssa sobbed and punched her pillow and finally fell deeply asleep.

Sometime after midnight, a hand rose from the hole in the center of the garden, found her in the guest room, and grabbed her by the throat.

She bolted upright and sucked air with noisy gasps. Stroking her throat, she scanned every corner of the room. She was alone.

White window curtains fluttered as the heat came on. She studied the lacy pattern traced on the linen panels by the streetlamp as it shone through the branches of a tree.

Her breathing eased, and her hand slid instinctively lower, to her breastbone, where she massaged with soothing pressure. Her newfound calm brought awareness. She wasn’t alone.

Death was in the room with her. 

About the Author

C. T. Collier was born to solve logic puzzles, wear tweed, and drink Earl Grey tea. Her professional experience in cutthroat high tech and backstabbing higher education gave her endless opportunity to study intrigue. Add to that her longtime love of mysteries, and it’s no wonder she writes academic mysteries that draw inspiration from traditional whodunits. Her setting: entirely fictional, Tompkins College is no college and every college, and Tompkins Falls, is a blend of several Finger Lakes towns, including her hometown, Seneca Falls, NY (AKA Bedford Falls from It’s a Wonderful Life).

Contact Links

Website

Facebook: /kate.collier.315

Twitter: @TompkinsFalls

Goodreads

Purchase Links

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Blog Tour, Author Post & Book Review: LYING IN WAIT BY LIZ NUGENT (Psychological Thriller)

In celebration of the paperback release of Lying in Wait at the end of 2016 Penguin are sharing lots of features, reviews, interviews on a month long blog tour. 
I was lucky enough to read this amazing book last summer and today I am re-sharing my review and a fascinating piece that author Liz Nugent has written especially for my blog about living in the 1980's and why she has set Lying in Wait in that era.....enjoy!

Andrew and Lydia Fitzsimons, a respected judge and his reclusive wife, find themselves in a most unfortunate situation - they have had to murder a young woman and bury her in their exquisite garden.
While Lydia does all she can to protect their innocent son Laurence and their social standing, her husband begins to fall apart.
But Laurence is not as naive as Lydia thinks.  And his obsession with the dead girl's family may be the undoing of his own.

I always think that the first words in a novel should hook you and make you want to carry on reading ...... the words above definitely did that! I was well and truly hooked from then on and I could hardly put the book down until the very end.

The story is told in alternate chapters by the main characters of judge's wife Lydia, her son Laurence and the dead girl's sister Karen during the 1980's.  Lydia is a character that I won't easily forget, she's manipulative, selfish, dishonest, cruel and a snob.  She has no redeeming features except for the obsessive love she has for her one and only son who she utterly smothers and dominates.  She controlled him in ways that he didn't know.

Laurence was an interesting young man, as time goes on we see him develop from an obese, immature, shy and awkward adolescent into a handsome, confident and likeable person but he becomes obsessed with knowing what happened to the dead girl and her family.

Right from the beginning we know who killed the young girl but not why.  It was chilling reading. As the story develops we gain an understanding of why and the ripples it created around all the other characters lives.

A compelling, well-written story of obsession .... in an interview Liz Nugent said she hoped that readers would feel shocked and exhilarated at the end and would want them to recommend it to all their friends ..... I couldn't agree more!

Available to buy from
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Book Depository

On setting Lying in Wait in the 1980s.

I turned twelve years old in 1980. In my family, there was little or no censorship, so news stories of the day were discussed openly. I have four older siblings so maybe I heard things that I couldn’t fully understand at the time, but there were several quite shocking scandals in Ireland within that decade that rocked the country. Two of these stories in particular influenced the writing of Lying in Wait, and my first novel, Unravelling Oliver.

