Category: Publisher Proof

Posted in Publisher Proof

Sunday Spotlight! Autumn Fiction: Fantasy, Magic and all Things Spooky.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I have to say this sounds like an incredible debut. It’s more of a monstrous fantasy than a spooky, Halloween type book. The story goes that, many years ago, the remote North Atlantic archipelago of St Hia was home to a monster. Her name was Thordis, and she had been adored. But when she was unable to provide her husband with a child, he sought one elsewhere – and Thordis was driven to a terrible act, before disappearing from her home. Today, lashed by storms and far from the mainland, the islands are dangerous. Many have been lost to a wild stretch of water known as the Hollow Sea.

But to one visitor, it feels like a haven. After several years trying to become a mother, Scottie has made the heart-breaking decision to leave her home and her husband in search of a fresh start. Upon her arrival on St Hia, the islanders warn her against asking questions about Thordis – but Scottie can’t resist the mystery of what happened to the woman whose story became legend.

After years of secrecy, can Scottie unravel Thordis’s story? And how will doing so change her own . . . ? I love this mix of motherhood, infertility and the monstrous. In fact monstrous births hark back to one of the most famous gothic novels; Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. It sounds like such an ambitious debut and I can’t wait to tell you all about it.

Billed as a horror/ thriller this is one of my favourite themes in fiction – books about books. Rare book dealer Lily Albrecht has just been given a tip-off about The Book of the Most Precious Substance, a 17th century manual rumoured to be the most powerful occult book ever written, if it really exists at all. With some of the wealthiest people in the world willing to pay Lily a fortune to track it down, she embarks on a journey from New York to New Orleans to Munich to Paris. If she finds it, Lily stands to gain more than just money. This could erase the greatest tragedy of her life. But will Lily’s quest help her find some answers, or will she lose everything in search of a ghost?

A book with all of life’s answers, if only you can find it...

I absolutely loved A.M. Shine’s last novel The Watchers and it had such a killer ending! I chose it as one of my books of the year so my hopes are high for The Creeper.

Superstitions only survive if people believe in them. Renowned academic Dr Sparling seeks help with his project on a remote Irish village. Historical researchers Ben and Chloe are thrilled to be chosen – until they arrive. The village is isolated and forgotten. There is no record of its history, its stories. There is no friendliness from the locals, only wary looks and whispers. The villagers lock down their homes at sundown. It seems a nameless fear stalks the streets, but nobody will talk – nobody except one little girl. Her words strike dread into the hearts of the newcomers. Three times you see him. Each night he comes closer. That night, Ben and Chloe see a sinister figure watching them. He is the Creeper. He is the nameless fear in the night. Stories keep him alive. And nothing will keep him away…

Last Minute Mentions

I’ve just been granted access to these spooky titles so thought I’d give you a quick preview.

I loved C.J.Cooke’s The Lighthouse Witches, an interesting mix of isolated Scottish location, a history of witches, ghostly apparitions, disappearances and time travel. The Ghost Woods sounds downright spooky.

In the midst of the woods stands a house called Lichen Hall. Even the name starts to conjure up an atmosphere of decay. This place is shrouded in folklore – old stories of ghosts, of witches, of a child who is not quite a child. Now the woods are creeping closer, and something has been unleashed. Pearl Gorham arrives in 1965, one of a string of young women sent to Lichen Hall to give birth. And she soon suspects the proprietors are hiding something. Then she meets the mysterious mother and young boy who live in the grounds – and together they begin to unpick the secrets of this place. As the truth comes to the surface and the darkness moves in, Pearl must rethink everything she knew – and risk what she holds most dear. This sounds like a great mix of the supernatural and women’s history.

ELSPETH NEEDS A MONSTER. THE MONSTER MIGHT BE HER.

One Dark Window is billed as a gothic fantasy romance. An ancient, mercurial spirit is trapped inside Elspeth Spindle’s head – she calls him the Nightmare. He protects her. He keeps her secrets. But nothing comes for free, especially magic. When Elspeth meets a mysterious highwayman on the forest road, she is thrust into a world of shadow and deception. Together, they embark on a dangerous quest to cure the town of Blunder from the dark magic infecting it. As the stakes heighten and their undeniable attraction intensifies, Elspeth is forced to face her darkest secret yet: the Nightmare is slowly, darkly, taking over her mind. And she might not be able to stop him.

I’m so excited to be on the blog tour for this gothic mystery novel, with such a lush cover I want to frame it.

1930. Nell Fagan is a journalist on the trail of a intriguing and bizarre mystery: in 1606, a man vanished from a locked gatehouse in a remote Yorkshire village, and 300 years later, it happened again. Nell confides in the best sleuth she knows, judge’s daughter Rachel Savernake. Thank goodness she did, because barely a week later Nell disappears, and Rachel is left to put together the pieces of the puzzle. Looking for answers, Rachel travels to lonely Blackstone Fell in Yorkshire, with its eerie moor and sinister tower. With help from her friend Jacob Flint – who’s determined to expose a fraudulent clairvoyant – Rachel will risk her life to bring an end to the disappearances and bring the truth to light. A dazzling mystery peopled by clerics and medics; journalists and judges, Blackstone Fell explores the shadowy borderlands between spiritual and scientific; between sanity and madness; and between virtue and deadly sin. Full of my favourite themes and brimming with all things gothic, this is surely an autumn must—read.

How good do all these picks sound? Look out next Sunday for my look at Historical Fiction and Romance.

Posted in Publisher Proof

The Change by Kirsten Miller

Posted on by thelotusreaders

You have to indulge me with this review, because it’s quite a personal response to Kirsten Miller’s novel. It had to be personal, because as a peri-menopausal woman, I fell in love with the idea of a latent power that women can tap into at an age when we are often dismissed as ‘past it’. An age I’ve now reached. ‘The Change’ was a whispered word in my family. At my Grandma’s house there was a clear dividing line at the front door, right into the living room for my Grandad and left into the dining room for my Grandma. I was the only granddaughter and I did spend a lot of time with Grandad, but the other room with my two aunties, Grandma and Mum was where secret feminine conversations took place. ‘The Change’ was first overheard when I was just getting used to my periods starting. Older family members were struggling with the symptoms of menopause. Now, thirty years later I’m experiencing symptoms of peri-menopause and I realise we never really had full and frank conversations about it. Starting my periods was traumatic. I was constantly worried about leaking through my clothes, particularly at school. I was embarrassed that sometimes I had to take my bag to the toilet with me from the classroom and I was mortified that to get out of swimming I had to shout out, in front of everyone, that I had my period.

