#Blogtour Hold Back The Night by Jessica Moore @jessicamoore @bonnierbooks_uk @Tr4cyF3nt0n #HoldBackTheNight #CompulsiveReaders

From the Observer debut novelist of the year, comes a blistering, heart-wrenching new novel of complicity and atonement, delving into one nurse’s experience of the little-known history of conversion therapy and the heart-breaking betrayal of the AIDS crisis.

March 2020. Annie is alone in her house as the world shuts down, only the ghosts of her memories for company. But then she receives a phone call which plunges her deeper into the past.

1959. Annie and Rita are student nurses at Fairlie Hall mental hospital. Working long, gruelling hours, they soon learn that the only way to appease their terrifying matron is to follow the rules unthinkingly. But what is happening in the hospital’s hidden side wards? And at what point does following the rules turn into complicity – and betrayal?

My Review

It’s 2020 and the world is in lockdown, Annie is on her own, surviving, getting out once a day for that all important exercise. It may take her a little longer, but she does it. As she strolls, her thoughts to a time gone by are never far from her thoughts as she back to important parts of her life, 1959 and 1984

1959, the year she continued her nurse training in an isolated mental hospital, fellow nurse Rita beside her, about to become a constant in the remainder of her life.

Posted on the men’s ward, Moor described the closeness of the beds, the slumbering bodies wound up in bed clothes waiting to be woken, shaved, and made ready for the day. Annie’s stumbling first few days soon move into confidence, even if Matron constantly watches her every step.

It soon becomes clear that some of the younger men are there to be cured, homosexuality their crime, the treatment brutal and vile. It’s an eye-opening experience for Annie and Rita but also for us the reader. Yet Moor has more to tell, as we are in1984 and the AIDS epidemic. How well I remember the hate, the ignorance, the many who died, the adverts on the TV telling us what we should and should not do.

Annie was again at the centre, a figure curled up in hospital casualty as she left her daughter’s bedside, a drama outside a nightclub and before long her empty house becomes a safe house for the men infected. Her nursing skills once more called upon, perhaps filling the void of a dead husband.

Did she do it for the men or for herself, I tend to think a little of both, Moore perhaps leaving it for us to decide. Whatever our thoughts it didn’t take away from Moor’s beautiful narrative, the emotion it evoked, the characters threaded through the years that became lifelong friends, that hid secrets.

2020 felt like déjà vu, those with COVID avoided like those with AIDS except we all felt the loneliness, the isolation. Moor asking us if it made us more forgiving, more accepting. 

Moor brought it all beautifully together, Annie brought full circle, back from where she started, happiness tinged with memories, with a better understanding and I hope closure.

Beautifully written, evocative, and poignant, Moor just gets better and better.

I would like to thank Bonnier Books for a copy of Hold Back The Night to read and review and to Compulsive Readers for inviting My Bookish Blogspot to participate in the blogtour.

About the author

Jessica Moor grew up in south-west London and studied English at Cambridge before completing a Creative Writing MA at Manchester University where her dissertation was awarded the Creative Writing Prize for Fiction. Prior to this she spent a year working in the violence against women and girls sector and this experience inspired her first critically acclaimed novel, Keeper.

She was selected as one of the Guardian’s 10 best debut novelists of 2020 and published her second novel, Young Women, to critical acclaim in 2022. Her third novel is due to be published in 2024. She lives in London.

#Blogtour Thirty Days of Darkness by Jenny Lund Madsen @JennyLundMadsen @OrendaBooks @annecater #randomthingstours #ThirtyDaysOfDarkness

The Blurb

A snobbish Danish literary author is challenged to write a crime novel in thirty days, travelling to a small village in Iceland for inspiration, and then the first body appears…

Copenhagen author Hannah is the darling of the literary community and her novels have achieved massive critical acclaim. But nobody actually reads them, and frustrated by writer’s block, Hannah has the feeling that she’s doing something wrong.
When she expresses her contempt for genre fiction, Hanna is publicly challenged to write a crime novel in thirty days. Scared that she will lose face, she accepts, and her editor sends her to Húsafjörður – a quiet, tight-knit village in Iceland, filled with colourful local characters – for inspiration.
But two days after her arrival, the body of a fisherman’s young son is pulled from the water … and what begins as a search for plot material quickly turns into a messy and dangerous investigation that threatens to uncover secrets that put everything at risk … including Hannah.