In 1981, a man with quite an aristocratic background, Malcolm MacArthur*, bludgeoned to death a young nurse who was sunbathing in a park, stole her car and later shot dead a farmer with a gun he was pretending to buy from the farmer. While the manhunt was going on for the killer, MacArthur attended football matches and chatted casually to the Irish Police Commissioner and the Taoiseach (Prime Minister). When he was eventually caught, he was found hiding out in the home of the Attorney General who was away on holidays at the time.

My parents knew people who had met MacArthur and their total incredulity that an upper class man who moved in such high circles could have been involved in two murders was palpable. When I began to write Unravelling Oliver and then Lying in Wait, I knew that my protagonists would be middle class, hiding in plain sight.

In January 1984, a fifteen-year-old girl, Ann Lovett, left school as normal and went to a holy grotto where she gave birth alone. There were complications and the baby died. She and her already dead child were discovered by other school children. By the time an ambulance arrived, it was too late and Ann also died. The entire community including the nuns who had been her teachers denied any knowledge of the pregnancy. It was inconceivable that this little girl felt there was nobody who could help her. Rumours abounded as to the identity of the baby’s father, but nobody ever came forward. A number of years later, Ann’s sister committed suicide.

I was just a few months older than Ann Lovett, and I knew at the time that the greatest shame you could bring on your family was to become pregnant outside marriage. It was almost unthinkable that a teenage schoolgirl could get pregnant. The unfortunate girls in this situation were usually hidden away in Catholic institutions until they gave birth, working in laundries to earn their keep. Their babies were then adopted or sold abroad and the young mothers were often incarcerated until they agreed to sign the adoption papers. They were told they were dirty, unworthy and that God would never forgive them for their sins.

Annie Doyle, the murder victim in Lying in Wait is based on a character like this. After such a horrific experience, she has little or no self-worth and this lack of belief in her own goodness later leads her down a dangerous path.  

Also, in those early 1980s, on the international scene, the superpowers were stockpiling nuclear weapons, the IRA was bombing innocents in the UK, John Lennon was murdered and both the Pope and US President Ronald Reagan survived assassination attempts.  

There was a general feeling of insecurity, as if nobody could really be safe. I hope that I have managed to convey that sense of unease in Lying in Wait. It is certainly how I felt at the time as a young teenager. I was pretty much scared the whole time!

*John Banville’s excellent Booker Prize winning The Book of Evidence was based on this case. I went to see John Banville speak at a literary festival in 2014 and saw Malcolm MacArthur in the audience. He was released after thirty years in prison in 2012. He didn’t seem particularly bothered about being recognised and gave me a nod of acknowledgement. Creepy.

Many thanks, Carole, for taking part in this blog tour and for provoking this trip down memory lane!  


Thank you Liz for such an interesting, if chilling, insight.

Be sure to check out all the other lovely bloggers who are taking part in this month long blog tour

Huge thanks to Sara D'Arcy at Penguin for giving me the opportunity to read this novel.

Showcase & Giveaway for THE RIVERMAN BY ALEX GRAY (Crime/Police Procedurals)

The Riverman

by Alex Gray

on Tour January 9 - February 15, 2017

Synopsis:

Fans of atmospheric police procedurals will love watching Glasgow vividly come to life with the shocking twists and turns that have made Alex Gray an international bestseller

When a dead body is fished out of Glasgow’s River Clyde the morning after an office celebration, it looks like a case of accidental death. But an anonymous telephone call and a forensic toxicology test give Detective Chief Inspector William Lorimer reason to think otherwise. Probing deeper into the life and business of the deceased accountant, a seemingly upright member of the community, Lorimer finds only more unanswered questions.

What is the secret his widow seems to be concealing? Was the international accounting firm facing financial difficulties? What has become of the dead man’s protégé who has disappeared in New York? And when another employee is found dead in her riverside flat these questions become much more disturbing. Lorimer must cope not only with deceptions from the firm, but also with suspicions from those far closer to home . . .