I’d started my period in my first week of secondary school, in the same summer that I broke my back so I went through an enormous amount of change. I felt tied down and I certainly wasn’t the same tree climbing, dog walking tomboy I had been up till now. I’m thinking that menopause is going to have another seismic effect. I’m already finding it difficult to contain symptoms like sweating and hair loss, but I don’t want to lose myself. I love that menopause is starting to be talked about thanks to media celebrities like Davina McCall and I’m trying to be open and honest talking about my experiences with friends. So I was really up for reading a book about women who are moving towards middle age. Women become more interesting as they get older, more confident and full of wisdom and experience. I certainly found that in my friends and in the characters of this book who I fell immediately in love with. They are definitely meant to be a trio.

Nessa: The Seeker
Jo: The Protector
Harriett: The Punisher

Each woman finds herself bestowed with incredible powers. When Nessa is widowed and her daughters leave for college, she’s left alone in her house near the ocean. Finally, she has time and quiet hours to herself, and she hears voices belonging to the dead – who will only speak to her. They’ve possibly always been there, but she’s been too busy with her family’s needs to hear them. Harriett is almost fifty, her marriage and career have imploded, and she hasn’t left her house in months. Her house was the envy of the neighbourhood and graced the cover of magazines, but now it’s overgrown with incredible plants. Harriett realises that her life is far from over – in fact, she’s undergone a stunning metamorphosis.

Jo has spent thirty years at war with her body. The rage that arrived with menopause felt like the last straw – until she discovers she’s able to channel it, but needs to be able to control it too. The trio are guided by voices only Nessa can hear and discover the abandoned body of a teenage girl. The police have already written off the victim. But these women have not. Their own investigations lead them to more bodies and a world of wealth where the rules don’t apply – and the realisation that laws are designed to protect villains, not the vulnerable.So it’s up to these three women to avenge the innocent, and punish the guilty…

The time has come to embrace The Change.

I loved these women, they were powerful, sexy, sassy and deeply committed to their fellow women – dead or alive. Some might call them witches, but isn’t that a man’s name for a woman who won’t be controlled? Harriett is wonderful! She’s unapologetically sexy and partakes of beautiful men or women when she fancies, but doesn’t feel a need to be attached. She lets her garden run riot and has her own methods for dealing with those who complain. I loved her fearlessness and sense of humour. Nessa has a gift that’s past down through the generations, but has laid dormant till now. I loved that Nessa’s situation is a positive spin on the empty nest, although her gift is not one most people would want. I loved her compassion for the girls she sees and her drive to help, to the extent of taking a ghost home with her. Jo’s gift felt like the embodiment of the rage a lot of women feel about the injustices of the world we live in. The author tells us tales about what women face every day: husbands who control their lives; young girls preyed on by their sport’s coach; vibrant and intelligent women overlooked for promotion; creative women having their ideas stolen by men; women excluded from the gent’s club where a group of millionaire men rule the world. These women are determined to speak out, be open about what women’s lives are like and educate other women to speak their truth and feel their power. It’s inspiring and exhilarating.

The mystery of the serial killer is compelling and really keeps you reading. I kept picking this up in every spare moment, wanting to spend time with these women and see where their investigations lead. I really loved the clever way the author took on the concept of serial killer stories while writing one. She addresses the popularity of crime thrillers and true crime podcasts and how they appeal to men. They’re written as if the victims are expendable and the killers get special nicknames as if they are comic book villains. I’ve often thought this about the Yorkshire Ripper. He’s notorious, but I couldn’t tell you a single name of his victims. There is a truth about the world right at the heart of her story. It comes to light when the women involve the police. There are women in the world who matter and there are others who are worthless, both to law enforcement and to the powerful men encountered in this book. They can be dismissed, because they’re sex workers, or drug addicts, or live in poverty. The Yorkshire Ripper’s first victims were possibly sex workers, then a young girl was attacked after walking home from a night out. She was perceived, by law enforcement and the media, as coming from a decent family. Media headlines screamed that the Ripper had taken his first ‘innocent’ victim. The implication being that the other victims deserved their fate. The author really got this message across, but without losing any of the power, the tension or the desperate need to see the killer caught. Finally, I have to say something about magic realism and being a huge fan of Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Alice Hoffman, I’ve been reading some of the best writers in the genre. Miller’s story is so strong and the characters so well constructed, that I never felt a sense of disbelief. I have quite a collection of magic realism starting with my teenage love for Fay Weldon’s Life and Loves of a She-Devil and Angela Carter’s short stories. This book can easily sit next to my favourites. It really is that good.

Meet The Author

Kirsten Miller grew up in a small town in the mountains of North Carolina. At seventeen, she hit the road and moved to New York City, where she lives to this day. Kirsten’s first adult novel, The Change, is a feel good feminist revenge fantasy–with witches. The Change is a Good Morning America Book Club pick for May 2022. Kirsten also the author of over a dozen middle grade and YA novels, including the acclaimed Kiki Strike books, which tell the tale of the delinquent girl geniuses who keep Manhattan safe, and How to Lead a Life of Crime. She is not the Kirsten Miller who wrote All That Is Left (which appears on the list of the books she’s written), but she assumes that Kirsten is lovely and talented.