My Review

Can authors really be that snobby and bitchy, do they really think their writing, just because it is more literary is that much better than anyone else’s? Madsen’s author Hannah certainly thought she was, in fact I instantly disliked her which I am sure was Madsen’s intention.

Hannah was one tough cookie, unbreakable, and when pushed by fellow author Jorn accepts the challenge of writing a crime novel in thirty days.

Madsen exiled her to a secluded Icelandic town, with suitably suspicious locals, and a dislike for outsiders. The scene was set, our chain smoking, wine swigging snobby author was ready, or was she? Was she ready for the body that turned up, the distinct apathy from the towns one and only policeman, and the secrets that lay buried?

I was definitely ready and as the town unravelled, then so did Hannah. Madsen very carefully and delicately peeled away her layers, the austere exterior remained in place when needed but a person who had feelings, who began to care for those around her started to appear.

It fed her writing, but also pushed her further and further into danger, the twists and turns multiplied, my head started to spin and I wondered where Madsen was taking me.

I am sure Hannah had the same feelings and when her time came to be brave, quick thinking and resourceful she didn’t let herself or anyone else down.

The truth sent ripples though the town, long ago grievances resurfaced, justice served. Yet what did it mean for Hannah? Would it be an author fated for a crime novel she never wanted to write, a woman who finally engaged with her emotions and let down the ever present facade?

It’s not for me to say but the reader to decide. What I will say is that Madsen has written a fabulous debut crime novel, one that I sure her protagonist Hannah would be proud of. Next one please!

I would like to thank Orenda Books for a copy of Thirty Days Of Darkness to read and review and to Random Things Tours for inviting My Bookish Blogspot to participate in the blogtour.

About the author

Jenny Lund Madsen is one of Denmark’s most acclaimed scriptwriters (including the international hits Rita and Follow the Money) and is known as an advocate for better representation for sexual and ethnic minorities in Danish TV and film. She recently made her debut as a playwright with the critically acclaimed Audition (Aarhus Teater) and her debut literary thriller, Thirty Days of Darkness, first in an addictive new series, won the Harald Mogensen Prize for Best Danish Crime Novel of the year and was shortlisted for the coveted Glass Key Award. She lives in Denmark with her young family.

You can purchase the paperback following the link below

https://geni.us/r0HBC46

#Blogtour The Kitchen by Simone Buchhholz translated by Rachel Ward @ohneKlippo @OrendaBooks @annecater @RandomTTours #TheKitchen #Krimi #ChastityReloaded

The Blurb

When neatly packed male body parts wash up by the River Elbe, Hamburg
State Prosecutor Chastity Riley and her colleagues begin a perplexing
investigation.
As the murdered men are identified, it becomes clear that they all had a history
of abuse towards women, leading Riley to wonder if it would actually be in
society’s best interests to catch the killers.
But when her best friend Carla is attacked, and the police show little interest in
tracking down the offender, Chastity takes matters into her own hands and as a
link between the two cases emerges, horrifying revelations threaten Chastity’s
own moral compass … and put everything at risk.
The award-winning, critically acclaimed Chastity Riley series returns with a slick, hard-boiled, darkly funny thriller that tackles issues of violence and the
difference between law and justice with devastating insight, and an ending you
will never see coming…

My Review

Hamburg is labouring under the intense heat of the sun, Chastity Riley, State Prosecutor is positively sweltering, when a black bag of body parts is pulled from the river. Never a nice thing but the type of case Riley revels in, except this time Buchholz added an extra dimension when best friend Carla is brutally attacked. Now Riley is nothing if not loyal to her friends, the need to find and bring those responsible to justice paramount, but that wasn’t the full story. It was as if Buchholz stuck Riley at a road junction, her relationship with Klatsche a case in point. Would she ditch him or was it perhaps time to admit that she was in love and their relationship was more than spending the odd night together, acknowledging he felt the same way.

A heady mix, a live murder investigation, a personal decision could only mean one thing, the smoking of far too many cigarettes and late night/early mornings nursing endless glasses of alcohol. But this is how Buchholz’z Riley works, as she hovers around Hamburg’s less salubrious areas, watching, waiting, digging around for the people and the clues that will lead her to the perpetrators.

And the clues were there, perhaps not so apparent to Riley but Buchholz’s genius idea to insert small snippets of narrative from an unknown character, of their skill in the kitchen, of incidents within their life that hinted at something dangerous, at something too horrific to contemplate.