Book Details:

Genre: Police Procedurals
Published by: Witness Impulse
Publication Date: January 10th 2017
Number of Pages: 368
ISBN: 0062659138 (ISBN13: 9780062659132)
Series: A DCI Lorimer Novel, #4
Purchase Links: Amazon  | Barnes & Noble  | Goodreads 

Read an excerpt:

PROLOGUE

April

THE RIVERMAN

The riverman knew all about the Clyde. Its tides and currents were part of his heritage. His father and others before him had launched countless small craft from the banks of the river in response to a cry for help. Nowadays that cry came in the form of a klaxon that could waken him from sleep, the mobile phone ringing with information about where and when. It wouldn’t be the first time that he’d pulled someone from the icy waters with only a hasty oilskin over his pajamas.
This morning, at least, he’d been up and doing when the call came. The body was over by Finnieston, past the weir, so he’d had to drive over the river towing a boat behind him on the trailer. He was always ready. That was what this job was all about: prompt and speedy response in the hope that some poor sod’s life could be saved. And he’d saved hundreds over the years, desperate people who were trying to make up their mind to jump off one of the many bridges that spanned the Clyde or those who had made that leap and been saved before the waters filled their lungs.
George Parsonage had been brought up to respect his river. Once it had been the artery of a great beating heart, traffic thronging its banks, masts thick as brush-wood. The tobacco trade with Virginia had made Glasgow flourish all right, with the preaching of commerce and the praising of a New World that was ripe for plucking. The names of some city streets still recalled those far-off days. Even in his own memory, the Clyde had been a byword for ships. As a wee boy, George had been taken to the launch of some of the finer products of Glasgow’s shipbuilding industry. But even then the river’s grandeur was fading. He’d listened to stories about the grey hulks that grew like monsters from the deep, sliding along the water, destined for battle, and about the cruise liners sporting red funnels that were cheered off their slipways, folk bursting with pride to be part of this city with its great river.
The romance and nostalgia had persisted for decades after the demise of shipbuilding and cross-river ferries. Books written about the Clyde’s heyday still found readers hankering after a time that was long past. The Glasgow Garden Festival in the eighties had prompted some to stage a revival along the river and more recently there had been a flurry of activity as the cranes returned to erect luxury flats and offices on either side of its banks. Still, there was little regular traffic upon its sluggish dark waters: a few oarsmen, a private passenger cruiser and the occasional police launch. Few saw what the river was churning up on a daily basis.
As he pushed the oars against the brown water, the riverman sent up a silent prayer for guidance. He’d seen many victims of despair and violence, and constantly reminded himself that each one was a person like himself with hopes, dreams and duties in different measure. If he could help, he would. That was what the Glasgow Humane Society existed for, after all. The sound of morning traffic roared above him as he made his way downstream. The speed of response was tempered by a need to row slowly and carefully once the body was near. Even the smallest of eddies could tip the body, filling the air pocket with water and sending it down and down to the bottom of the river. So, as George Parsonage approached the spot where the body floated, his oars dipped as lightly as seabirds’ wings, his eyes fixed on the shape that seemed no more than a dirty smudge against the embankment.
The riverman could hear voices above but his eyes never left the half-submerged body as the boat crept nearer and nearer. At last he let the boat drift, oars resting on the rowlocks as he finally drew alongside the river’s latest victim. George stood up slowly and bent over, letting the gunwales of the boat dip towards the water. Resting one foot on the edge, he hauled the body by its shoulders and in one clean movement brought it in. Huge ripples eddied away from the side as the boat rocked upright, its cargo safely aboard.
The victim was a middle-aged man. He’d clearly been in the water for some hours so there was no question of trying to revive him. The riverman turned the head this way and that, but there was no sign of a bullet hole or any wound that might indicate a sudden, violent death. George touched the sodden coat lightly. Its original camel colour was smeared and streaked with the river’s detritus, the velvet collar an oily black. Whoever he had been, his clothes showed signs of wealth. The pale face shone wet against the pearly pink light of morning. For an instant George had the impression that the man would sit up and grasp his hand, expressing his thanks for taking him out of the water, as so many had done before him. But today no words would be spoken.There would be only a silent communion between the two men, one dead and one living, before other hands came to examine the corpse.
George grasped the oars and pulled away from the embankment. Only then did he glance upwards, nodding briefly as he identified the men whose voices had sounded across the water. DCI Lorimer caught his eye and nodded back. Up above the banking a couple of uniformed officers stood looking down. Even as he began rowing away from the shore, the riverman noticed a smaller figure join the others. Dr. Rosie Fergusson had arrived.
‘Meet you at the Finnieston steps, George,’ Lorimer called out.
The riverman nodded briefly, pulling hard on the oars, taking his charge on its final journey down the Clyde.
Excerpt from The Riverman by Alex Gray. Copyright © 2017 by Alex Gray. Reproduced with permission from HarperCollins | WitnessImpulse. All rights reserved.