Posted in Netgalley, Publisher Proof

Beyond a Broken Sky by Suzanne Fortin

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Beyond A Broken Sky by Suzanne Fortin

I’m a big fan of historical fiction and Suzanne Fortin cemented her place as an author to look out for when I read her debut novel The Forgotten Life of Arthur Pettinger. Her combination of time-slip narrative, history and romance is irresistible. I’m interested in the stories people don’t tell us about themselves and the years spent at war often feel like a parallel dimension where people and stories were lost. People died, became displaced, or were simply too traumatised to relive the events of those years. For many, their ordinary every day lives stopped in 1939 and they lived a completely different life away from friends and family, with a new occupation and a changing sense of self. They could act completely out of character in the high pressure of combat or became worn down by the difficulties of being a civilian in a bombed city, living on rations and making new friendships with the unlikeliest people.To then return and pack everything that’s happened neatly away to restart where you left off seems impossible, but many people did. How often do we hear people say that their father or grandfather never talked about the war? My own father-in-law had been sent to a Russian work camp in Siberia, because his father was in the military. His brother didn’t survive, but he and his Mum escaped and lived in a forest camp with the Polish resistance, gradually walking their way down through the Middle East, across Northern Africa and into Europe and eventually England. I would never have known this incredible story if I hadn’t seen a photo of him as a boy, standing in front of the pyramids. My mother-in-law was a child in the Warsaw Ghetto who escaped through the sewer system. Yet neither dwelled on that life, preferring to look forward where life was less painful. Suzanne’s novels fill that gap, that silence where someone’s experience is perhaps too painful to share. She writes these stories that are often complex and present something new about the war, and about people, that I hand’s thought of before.

It just happened that I’d read Ruth Druart’s The Last Hours in Paris and Joanna Quinn’s The Whalebone Theatre very recently, both of which included characters who were enemy prisoners of war, brought to English camps, but often released into the community to help out farmers or do other work that helped the Allied war effort. Some of these men waited up to three years after the war ended to be returned to their homeland and working within communities led to friendships and relationships with some British people. In Fortin’s latest novel we are taken to Somerset in 2022. Telton Hall is the home of Jack Hartwell, a farmer in his eighties, trying to come to terms with the compulsory purchase of his land and home. Rhoda Campbell is a stained glass expert and restorer, visiting to look at a stained glass window designed by POW Paulo Sartori. She works for a museum that conserves old historic buildings and they hope to move the whole chapel and window to their site. However she finds Jack blocking the driveway in his tractor, in the hope of delaying a little bit longer. It takes Rhoda’s charm and the arrival of his son Nate to get things moving again. As the three of them look at the chapel, Jack’s terrier disappears down a gap between flagstones. Rhoda lays on her front to see where he’s gone and makes a terrible discovery, human bones buried underneath the flagstones. This puts in place a chain of events that reaches all the way back to WW2 and has an effect on Rhoda whose own brother is a missing person.

The story alternates between 2022 with Rhoda’s urge to investigate the mystery she’s uncovered and back to the end of WWII when a young woman called Alice Renshaw finds herself pregnant to an American airman, Brett. As she prepares to marry Brett at the village church, Alice is so happy even though it’s an uncertain future she faces, possibly over in America. However, Brett doesn’t turn up at the church and thanks to his father’s connections he is transferred out of the country immediately. Alice is heartbroken. A few weeks later she’s at Telton Hall, where Louise Hartwell takes on young girls ‘in trouble’ and finds homes for their babies with couples who can’t have children. Louise is also still running the farm, with the help of Jack who is ten, his step-brother Billy, who needs to walk with a stick after being wounded. There are also two Italian POW’s helping with the produce gardens, one of whom is Paolo Sartori. Every time the book delves into the past we hear a little more about the story of Telton Hall, the diverse characters staying there and the connections they form with each other. Each time we go back to WW2, we’re getting closer to the answers and the tension builds, while in the present those that would like Rhoda silenced, come ever closer.

I was gripped by the drama of Telton Hall in the 1930’s and desperate for the hateful Billy to get his just desserts before he can permanently hurt anyone. In the present I was convinced I wouldn’t like the answers to the mystery. I was worried that it would have an impact on characters I’d become attached to, who might have only acted badly due to the extreme circumstances. The ending was a surprise and gave me the answers, as well as putting a smile on my face knowing that there was a happy ending for some. I loved Alice’s ability to trust and love after her experience with Brett. I felt the author really captured that sense of displacement and dislocation that many felt during the war, their separation from ‘normal’ life and the way their actions within that time had repercussions for years to come. Ultimately, the story shows us the amazing ability we humans have to heal, our incredible resilience and capacity to love. This could manifest in holding on to a love that won’t die or in finding we have an endless capacity of love, even when our experiences have shown us a depth of loss that seems insurmountable. For Rhoda it means the possibility of letting love in, despite having no blue print of family life from her own childhood. This book is heartfelt and moving, showing us that like Rhoda’s stained glass we are made up of many parts, each experience and influence adding together to make something uniquely beautiful.

Published on 22nd July by Aria

Meet the Author

Suzanne writes historical fiction, predominantly dual timeline and set in France. Her books feature courageous women in extraordinary circumstances with love and family at the heart of all the stories. 

Suzanne also writes mystery and suspense as Sue Fortin where she is a USA Today bestseller and Amazon UK #1 and Amazon US #3 bestseller. She has sold over a million copies of her books and been translated into multiple languages.

Posted in Publisher Proof

The Blackbird by Tim Weaver

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I had never come across Tim Weaver’s novels before so I was very lucky to be offered this by the publisher, especially in such a special edition too. When I learned it was the tenth in his David Raker series, I approached it with some trepidation. Would I be able to keep up or would it even make sense? Now that I’ve finished the novel I can honestly say that within the first few pages, I forgot this was one in a series and just got stuck in! Such was the strength of the story and his characters that I was drawn in and captivated to the end.

David Raker is a Missing Person’s Investigator and a widower with one daughter. The missing people in this story are Cate and Aidan Gascoigne, a devoted couple who have been married for five years and together for nine. The media dubbed their case ‘The Mystery of Gatton Hill’ as they disappeared there, travelling from their home in Twickenham to have dinner. Catherine ‘Cate’ and Aiden Gascoigne were both 37 years old and worked in creative roles; Aiden was a Creative Director for a Soho web design company and Cate was a full time photographer. Cate’s work isn’t of the portrait or wedding variety and David is quite blown away by her talent as he looks for clues in her work. For Cate, photography is an art form and she’s had several successful exhibitions with enigmatic titles. As they drove to dinner in Reigate, the couple could be seen on CCTV recording laughing together, just before their car plunged down a 90 foot ravine. Their car burst into flames and even though a fire crew arrived soon after the accident, the fire was impossible to stop. However, they also find an impossible scenario, when trying to recover Cate and Aiden’s bodies; they’re no longer in the car. The Mystery of Gatton Hill remains unsolved two and a half years later.