Ohh I loved it and it only got better as Buchholz sent Riley to a posh restaurant her usual Hamburg hostelries abandoned for one night. A fish out of water, but done for a reason that Buchholz used to tease us and Riley, a hint of revelation and disbelief.

And yet there was more, a moral dilemma, a moment to decide, Riley taking the only decision that felt right to her. Was it correct? Perhaps that’s for the individual to decide but for me it was a big yes, yes to a Riley not afraid to go with her gut, to hell with the consequences.

Another brilliant version of Chastity Riley, the character that keeps evolving, pushing against the norm yet retaining that contradictory personality we all love.

Brilliant!

I would like to thank Orenda Books for a copy of The Kitchen to read and review and to Random Things Tours for inviting My Bookish Blogspot to participate in the blogtour.

About the author

Simone Buchholz was born in Hanau in 1972. At university, she studied Philosophy and Literature, worked as a waitress and a columnist, and trained to be a journalist at the prestigious Henri-Nannen-School in Hamburg. In 2016, Simone Buchholz was awarded the Crime Cologne Award as well as runner-up in the German Crime Fiction Prize for Blue Night, which was number one on the KrimiZEIT Best of Crime List for months. The critically acclaimed Beton Rouge, Mexico Street, Hotel Cartagena and River Clyde all followed in the Chastity Riley series. Hotel Cartagena won the CWA Crime in Translation Dagger in 2022. The
Acapulco (2023) marked the beginning of the Chastity Reloaded series, with The
Kitchen out in 2024. She lives in Sankt Pauli, in the heart of Hamburg, with her husband and son

#Blogtour The Divorcees by Rowan Beaird @rbeaird @bonnierbooks @RandomTTours #TheDivorcees

The Blurb

Lois Saunders thought that marrying the right man would finally cure her loneliness. But as picture-perfect as her husband is, she is suffocating in their loveless marriage. In 1951, though, unhappiness is hardly grounds for divorce – except in Reno, Nevada.
At the Golden Yarrow, the most respectable of Reno’s ‘divorce ranches’ Lois finds herself living with half a dozen other would-be divorcées, all in Reno for the six weeks’ residency that is the state’s only divorce requirement. They spend their days riding horses and their nights flirting with cowboys, and it’s as wild and fun as Lake Forest, Illinois, was prim and stifling. But it isn’t until Greer Lange arrives that Lois’s world truly cracks open . . .
Gorgeous, beguiling, and completely indifferent to societal convention, Greer is unlike anyone Lois has ever met – and she sees something in Lois that no one else ever has. Under her influence, Lois begins to push against the limits that have always restrained her. But how much can she really trust her mysterious new friend? And how far will she go to forge her independence, on her own terms?

My Review

1950’s America, the Second World War is long over, the men are back at work, back in control. Women are the property of men, at the behest of a husbands decisions and actions, divorce frowned upon, the woman vilified for wanting such a thing. One state offered a loophole, Reno Nevada Lois’s destination, off to a divorce ranch to be rid of her husband.

Beaird’s Lois was naive, timid, perhaps a little odd, friendships not her thing, but she gave her the strength and bravery to do what she felt was best. She had just 6 weeks to endure and Beaird made it the most enlightening, eye opening period of her life.

Beaird gave us an eclectic collection of prospective divorcees, enjoying freedom from husbands and children. Late nights at the local bars, before dinner cocktails, hangovers were their main pastimes, the hunt for the next man to look after them a necessity. They were all a product of that time, women as individuals with their own finances and independence still a few years away.

I liked how Beaird chose to put Lois on the outside of the group, her awkwardness clear to all, her own opinions not quite aligned.

Then, in the dead of night Greer Lang appears, shut away in her room, her meals delivered as Beaird created a wonderful mysterious aura around her. As she emerges she is the light to which the moths circle, Lois fascinated that this woman could be so bold with little regard to the perceived norm within the group. Greer takes Lois under her wing, their nights filled with late nights drinking, trips to the local casino, challenging Lois to small dares that slowly become bigger until the ultimate plan is hatched offering the two of them freedom.

Its not for me to say if their plan worked if they got their freedom, that would be too much of a spoiler. What I can say it that it was totally enlightening for Lois, the possibility that her dream of being an independent woman could be a reality, one that she wasn’t going to let pass her by.