Author Bio:

Alex Gray was born and educated in Glasgow. After studying English and Philosophy at the University of Strathclyde, she worked as a visiting officer for the Department of Health, a time she looks upon as postgraduate education since it proved a rich source of character studies. She then trained as a secondary school teacher of English.
Alex began writing professionally in 1993 and had immediate success with short stories, articles, and commissions for BBC radio programs. She has been awarded the Scottish Association of Writers' Constable and Pitlochry trophies for her crime writing.
A regular on the Scottish bestseller lists, she is the author of thirteen DCI Lorimer novels. She is the co-founder of the international Scottish crime writing festival, Bloody Scotland, which had its inaugural year in 2012.

Connect with Alex Gray on her Website  & on Twitter .

 

Tour Participants:

Visit the other tour stops for more great features and reviews!  

Don't Miss Your Chance in this Giveaway!

This is a rafflecopter giveaway hosted by Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours for Alex Gray and William Morrow. There will be 3 US winners of one (1) PRINT copy of The Riverman by Alex Gray. The giveaway begins on January 9th and runs through February 23rd, 2017.

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Book Review & Tour: THE DRY BY JANE HARPER (Mystery)

Published in Hardback by Little, Brown on 12 January 2017

Today, I'm delighted to be a part of the Blog Tour for The Dry

I just can’t understand how someone like him could do something like that.

Amid the worst drought to ravage Australia in a century, it hasn’t rained in small country town Kiewarra for two years. Tensions in the community become unbearable when three members of the Hadler family are brutally murdered. Everyone things Luke Hadler, who committed suicide after slaughtering his wife and six-year-old son, is guilty.

Policeman Aaron Falk returns to the town of his youth for the funeral of his childhood best friend, and is unwillingly drawn into the investigation. As questions mount and suspicion spreads through the town, Falk is forced to confront the community that rejected him twenty years earlier. Because Falk and Luke Hadler shared a secret.

I was absolutely gripped by this story from the first shocking sentence to the book's stunning conclusion. What an amazing debut novel by Jane Harper.

The police from the next town believe it's an open and shut case, husband shoots dead his wife, little boy and then turns the gun on himself - no-one else involved, mystery solved.

Aaron Falk believes so too when he returns to the small town to pay his respects. But Luke's parents don't believe their son could have done this horrendous crime and when Barb, who was like a mother to Aaron when he was younger, asks for his help in clearing her son's name, he can't refuse. and he finds he is dragged back into a community of small minded people that he couldn't leave quick enough twenty years ago. Teaming up with the local police officer, Raco, he comes up against distrust, suspicion and lies. It's not going to be an easy job.