Cate’s parents, Martin and Sue Clark, hire Raker because they find themselves unable to live with the unknown aspects of their daughter’s disappearance and feeling their emotional distress he does what he shouldn’t, he promises them he will get to the truth. However, he has no idea just how dangerous, macabre, and twisted the case will turn out to be, as he delves into Cate and Aiden’s lives. His first port of call is to interview 2 witnesses, Audrey Calvert and Zoe Simmons, who came upon the site of the burning car almost immediately. He gets help accessing the police files and photographs on the incident from a Met source, Ewan Trasker, and works his way through the couple’s phone records that he gets from Spike, the hacker. He never expected to be forced to go on the run as he follows the leads that point to Northumberland, and a 30 year old unsolved case of 3 murdered women, a case worked by DI Makayla Jennings. Three is merely the tip of the iceberg in a chilling and menacing narrative that goes on to reveal a staggering number of murders over the years, and a extraordinarily intelligent serial killer who has no intention of getting caught. Could Cate’s artistic interest in the beach where the bodies were found have been the catalyst for her murder? Is it something else altogether? Could Cate and Aiden still be alive? I found Raker a remarkably tenacious and determined investigator, even when the pressures and dangers threaten to derail the case, and he has the added complications of trying to keep Colm Healy safe. This is a wonderfully complex, riveting and engaging read that kept me glued to the pages from beginning to end with its sky high levels of suspense and tension. This will appeal to crime and mystery readers who love truly twisty. thrilling and superior crime fiction, and I think that this can reasonably be read as a standalone if you have not read any of the series before. Highly recommended. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

Published by Michael Joseph 9th June 2022

Meet The Author

Tim Weaver is the Sunday Times bestselling author of twelve thrillers, including You Were Gone and No One Home. He has been nominated for a National Book Award, twice selected for the Richard and Judy Book Club, and shortlisted for the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger. He is the host and producer of the chart-topping Missing podcast and is currently developing an original TV series with the team behind Line of Duty. A former journalist and magazine editor, he lives near Bath with his wife and daughter.

Posted in Netgalley, Publisher Proof

Meredith Alone by Claire Alexander.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

This was one of those books where it only took a couple of pages for me to be ‘in’ the author’s world and completely convinced by her main character. Meredith hasn’t left her house for more than a thousand days, but her inner world is so rich and full. She was absolutely real to me and I could easily imagine having a coffee and a catch up with her. We meet her at a crossroads in life. She’s trying to make changes. Her daily life is quite full, she works from home as a writer and between work she bakes, exercises by running up and down the stairs, reads and fills in jigsaws of amazing places from all over the world. The jigsaws are the key. Meredith doesn’t stay inside from choice, just standing outside her front door gives her a wave of rising panic. Meredith feels a terrible fear, her heart starts hammering out of her chest, her throat begins to close and she feels like she’s going to die. However, as she looks at yet another jigsaw of something she’d love to travel and see in person, she becomes determined to live a fuller life. Meredith has sessions with an online counsellor and a new addition to her weekly calendar is a visit from Tom, who is a volunteer with a befriending society. With this support and that of her long time best friend Sadie, can Meredith overcome her fear and come to terms with the events behind her phobia?

The author tells Meredith’s story on a day by day basis, with the amount of days she’s spent indoors at the beginning of each chapter. There are also flashbacks that take us to Meredith’s childhood, living at home with her mum and sharing a room with big sister Fi. Underpinning her childhood is such a well-constructed tale of psychological dysfunction. Of course all families are dysfunctional in their own way, but Meredith’s broke my heart. Her mother is inconsistent in the way she treats her daughter, as Fi later says, their mother was horrible to both of them, but saved her fiercest venom for Meredith. She would insult her youngest daughter’s dark hair and withheld medical attention when Meredith developed eczema. She tells her itchy, uncomfortable child that she has faulty genes and it takes Fi to engineer a visit to the GP without their mother knowing. Meredith can remember happy times or at least times where she felt safe, such as a memory of being freshly bathed and drying off in front of the fire with hot chocolate. Fi and Meredith lie in bed at night conjuring up a future where they leave home and get a flat together, finally leaving their Mum to her bitterness and the alcohol. If it’s true that our self image is made up of those rules our parents tell us about ourselves and life, then Meredith is left with low self-esteem, no sense of security and the sense that she is strange or tainted in some way. It’s a recipe for mental ill health and it’s amazing that Meredith grows into such an intelligent and kind-hearted woman. It’s even more amazing that it’s Meredith who has the strength to leave.

I truly enjoyed the friends Meredith manages to make along the way and the resourceful way she tries to make herself part of the outside world from her living room. She chats in a forum of people struggling with their mental health and Celeste becomes a particular friend, even going as far as visiting Meredith and cementing their friendship in person. I loved how her befriending visits with Tom develop, because at first Meredith is slightly suspicious of his motives and keeps the extremities of her condition to herself. They have a drink together and stay in the kitchen doing one of her jigsaws, but soon they’re baking together and the relationship is becoming more of a two way street. Less befriending and more of an actual friendship. They share and Meredith realises that other people around her struggle too in their own ways. She even strikes up a friendship with a little boy who comes to ask if she wants her car washed. The upsurge of positivity in her current life is exhilarating to read, but it’s also necessary because I knew that I was also getting closer to finding out what had brought Meredith home one day, close her door and not go out again. Claire Alexander balances this beautifully and where many authors might have gone for the schmaltzy ending, she doesn’t. She keeps it realistic and in doing so made me aware of everything that Meredith has had going for her all along. She’s so self-aware, independent and knows who she is. Above all, even as she starts to overcome her demons she’s determined to do it on her own two feet. She appreciates support, but gives it as well. She doesn’t want to become dependent on an emotional crutch. Meredith is perfectly ok. Alone.