The Divorcees was a wonderful observation of what it meant to be a woman in the 1950’s. Beairds characters were the best and the worst examples of women, some you loved, others you would quite happily have ignored. Her Lois and Greer were the epitome of women who wanted and pursued freedom, multidimensional, fascinating making the novel a pure joy to read.

I would like to thank Bonnier for a copy of The Divorcees to read and review and to Random Things Tours for inviting My Bookish Blogspot to participate in the blogtour.

About the author

Rowan Beaird is a writer whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, and The Common, among others. She is the recipient of
the Ploughshares Emerging Writer Award, and her work has been nominated for a Pushcart. She has received scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and StoryStudio. She currently works at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The Divorcées is her first novel.

#Blogtour The Collapsing Wave by Doug Johnstone @doug_johnstone @OrendaBooks @annecater @RandomTTours #TheCollapsingWave #SandyIsBack #RandomTTours

The Blurb

Six months since the earth-shattering events of The Space Between Us, the revelatory hope of the aliens visit has turned to dust and the creatures have disappeared into waters off Scotland’s west coast. Teenager Lennox and grieving mother Heather are being held in New Broom, a makeshift US military base, the subject of experiments, alongside the Enceladons who have been captured
by the authorities. Ava, who has given birth, is awaiting the jury verdict at her trial for the murder of her husband. And MI7 agent Oscar Fellowes, who has been sidelined by the US military, is beginning to think he might be on the wrong side of history. When alien Sandy makes contact, Lennox and Heather make a plan to escape with Ava. All three of them are heading for a profound confrontation between the worst of humanity and a possible brighter future, as the stakes get higher for the alien Enceladons and the entire human race…

My Review

The Collapsing Wave is a sequel and here I have to hold my hands up. No, I haven’t read The Space Between Us. Luckily for me Johnstone made it easy to catch up, filling in the gaps as we met Heather, Lennox and Ava. Heather and Lennox locked up in New Broom by the Americans and Ava awaiting trial for killing her abusive husband.

The character I was most looking forward to meeting was Enceladon, Sandy but Johnstone made me wait. It was during that wait that Johnstone so brilliantly set the scene. New Broom itself an American enclave on the Scottish coast, an American General that had the potential to lose the plot and Oscar an MI7 agent who I hoped had a few good genes running through him

The Enceladons, neither male nor female, merely they, intelligent, non-aggressive, peace harmony their only objectives cruelly subjected to man’s experiments to neutralise a perceived threat of the unknown.

Heather and Lennox part of that cruelty, their telepathic connection with the Enceladons interrogated, questioned. Escape seemed a dream, but Johnstone had other ideas, the start to a battle between good and what I can only describe as evil.

My wish came true and I finally met Sandy, the friend everyone would want in their corner, the one I would love to have wrap me in their body and take me through their underwater world. But first Sandy had to help Hannah, Lennox and Ava.

Johnstone was relentless in his pursuit of pushing his characters in banishing Carson and his cronies. You squirmed in disgust at Carson’s desperate and cruel torturous attempts to defeat the Enceladon, the Enceladon themselves unable to understand that their very lives depended on their willingness to react. Violence, retaliation an alien response, an avenue they had never travelled but one they were reluctantly convinced they had to take.

Johnstone pushed Carson to the extreme letting loose his paranoia, unleashing the worst of human nature. He blinkered him to the strength of ordinary humans intent on banishing his evil intentions, on someone who finally railed against his authority.

It was a tense ride, one where the outcome was never certain, the reader absorbing the rollercoaster ride as best they could.

There is more than one way to look at Johnstone’s novel. One to merely appreciate the thrill, the creativity and imagination of his narrative. Two, to think about the underlying messages, of the destruction humans inflict on others, on appreciation of immigrants who mean no harm, but come to our shores to find kindness, compassion, a home. Maybe it’s a reflection on today’s ever complicated society. I hope Johnstone would take kindly to whatever way you wished to perceive The Collapsing Wave, and that you left with a sense of hope and satisfaction.

I would like to thank Orenda Books for a copy of The Collapsing Wave and to Random Things Tours for inviting My Bookish Blogspot to participate in the blogtour

About the author

Doug Johnstone is the author of 16 previous novels, most recently The Opposite of Lonely (2023) and The Space Between Us (2023). The Big Chill (2020) was longlisted for Theakston Crime Novel of the Year, and Black Hearts was shortlisted for the same award. Three of his books, A Dark Matter (2020), Breakers (2019) and The Jump (2015), have been shortlisted for the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Novel of the Year. He’s taught creative writing and been writer in residence at various institutions over the last decade, and has been an arts journalist for over twenty years. Doug is a songwriter and musician with six albums and three EPs released, and he plays drums for the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers. He’s also co-founder of the Scotland Writers Football Club, and has a PhD in nuclear physics.