Kiewarra is an unhappy town full of 'townspeople all walking round like zombies, watching each other, trying to work out who'll be next to snap'. Even the young school children seem miserable in the dry and oppressive heat. Here's a scene where Falk and Raco are looking at the children's school paintings while talking to the headteacher, Whitlam:

'Jesus, some of these are depressing', Raco murmured.Falk could see what he meant. There were stick figure families in which every face had a crayon mouth turned downwards. A painting of a cow with angel wings. Toffee my Cow in Heaven, the shaky caption read. In every attempt at landscape, the fields were coloured brown.'You should see the ones we didn't put up' Whitlam said, stopping at the office door. 'The drought. It's going to kill this town'.

The writing is so vivid and imaginative, with such strong and real characters that I could feel the hopelessness and sadness and anger coming alive in every page. Weaving in and out of the present day are flashbacks to the past and another mystery involving the townspeople.

This is such an atmospheric novel that draws you in and I kept changing my mind throughout as to who really killed the Hadler family.

I can't praise this novel highly enough. I am in awe of the talented writing of Jane Harper.

Available to buy from Amazon UK - Amazon US - Book Depository

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jane Harper has worked as a print journalist for thirteen years both in Australia and the UK. She lives in Melbourne and currently writes for the Herald Sun. Jane is originally from the UK and moved to Australia in 2008. The Dry is her first novel.

Janeharper.com.au

Follower her on twitter @Janeharperautho

A huge thank you to Grace Vincent at Little, Brown Book Group for giving me the opportunity to take part in the virtual blog tour.

Take a look at the other bloggers who are taking part in the blog tour today

Book Review: THE PHANTOM TREE BY NICOLA CORNICK (Historical Fiction/Mystery/ParanormalRomance)

Published 29 Dec 2016

Published by HQ Harper Collins

448 Pages

“My name is Mary Seymour and I am the daughter of one queen and the niece of another.”

Browsing antiques shops in Wiltshire, Alison Bannister stumbles across a delicate old portrait supposedly of Anne Boleyn. Except Alison knows better The woman is Mary Seymour, the daughter of Katherine Parr who was taken to Wolf Hall in 1557 as an unwanted orphan and presumed dead after going missing as a child.

The painting is more than just a beautiful object from Alison’s past it holds the key to her future, unlocking the mystery surrounding Mary’s disappearance, and the enigma of Alison’s son.

But Alison’s quest soon takes a dark and foreboding turn, as a meeting place called the Phantom Tree harbours secrets in its shadows.

In The Phantom Tree author Nicola Cornick takes the real life Mary Seymour, who disappeared from the record books in 1550, and weaves a fictional tale of what could have happened to her.

Starting in the present day when Alison sees the portrait that she knows is certainly Mary Seymour, she tries to explain to the person who found it ...... but how does she know it's definitely not Anne Boleyn?  How can Alison explain that she was born in the 16th century and knew Mary and lived with her for a short time at Wolf Hall?

Alison can't find her way back and she is desperate to go home and find out what happened to her son.  When she sees the portrait she believes that Mary has given her some clues to help her find him.

This is so much more than a time travel tale.

The two different time periods are skilfully interwoven to build up a picture of Alison and Mary's lives in the 1500's, how they disliked each other, their jealousies, how poor Mary was unwanted and unloved, all interspersed with the present day and Alison's dilemma and desperation.

It took me a while to get used to the going back and forth in time, but once I did I was absolutely engrossed. I loved the writing, it was beautifully told, I really cared about the characters, about what happened to them, and was always curious as to how it would all end and be resolved.

Nicola Cornick has written an imaginative and unpredictable tale, with twists and turns and surprises aplenty, well-crafted with memorable characters.  This is a book that I'll remember for a long time.  Very enjoyable!

Special thanks to Harlequin UK and Netgalley.com for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

About the Author

Nicola Cornick is a historian and author.  She studied at London University and Ruskin College, Oxford and works for the National Trust as a guide at the 17th century hunting lodge Ashdown House in Oxfordshire.  Her award winning books are international bestsellers and have been translated into 26 languages.

She can be found at her website - and on twitter

The Phantom Tree is available to buy from Amazon UK - Amazon US - Book Depository