Published by Penguin 9th June 2022

Meet the Author

Claire Alexander lives on the west coast of Scotland with her husband and children. She has written for The Washington Post, The Independent, The Huffington Post and Glamour. In 2019, one of her essays was published in the award-winning literary anthology We Got This: Solo Mom Stories of Grit, Heart, and Humor. When she’s not writing or parenting, she’s on her paddle board, thinking about her next book.

Posted in Publisher Proof

The Setup by Lizzy Dent.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Lizzy’s last novel was a great modern romantic comedy that, thanks to it’s main character, managed to avoid being too schmaltzy and sentimental. It also contained a healthy dose of self-discovery and self-love for a young woman who was low in confidence and used to drifting in life. In The SetUp she’s done it again. Mara is just the sort of quirky and unsure girl that readers fall in love with and I did. Being in my late forties, Mara reminded me of a time I wasn’t sure of myself and I mostly wanted to give her some hope and a big motherly hug. We meet Mara as she’s leaving for a weekend in Prague with her best friend Charlie. This is going to be real quality time for them, something that’s been difficult to get organise since her friend became a Mum. Everything in her friend’s life has changed and while Mara is pleased for her, she can’t help but feel pushed out. Charlie’s going through a whole raft of life experiences that Mara simply can’t identify with or share. The holiday is an attempt to get their friendship back on track so she’s terribly disappointed when Charlie cancels at the last minute. So Mara is in Prague alone and while wandering one day she sees a sign for palmistry and fortune telling. Mara is astrology mad, often reading her daily horoscope first thing in the morning. So on a whim she decides to have her fortune told. There is a change on the horizon, the fortune teller explains, a tall and dark man will literally walk into her life imminently. This is everything Mara has wanted to hear and she’s still digesting the news when the fortune teller explains she has to run, even leaving the keys for Mara to lock up. Within seconds the door opens and in walks a tall, dark and handsome musician called Josef, all set to play cello in the nearby concert hall. He asks for his fortune and who is Mara to object? She wants to get to know him better, because this might be her ‘one’. So she gives him a very specific fortune – when he comes to play in England later that year he will meet a woman called Mara in the pub on the seafront at Broadgate and she is his destiny.

Mara has been drifting through life. After knowing what she wanted to do from an early age and doggedly followed her dream of going to film school. She now has an encyclopaedic knowledge of classic cinema and rom-coms too of course. She even has a little card index of all the films she’s seen, because she loves nothing better than showing one of them to someone who’s never seen it before. She completed almost three years of her degree course, when a lack of confidence and blind love and trust for someone proved to be a toxic combination. She thought that he was the one. He thought he knew more about film than Mara, because he had the more serious taste, for art house cinema. As they worked on their final project together, Mara was envisioning them being a great team and she was proud of her script about a taxi driver falling in love with a passenger. All was well until Mara heard what her boyfriend really thought, both of her and her work. Then to add to her broken heart, he stole her film. Unable to stick up for herself and claim the work as her own, instead she packed her bags and left university for good. Now living in sunny Broadgate, on the south coast, Mara is trying to make friends with her work colleagues at the town’s 1930’s lido. Directly on the sea front, the lido is a great example of Art Deco architecture but isn’t used nearly enough by the people of the town. Mara is full of ideas, but it’s whether her boss will agree to them. Every idea she puts forward seems to be blocked or put on the back burner to think about at a later date. Mara senses there is more to this than mere apathy and starts investigating. To improve her finances she advertises for a new roommate and is gratified to find Ash, a local handyman/ builder who is keen to make friends, but also help her revamp the flat. Finally and to add to her new found enthusiasm for work, she decides on a bold new look at the hair salon too. When Josef arrives in the autumn every aspect of her life is going to be perfect.

I’m guessing that Lizzy Dent is placed within ‘women’s fiction’ or categorised as modern romance, two descriptors that critics can be sniffy and superior about. I think this book is the very best of it’s genre and isn’t simply a romance, at least not the conventional sort. What I enjoyed most about this book was the transformation of Mara, from her new look and the confidence it brings, to the inner growth that becomes wisdom and really transforms her outlook on life. As Mara works on the big anniversary project for the lido she starts to appreciate her new home town and the history of the incredible Art Deco building where she works. The excitement about her work brings her closer to her colleagues and they start to really bond as friends, in fact it is Samira from work who recommends a hairdresser to give Mara’s look an overhaul. She starts to appreciate their quirks and their work skills. In turn they are impressed by Mara’s ideas and enthusiasm and their appreciation gives her confidence professionally. The negative voice that was once a constant narrator in her mind, becomes quieter, allowing a stronger, more nurturing voice to develop. I was desperate for this little team to triumph and save such a unique landmark for their community.

Romantically, Mara isn’t remotely self-aware. She believes in fate, destiny and ‘the one’ – a viewpoint that her new roommate Ash finds hilarious. He doesn’t believe there’s a ‘one’ or a specific destiny awaiting him. I loved his common sense approach to life and love. He tries to get Mara to see that Josef is merely a fantasy and the likelihood of him turning up is very slim. He wants Mara to grab hold of life and to make choices for herself: pursue things that make her happy; wear things that make her confident and comfortable; improve her relationship with the family she seems to have cut out of her life. The author keeps us guessing over what will come next for Mara and I wanted to carry on reading straight through in one sitting to find out. I became so invested in her as a character and Ash is so loveable too, the sort of man I just know gives the best hugs. The depiction of female friendships is so positive and true to life. I haven’t had children and only became a stepmum at the age of 46, so I felt that distance when my friends became mums like Charlie. I had to learn how much they needed new friends who were going through the same thing, but they needed their old friends to hang in there just as much. I loved the last minute twist to the tale that forces Mara to make a choice, between the destiny and romantic fantasy of the old Mara and the more confident and certain Mara, able to make her own choices with conviction rather than leaving the universe to decide on her behalf.

Published by Viking 9th June 2022

Meet The Author

Lizzy Dent (mis)spent her early twenties working in a hotel not unlike the one in her first novel, The Summer Job. Soon to be a TV series! She somehow ended up in a glamorous job travelling the world creating content for various TV companies, including MTV, Channel 4, Cartoon Network, the BBC and ITV. She writes about women who don’t always know where they’re going in life, but who always have fun doing it. The Setup is her second novel.