#Blogtour Crow Moon by Suzy Aspley @Writer_Suzy @OrendaBooks @annecater @RandomTTours #CrowMoon

The Blurb

When the crow moon rises, the darkness is unleashed…
Martha Strangeways is struggling to find purpose in her life, after giving up her career as an investigative reporter when her young twins died in a house fire. Overwhelmed by guilt and grief, her life changes when she stumbles across the body of a missing teenager – a tragedy that turns even more sinister when a poem about crows is discovered inked onto his back…
When another teenager goes missing in the remote landscape, Martha is drawn into the investigation, teaming up with DI Derek Summers, as malevolent rumours begin to spread and paranoia grows.
As darkness descends on the village of Strathbran, it soon becomes clear that no one is safe, including Martha…

My Review

There’s something about a debut and the promise of a new crime series that is loaded with anticipation, that promises so much but often fails, Crow Moon was definitely not a failure it was an absolute success.

Aspley was one of those skilful authors that immediately knew how to blend the real with the surreal. It had a wonderfully ethereal edge of witchcraft, mental illness, grief, and murder.

Aspley introduced us to Martha, a journalist on a sabbatical navigating the loss of her twins in a fire, and the joys of raising a teenager.

Vulnerable, fragile, but given tenacity and determination to see justice done when she finds the murdered body of her son’s best friend.

No ordinary murder, hints of witchcraft, and the seemingly eerie effects of the Crow Moon gave Aspley the perfect pretext to lead the reader down a winding road of which character was the perpetrator and why.

The local vicar Locke became Martha’’s chief suspect only to be continually rebutted by DI Derek Summers the portly detective in charge of the investigation.

Nevertheless you could see the scope for future teamwork between them their skill’s complimenting the other with the odd disagreement to make life less predictable.

The impending Crow Moon, and added trauma for Martha gave an all encompassing sense of urgency Aspley pushing the pace, the reader’s mind swirling with endless conclusions.

As the Crow Moon appeared the real perpetrator revealed themselves, a cruel, mentally unstable individual intent on quietening the voices within at any cost. Martha’s methodical journalistic instincts proved correct and the reader held their breath as the final dramatic scenes unravelled.

Readers will not be disappointed, Aspley’s debut novel that wonderful mix of human emotion and tense drama that set the scene for what will surely be a fantastic new series. Just hurry up with next instalment please Suzy Aspley!

I would like to thank Orenda Books for a copy of Crow Moon to read and review and to Random Things Tours for inviting My Bookish Blogspot to participate in the blogtour.

About the author

Originally from the north-east of England, former journalist Suzy Aspley has lived in Scotland for almost thirty years. She writes crime and short stories, often inspired by the strange things she sees in the landscape around her. She won Bloody Scotland’s Pitch Perfect in 2019 with the original idea for her debut novel and was shortlisted for the Capital Crime New Voices Award. In 2020, she was mentored by Jo Dickinson as part of the Hachette future bookshelf initiative. Crow Moon was also longlisted for the Caledonia Novel Award. She’s currently working on the second book in the series, and when she’s not writing, she’s either got her nose buried in a book, or is outside with her dogs dreaming up more dark stories. She lives in Stirlingshire with her family.

Crow Moon is published on March 14th and can be purchased at Orenda Books

https://orendabooks.co.uk/product/crow-moon

#Blogtour Mongrol by Hanako Footman @hanakofootman @WeAreFootnote @bonnierbooks_uk @RandomTTours @annecater #Mongrel

The Blurb

Mei loses her Japanese mother at age six. Growing up in suburban Surrey, she yearns to fit in, suppressing not only her heritage but her growing desire for her best friend Fran.

Yuki leaves the Japanese countryside to pursue her dream of becoming a concert violinist in London. Far from home and in an unfamiliar city, she finds herself caught up in the charms of her older teacher.

Haruka attempts to navigate Tokyo’s nightlife and all of its many vices, working as a hostess in the city’s sex district. She grieves a mother who hid so many secrets from her, until finally one of those secrets comes to light . . .