Posted in Publisher Proof

Sunday Spotlight! The Daughter of Doctor Moreau.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I have been a fan of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s writing since I did the blog tour for her novel Mexican Gothic. It was a heady mix of fear, desire, and strange happenings, with a feisty heroine with fabulous dress sense. Of course it also had a gothic mansion, decorated with wallpaper printed with wandering mushrooms. Since then I’ve become less keen on wallpaper and mushrooms! I also went back to her previous novels- one of the greatest pleasures a bookworm like me can have is to find a new author then find they have a long back catalogue of books to get your teeth into. I went back to the incredible Gods of Jade and Shadow and The Beautiful Ones, then was lucky enough to be sent Velvet Was the Night. I love the vivid colours and unusual design of her book covers too and have each one sitting on my shelf in hardback. I’m trying to resist buying the signed edition of The Daughter of Doctor Moreau with the bright pink spredges It’s perhaps no surprise that I love the art of the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo because this cover is very reminiscent of her work. Mainly I love (and envy) Morena-Garcia’s incredible imagination and the way she changes genre with each book.

The Daughter of Doctor Moreau is a feminist retelling of H.G. Wells’s original sci-fi novel. Our main character is not Dr. Moreau, instead it is his 14 year old Carlota Moreau, brought up on an island off Mexico by her scientist father. I love the technique of ‘writing back’, especially with the theme of disability in my case, but there have been a lot of books reframing Greek myths such as Elektra and Ariadne. They bring women into the frame and show events from their perspective, which is often very different from the male ‘heroes’. Carlota has a childhood illness which her father is treating with a drug regime of his own invention. Dr Moreau keeps his daughter close by and she is very naïve about the outside world, but also about her father’s work. With the help of his estate overseer, Montgomery Laughton, Dr. Moreau has created ‘the hybrids’, half human and half animal creatures who blindly obey their creator. Seven years later Eduardo Lizaldi arrives, the son of Dr. Moreau’s patron has come to see his work, but sets in motion the events of the novel. I can’t go into much more without ruining the story, but there is a touch of romance woven into the tale as well.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia talks about the setting and themes of her novel in the afterword, including the ethics of scientific work and the effects of colonialism. As part of her backdrop she addresses the treatment of the Mayan population, as well as the Caste War which raged for years against incomers. There is also a look at the rigidly controlled lives of the 19th Century women. All in all a truly ambitious undertaking, but then I wouldn’t expect any less from this gifted writer.

Meet The Author

Silvia Moreno-Garcia is the author of the novels The Daughter of Doctor Moreau, Velvet Was the Night, Mexican Gothic, and many other books. She has also edited several anthologies, including the World Fantasy Award-winning She Walks in Shadows (a.k.a. Cthulhu’s Daughters).

Posted in Publisher Proof

Sunday Spotlight! Whatever Happened to Evie Del Rio by Sarah Watts

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Evie Del Rio was the one, as far as Ed Nash was concerned.

Their teenage love was the inspiration for his song ‘Used to Be’ and helped Ed’s indie band, The Mountaineers, to international fame.But when Evie and her family suddenly up sticks and leave their London home without a forwarding address, she leaves a heartbroken Ed behind too.

Over thirty years later, washed up rocker Ed is suddenly back in the limelight when Evie’s love song is used as the theme tune for a new TV drama. Once the song is later featured on TV documentary ‘Musical Muses: The Girl in the Song’ it’s suddenly not just Ed who’s asking…

What happened to Evie Del Rio?

As a child of the 90’s I loved how this book opened with teenager Cassie finding out her mum is the inspiration behind one of the songs of the decade. Thanks to the 90’s becoming all the rage and an inspiration for TV, ‘Mum’s Song’ as Cassie and her brother now call it, is having a resurgence. Written back when her mum and musician Ed Nash were dating in the 1980’s, it wasn’t released until his band The Mountaineers produced their debut album ten years later. Now it’s one of the most downloaded songs of 2018. Cassie thinks the song isn’t bad, but the lyrics that have graced many a wedding become a bit cringe when you realise they’re about your Mum. As a teen I dreamed of meeting Damon Albany, who of course would fall madly in love with me and I would become his muse. So there was an element of nostalgia and wish fulfilment drawing me in from the first page.

Then we see the same situation from Genie’s point of view. Genie is Cassie’s mum and was once Evie Del Rio. Now she’s Genie, mum of two and with ‘a lovely big hunk of a husband’ called Gray. I was intrigued by what had made Evie’s family leave London all those years ago. Along with the change of name, there seemed to be something more going on than avoiding embarrassment over a song and a long ago romance with a rock star. Son Will is really taking the brunt of his mum’s newfound notoriety. Even adults think Genie was some sort of sex kitten and teenage boys don’t hold back. They chant about how many pop stars his mum has shagged on the football field, well they did until he broke someone’s nose. Yet Ed keeps blithely on, talking about his relationship with Evie and the origin of the song. Genie says he’s embellishing, but something about that time clearly gets under her skin. As we travel back and forth to Genie’s teens, when she’s still Evie, we slowly see more of their story revealed and secrets emerge that have been kept for a long time.

I thought this was an interesting idea for a book and as a middle aged stepmum to teenage girls I loved the idea of them getting an insight into the past. Imagine suddenly finding out that the person they see every day was once as exciting and full of promise as they are now. The multiple perspectives kept my interest, because it showed how the situation affects different members of the family. I loved Genie’s husband Gray, a lovely, solid and reliable anchor in a difficult time for his family. There are sensitive issues, but they are handled with care and empathy. I would recommend this nostalgic read, full of endearing characters and with a central mystery that unfolds slowly and with sensitivity.

Published by Cahill Davies 8th July 2022

Meet the Author

I’ve always enjoyed the written word and I have a great passion for music so I decided to put the two together and the result is my debut novel ‘What Happened to Evie Del Rio?’

I like to think I’m enjoying my ‘middle youth’ rather than my ‘middle age’. I’m married and Mum to two sons and a black rescue cat called Hector.