Shifting between three intertwining narratives, Mongrel reveals a tangled web of desire, isolation, belonging and ultimately, hope.

My Review

Mongrel was one of those hauntingly beautiful novels that stays with you long after the final page has been read and the book closed. It was a story of women displaced, of grief, of years of trying to find their true selves , their place within their world.

Yuki, talented violinist in pursuit of a musical career arrives in London only to fall in love with her teacher, to marry, to give birth only to lose her identity. Footman made me wonder whether she suffered the ravishes of postnatal depression or the abandonment of a husband who just did his duty. Her turmoil and emotions were brilliantly evident within Footman’s narrative, the aching love for her child the disconnect with her homeland, the longing for heir own mother.

Mei, was just as confused, in love with her best friend Fran, a love never reciprocated yet she clung on throughout the novel in the for that one day when it would happen. Again Footman sent her search for belonging, an encompassing grief for a mother she never really knew, an incident that would set her own on a trajectory of discovery to her Japanese heritage and homeland.

Finally Haruka, defined by grief set on a path of self destruction. Footman threw her into the Tokyo club world of men who used and abused Haruka for sex, Haruka only to willing, a sense of self punishment, of looking for the love of a father she never knew.

I was wrapped within their hurt and emotion Footman’s narrative raw and unforgiving. At times it felt too much but in a good way, left me emotionally drained. I left the characters hopeful in the knowledge that maybe that had or would find their path, find happiness and a place in the world they resided.

A beautiful and stunning debut.

I would like to thank We Are Footnote for a copy of Mongrel to read and review and to Random Things Tour for inviting My Bookish Blogspot to participate in the blogtour.

About the author

Hanako Footman is a British-Japanese actor and author living in London.
Mongrel is her debut novel.

#Blogtour The Descent by Paul E Hardisty @Hardisty_Paul @orendabooks @annecater @RandomTTours #TheDescent

The Blurb

Kweku Ashworth is a child of the cataclysm, born on a sailboat to parents fleeing the devastation in search for a refuge in the Southern Ocean. Growing up in a world forever changed, his only connection to the events that set the world on its course to disaster were the stories his step-father, now long-dead,
recorded in his manuscript, The Forcing.
But there are huge gaps in the story that his mother, still alive but old and frail,
steadfastly refuses to speak of, even thirty years later. When he discovers evidence that his mother has tried to cover up the truth, he knows that it is time to find out for himself.
Determined to learn what really happened during his mother’s escape from the
concentration camp to which she and Kweku’s father were banished, and their subsequent journey halfway around the world, Kweku and his young family set out on a perilous voyage across a devastated planet. What they find will
challenge not only their faith in humanity, but their ability to stay alive

My Review

Be prepared The Descent is going to challenge and test you in the most brilliant way.

We are in the future, the world is ruined, its population scattered, controlled by those with power. Kweku is ‘free’ living with what remains of his family in an isolated spot, his only communication with the outside world a nightly radio broadcast from a woman named Sparkplug, a woman on the inside of the individual’s that plunged the world into total disaster.

Add in his Stepfather’s book of their journey to their now home and Hardisty was going to take us on a journey we didn’t want to believe, or even comprehend.

I loved the dual narrative and timeline, the deft switch Hardisty employed between the two as Kweku, forced by the violence of others set sail on the Providence with his wife and son to discover the lost pages, of his stepfathers book.

And what of Sparkplug? Here was a woman lured by the trappings of wealth, her boss rich beyond her imagination, her role widening to that of trusted PA as he planned world domination. Was the Boss Mr Trump in disguise? Maybe, maybe not but Hardisty had created the perfect bad man hellbent on world domination. The Boss’s use of presidential candidate Bragg was brilliantly ruthless, you could see him pulling his strings, bending and flexing him to his will.

As Kweku sailed to the isolated peoples of the southern ocean the true horror of the ravaged world revealed itself. Hardisty gave us the matriarchal society pushed to the extreme before the subversive actions of a society that sent its women to the horrors of male ownership.

The past saw Hardisty embed Sparkplug more and more into the Boss’s relentless pursuit of more and more wealth, control of all the major producers and industry, a world dependent on the few. It was truly terrifying, too realistic, was this his Trump, his madman intent on satisfying his own selfish fantasy, his own reality.

Of course, the world literally fell off a cliff, the the climate won, the people fought back. Hardisty made us question if they were any better as factions were created, a world divided, its population forced to survive in various small communities around the world.

What an awakening for Kweku as he searched for his mother’s story, found family he never knew he had. And what about Sparkplug? The woman you could have despised, her willingness to just go along with the Boss, to enjoy the benefits he offered. No, Hardisty was clever, she was our narrator, our historian, placed to warn us, to listen, react, to love not only each other but the world we live in.

Paul E Hardisty, What a novel, what a story, you have created, utterly compelling, just brilliant.

I would like to thank Orenda Books for a copy of The Descent to read and review and to Random Things Tours for inviting My Bookish Blogspot to participate in the blogtour.

About the author

Canadian Paul E Hardisty has spent 25 years working all over the world as an
engineer, hydrologist and environmental scientist. He has roughnecked on oil rigs in Texas, explored for gold in the Arctic, mapped geology in Eastern Turkey (where he was befriended by PKK rebels), and rehabilitated water wells in the wilds of Africa. He was in Ethiopia in 1991 as the Mengistu regime fell, and was bumped from one of the last flights out of Addis Ababa by bureaucrats and their families fleeing the rebels. In 1993 he survived a bomb blast in a café in Sana’a. Paul is a university professor and CEO of the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS). The first four novels in his Claymore Straker series, The Abrupt Physics of Dying, The Evolution of Fear, Reconciliation for the Dead and Absolution all received great critical acclaim and The Abrupt Physics of Dying was shortlisted for the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger and Telegraph Thriller of the Year. The Forcing (2023) was a SciFi Now Bookmof the Month, with The Descent out in 2024. Paul is a sailor, a private pilot, keen
outdoorsman, and lives in Western Australia.

Blogtour A Sign Of Her Own by Sarah Marsh @SarahCMarsh @TinderPress @annecater @RandomTTours #ASignOfHerOwn

The Blurb

Ellen Lark is on the verge of marriage when she and her fiancé receive an unexpected visit from Alexander Graham Bell. While her fancé is eager to make a potentially lucrative acquaintance, Ellen knows what Bell really wants from her. Ellen is deaf, and for a time was Bell’s student in a technique called Visible Speech. As he instructed her in speaking, Bell also confided in her about his dream of producing a device which would transmit the human voice along a wire: the telephone. Now, on the cusp of wealth and renown, Bell wants Ellen to speak up in support of his claim to the patent to the telephone, which is being challenged by rivals. But Ellen has a different story to tell: that of how Bell betrayed her, and other deaf pupils, in pursuit of ambition and personal gain, and cut Ellen off from a community in which she had come to feel truly at home. It is a story no one around Ellen seems to want to hear – but there may never be a more important time for her to tell it. A Sign of Her Own offers a fascinating window onto a hidden moment in history, and a portrait of a young deaf woman’s joumey to find her place in the world, and her own authentic voice.

My Review

What can I say about A Sign Of Her Own ? It was so beautifully written, Ellen portrayed with sensitivity, emotion and a real understanding of the deaf world. It was an example of an author, also deaf, who could articulate in the most natural and brilliant way the world in which she herself resided and magically turn into an outstanding novel.

Ellen was young impressionable, her mother, grandmother desperate for her to integrate into the hearing world, be seen as normal. What Ellen wanted, needed or even what may have been best for her was never considered. Packed off to boarding school, then sent to Boston to be taught by the famous Alexander Graham Bell the master of vision speech.

Marsh showed a young girl on the brink of womanhood entranced by this man, a man lost in his inventions, his own world. Snippets of his latest discoveries were fed to Ellen made her feel important, part of his world. It was only when Marsh introduced Ellen to Frances that her mind broadened, she began to question Bells methods and the sense of an impending clash loomed.

We don’t know instantly what that would be as Marsh pushed forward in time to London, Ellen is engaged to Harmon, her mother dead, but then a letter, a clandestine meeting, a re-acquaintance with Bell. A seamless switching between Boston then and London now, smattering of industrial espionage, the patent of the newly invented telephone at stake. More importantly Marsh made Ellen question not only herself, but others. Who were they, and particularly Bell to tell her and other deaf individuals how to communicate in order to fully integrate with main society. One final showdown filled with bravery, an important statement for the deaf community and an Ellen comfortable in her own self, confident, and decisive ready to live the rest of her life as she wanted.