I enjoy going to gigs and discovering new music. I also love reading women’s fiction but I do have a bit of a penchant for crime and psychological thrillers! If I’m not on social media, reading or listening to music then you will probably find me on a football pitch cheering on my youngest son and his team.

Posted in Publisher Proof

The Last Hours in Paris by Ruth Druart.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

After Ruth Druart’s previous WW2 novel While Paris Slept I’d been so embedded in the story that I felt emotionally drained from the terror and trauma experienced by her characters. While that novel gave us WW2 from the perspective of a French police officer and a Jewish mother, her latest novel comes from a very interesting and possibly less explored voice of the conflict. Our novel centres around young French woman and a German soldier who cross each other’s paths due to a love of books. We roam from Paris to Brittany and to England, hearing the stories of our main characters from both points of view at different times in their lives. However, the novel starts several years later with Joséphine, a young woman who has just finished her baccalaureate and is looking forward to summer. She wants to visit England because it’s where the Beatles are from, but her mum Élise and the woman they lodge with, Soizcic seem very resistant. It’s the usual teenage argument, made all the more dramatic because the women are carrying a huge secret. One that will be uncovered if Joséphine keeps to her plan to find her birth certificate, so she can obtain a passport. She intends to go with or without her mother’s permission. Élise had always promised herself to tell Joséphine the truth she’s been hiding, but the time never seemed right and besides it was easier to keep the illusion. Élise has always told her daughter that her father’s name was Fredéric and he died in the war. The truth is more complex and shrouded in the secrecy and shame of another time. If Joséphine finds out, will she ever forgive her mother?

Our story moves back in time to the 1940’s when Élise is living in an apartment in occupied Paris with her Mum and younger sister Isabelle. She hates ‘the Boche’ who have taken over her beautiful city and filled it with fear and hatred. Jewish families have disappeared and just as hated as the German occupiers are people who collaborate with the enemy, whether they’re bar owners whose tills ring with German money or the women who serve as their mistresses. Élise has noticed them walking with officers in the gardens, wearing perfume and sporting real stockings rather than a painted and often wobbly line drawn down the back of the legs. Élise has a secret, she has been working at an orphanage and helping Jewish children escape across the border. I loved the bravery of this young woman and her ability to see most people as human beings, at a time when the hatred of others due to their race or religion was at it’s devastating worst. She meets a young German soldier in her friend Monsieur Le Bolzec’s bookshop and at first is horrified that the elderly bookseller is finding sympathy for him. Sébastian may sound German, but his mother was French and his fluency in the language means he’s working in an office translating letters. Élise is cool towards him at first, but then he warns her that she’s in danger. She has been helping Jewish children pass from an orphanage and over the boarder. Sébastian translates a letter denouncing the orphanage, he keeps it and warns Élise, even organising a car to remove the remaining children. This act of service and his willingness to put himself in grave danger brings them closer together, but will anyone accept their feelings for each other.

Ironically it’s the danger of war that brings these two characters together, but the liberation of Paris that will tear them apart. The author’s research is impeccable and I learned things I hadn’t realised about the war and particularly it’s aftermath. I had some idea of the treatment meted out by the French on women thought to be collaborators, but Ruth Druart’s vivid description brought out a huge sense of injustice in me. These women made choices due to their situation: if a German soldier approached me to be his mistress, I might do it if my children were starving or I’d lost my home. There was no mercy or insight into why such a choice might be made. I was also surprised at how long the British kept prisoners of war beyond the ceasing of hostilities. The Geneva Convention states that they should be released immediately, but here we see men kept for three years beyond the war ending. I think the author really captured the chaos of an occupying force retreating and how people have become displaced from their homes, their families and their lovers, especially where the relationship is controversial. People lost each other for decades – my mother-in-law was taken out of the Warsaw Ghetto when she was a child and was taken to England, separated from both parents. Her father looked for her and his wife straight after the war with no luck and eventually settled in America and moved on with his life, coming to terms with the fact they had probably been killed. They were still alive though and his wife was finally reunited with their daughter in England and her father’s other family in America. Druart shows how our links to each other can be lost, but for Élise there are particular betrayals that have kept her apart from Sébastian . Betrayals that are hard to forgive. I found this part of the book so poignant and I loved how Paris needed time to heal, both it’s buildings and it’s people. They had adjusted to occupation and now must rebuild their city, bringing back it’s joi de vive. As Élise observes the difference war has made to her beloved city I could almost hear the oppressive sound of jackboots echoing off the buildings and reminding every citizen they are no longer free.

I was drawn to Sébastian and truly understood his feelings of oppression. He was no more free than Élise, forced to join the Hitler Youth, he was trained as a soldier so had no choice but to serve. It was so moving to see him post-war in an English cinema watching film of what the Allies found when they liberated Auschwitz. He his horrified and is filled with guilt for serving a leader who could do this to others. He knows he is different, but to a Frenchman or an Englishman there is no difference between him and the SS; they are all Nazis and are all responsible. He carries that shame with him into all he does. I also felt for Élise and her loneliness, because despite having Joséphine and their friend Soizcic she has a solitary existence. I hoped for a happy ending for her, but I won’t spoil your reading pleasure by revealing what does happen in Joséphine’s timeline. I urge you to read it, because it has real impact. Hearing the voice of the enemy is unusual and impresses upon us that no matter what side we’re compelled to be on we’re all human. We don’t choose who we fall in love with and that love never dies, no matter how much time has passed or how far apart we are.

Published by Headline 7th June 2022.

Meet the Author

Living in Paris for the last thirty years inspired me to write, and my debut novel, While Paris Slept, came out in 2021, followed by The Last Hours in Paris, to be released in July 2022. Both books are set during the occupation of World War II, a time which intrigued me as I imagined the French having to live and work alongside the occupiers.

I love the power of story, and believe that sharing stories from different perspectives and different backgrounds can help us understand the world better. Having studied psychology at Leicester University, I have always been interested in the workings of the mind, and especially in what motivates people. I find people fascinating and love creating my own characters, each one flawed and touching in their own way. 

I don’t believe in the single story, and in my books I like to present different perspectives, leaving the reader to make up their own mind as the characters face moral dilemmas and difficult choices. I hope you enjoy reading them.

Posted in Publisher Proof

Truly, Darkly Deeply by Victoria Selman

Posted on by thelotusreaders
My other half was worried when he saw my bookmark.

Twelve-year-old Sophie and her mother, Amelia-Rose, move to London from Massachusetts where they meet the charismatic Matty Melgren, who quickly becomes an intrinsic part of their lives. But as the relationship between the two adults fractures, a serial killer begins targeting young women with a striking resemblance to Amelia-Rose.

When Matty is eventually sent down for multiple murder, questions remain as to his guilt — questions which ultimately destroy both women. Nearly twenty years later, Sophie receives a letter from Battlemouth Prison informing her Matty is dying and wants to meet. It looks like Sophie might finally get the answers she craves. But will the truth set her free — or bury her deeper?

I found this a truly compelling read, shot through with moments of fascination and revulsion. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that looks at serial murder from this perspective. I remember reading one of Sue Townsend’s first Adrian Mole books, set in the early eighties they cover a period when Peter Sutcliffe, the ‘Yorkshire Ripper’, was eventually caught. Adrian observed in his diary that his wife must have known what her husband was. Or did she think ‘Peter home covered in blood, says he was run over by an offal cart’. Humour aside, we often think this when serial killers are caught and it turns out they’ve been a ‘normal family man’ at home. We want our killers to be monsters, strange looking loners, men who have always ‘kept to themself’. It’s unimaginable to think they might have murdered, then gone home and had a family barbecue. This is such rich territory to exploit and Victoria Selman has done it beautifully here in her narrator Sophie and in her creation of Matty Melgren.

I’m going to share a personal response to one of the aspects of the book I found so beautifully constructed that it rang completely true. My ex-partner was emotionally and psychologically abusive. We were together five years and I had therapy for several years afterwards to feel completely myself again. I’d been gaslighted for so long that my sense of self was broken and I didn’t even trust my own judgement anymore. People always ask why you stay with someone like this and the answer is always that they weren’t like this at first. People like this know how to manipulate, to love-bomb you at first and charm everyone around you. The change is subtle, barely noticeable. Then if you do notice, it was a joke or it came out wrong. By the time they really show their true colours you’re so nervous, under confident and broken that you see yourself differently. Maybe you deserve this? Maybe this is just what relationships are like. The author captures this perfectly in Matty Melgren’s relationship with Sophie’s mum, Ams. Told from Sophie’s perspective, Matty dances her mother round the living room and leaves her loving little Post-It notes, surprises her with flowers and takes her breakfast in bed. Sophie describes the change:

“Things started to change; gradually, the way the tide comes in. Inching closer so you don’t notice it until your shorts are wet and your sandcastle’s a shrinking mound.’

We see Ams start to doubt herself. One scene that really unsettled me for being exactly what my ex would do concerned Ams getting dressed for a works drink party. She puts on a red dress that’s off the shoulder and Sophie thinks she looks pretty. Matty agrees, but wonders whether she might want to wear something ‘less showy’ for a party her boss is attending. She has a black tunic, but it’s a bit frumpy. She puts on the black and leaves for her party and once she’s gone Sophie challenges him. She thought her mum looked pretty in the red. ‘Me too’ Matty replied, commenting that she ought to have more confidence in herself. It’s subtle, but it has Ams doubting her judgement and is driving a wedge between her and her daughter. He encourages Sophie in rebellion and cheeky come backs. Sophie’s fear that he will leave like her father, is a easy thing to exploit and he does. He uses Sophie to pile shame on her mother when she’s ‘demanding’ which translates as Ams asking for her needs to be met. I found his manipulation of Sophie uncomfortable reading, but Sophie presents it differently. She blames her burgeoning hormones and admits it might have been an unconscious desire to draw him to her and isolate her mother. It’s perhaps the success of this bonding process that makes Matty think he can push the boundaries; to exploit her age and natural curiosity in an uncomfortable and completely inappropriate way.

In between Sophie’s story, are contemporary opinions of Matty Melgren and those around him. There are also the terrible facts about the murders and the female victims who are otherwise eclipsed by the fascination into how the killer’s mind worked. I loved the way the author would juxtapose events to place a spotlight on the killings. It brought up a feeling of revulsion, even though the two events are really unrelated. What Sophie and Ams were doing while these murders took place has no connection, but somehow we feel it and it’s a technique many newspapers use to push their agenda. Ams is creaming butter and sugar to make a birthday cake, with the radio playing in the background reporting that two more bodies had been found strangled by their underwear and one almost decapitated by a shovel. Sophie connects the timing years later. Matty suggested that they celebrate Sophie’s birthday properly and make a fuss. Ams thinks that she’s creating patterns that weren’t there, but it’s easy to see why. She’s remembering them, obliviously celebrating her birthday, while two women lay brutalised and their killer was sat charming her school friends.

Sophie couldn’t possibly have known, but she’s heard so much criticism over the years that she’s internalised it. Why didn’t she know? They must have been stupid not to see it. She’s still being manipulated and gaslighted, this time by the press and general public. The tension builds, compelling the reader on towards a resolution to Sophie’s musings and to her scheduled prison visit. It’s an insight into how murder destroys two families, that of the victim but also that of the murderer. Being left with all these internal questions and a sort of survivor’s guilt. I wondered whether it is ever possible to go through an experience like this and trust a man again. Would Sophie have been able to live a normal life after this experience in her formative years? Victoria Selman has written a novel that made me feel so many different things and had enough psychological trauma to keep a counsellor like me thinking long after the book was closed. She also deserves congratulations for concluding it in a way I never saw coming.

Published by Quercus 7th July 2022

Meet The Author

Victoria Selman is the author of the critically acclaimed Ziba MacKenzie series. Her debut novel, Blood for Blood, was shortlisted for the prestigious CWA Debut Dagger Award and an Amazon Charts #1 bestseller for five weeks, selling over half a million copies. 

Victoria has written for the Independent, co-hosts Crime Time FM with critics, Barry Forshaw and Paul Burke, compiles the Afraid of the Light charity anthology series and was shortlisted for the 2021 CWA Short Story Dagger Award.

Her first standalone thriller, TRULY DARKLY DEEPLY, is being published by Quercus in July 2022.