You will fall in love with Ellen, you will dislike Bell, you will delight in the wonderful narrative and leave with a fascinating insight into the world of a deaf person and its community.

Congratulations Sarah Marsh an absolute triumph.

I would like to thank Tinder Press for a copy of A Sign Of Her Own to read and review and to Random Things Tours for inviting My Bookish Blogspot to participate in the blogtour.

About the author

Sarah Marsh was shortlisted for the Lucy Cavendish prize in 2019 and selected for the London Library Emerging Writers programme in 2020. A Sign of Her Own is her first novel, inspired by her experiences of growing
up deaf and her family’s history of deafness. She lives in London.
@SarahCMarsh

#Blogtour Death Flight by Sarah Sultoon @SultoonSarah @OrendaBooks @ annecater #DeathFlight #RandomTTours

The Blurb

Cub reporter Jonny Murphy is in Buenos Aires interviewing families of victims of Argentina’s Dirty War, when a headless torso has washed up on a city beach, thrusting him into a shocking investigation…

Argentina. 1998. Human remains are found on a beach on the outskirts of Buenos Aires – a gruesome echo of when the tide brought home dozens of mutilated bodies thrown from planes during Argentina’s Dirty War. Flights of death, with passengers known as the Disappeared.

International Tribune reporter Jonny Murphy is in Buenos Aires interviewing families of the missing, desperate to keep their memory alive, when the corpse turns up. His investigations with his companion, freelance photographer Paloma Glenn, have barely started when Argentina’s simmering financial crisis explodes around them.

As the fabric of society starts to disintegrate and Argentine cities burn around them, Jonny and Paloma are suddenly thrust centre stage, fighting to secure both their jobs and their livelihoods.

But Jonny is also fighting something else, an echo from his own past that he’ll never shake, and as it catches up with him and Paloma, he must make choices that will endanger everything he knows…

My Review

Did you know about the Death Flights, the Dirty War or even the financial crash in Argentina. All rolled one after the other and although I had a vague recollection I had no real understanding. It took the skills of Sultoon to educate me, but at the same time embroil me in a tense and very dramatic novel.

Jonny her young and very ambitious journalist for the International Tribune was our eyes on an Argentina in turmoil, Paloma his photographer and accomplice.

A body or should we say, torso washed up on a beach was too much for Jonny to ignore, it’s possible connections to the Death Flights just the story he needed to make his name. Yet Sultoon set other eyes and ears onto his investigation. Hidden figures tracked his movements, kidnapped him, fed him clues to follow, Paloma and himself never far from danger.

But Sultoon gave us a determined Jonny, Paloma always that one step behind perhaps more reticent and Sultoon made you wonder if she too had secrets to hide.

As riots erupted, as people tried to steer them in another direction, Sultoon sent them speeding across the country. The tension was tangible, the reader on a knife edge as they hurtled headlong into trouble.

Assistance came in the form of an old friend from Jonny’s past, help appeared to be on the way, but hang on Sultoon wasn’t going to make it easy. Twist after twist, drama filled scene after scene and I couldn’t work out who was more exhausted, Jonny or myself.

I was exhausted in a good way, I’d been pulled into Jonny’s story, well and truly immersed in Argentina’s history, embroiled in a cat and mouse game with no idea of its ending.

I did and didn’t want it to end, knew that Jonny had other stories to tell, ones more personal, his own still to unfold. I felt grateful that this was a series Sultoon would hopefully continue, and revelled in the anticipation of a new instalment.

I would like to thank Orenda Books for a copy of Death Flight to read and review and to Random Things Tours for o voting My Bookish Blogspot to participate in the blogtour.

About the author

Sarah Sultoon is a journalist and writer, whose work as an international newsexecutive at CNN has taken her all over the world, from the seats of power in both Westminster and Washington to the frontlines of Iraq and Afghanistan. She has extensive experience in conflict zones, winning three Peabody awards for her work on the war in Syria, an Emmy for her contribution to the coverage of Europe’s migrant crisis in 2015, and a number of Royal Television Society gongs. When not reading or writing she can usually be found somewhere outside, either running, swimming or throwing a ball for her three children and dog while she imagines what might happen if… Her debut thriller The Source is currently in production with Lime Pictures, and was a Capital Crime Book Club pick and a number one bestseller on Kindle. The Shot (2022) and Dirt (2023) followed, with Death Flight due to be published in 2024.

Death Flight can be ordered:

https://orendabooks.co.uk/product/death-flight