The Book of Stolen Dreams - Cover Reveal and Extract

 My daughter and I absolutely loved reading The Book of Stolen Dreams so I was thrilled when I was asked to take part in the cover reveal for the paperback version.

Check it out, you need to be a part of this amazing adventure!

And not only can I share with you the cover, I can also provide you with a brilliant extract to read too.

Check it out below:

The Companion by Lesley Thomson Blog Tour

 I've said it before and I will say it again, I love a good crime novel.

So when I was asked if I'd like to take part in the tour for best-selling author Lesley Thomson's latest novel, I of course jumped at the chance.

The Companion revisits characters from the book Death of a Mermaid, but fear not, I can confirm that this story can in fact be read as a standalone. 

And - spoiler alert - it's dark and secretive, perfect combination for a crime to take place don't you think.

Timothy Mew, aged twenty five answers an advert in Cuckoo’s Nest, an organisation matching younger people with little financial means to live cheaply with an older person in return for shopping and company. Rex Lomax is seventy and lonely. At first he welcomes Timothy into his home, an apartment in a grand country mansion, Blacklock House, in the Sussex countryside. But when there are several murders nearby and the police announce they are hunting a serial killer, Rex becomes uneasy and mistrustful. DI Toni Kemp, of Sussex police, must unravel a case which has shocked the county to its core. In late summer sunshine, the  idyllic setting, fountain on a rolling lawn, peacocks screaming into the bushes and a summer house are all wrought with threat. Seven long-term residents have seen more than they should. But this is a community who are good at keeping secrets...

Wild Fires by Sophie Jai Blog Tour

I have to be honest from the beginning, Wild Fires is not my typical go to sort of book. I went in with no expectation, I'd initially been drawn in by the front cover (come on, I'm not the only one to do such a thing).

What Sophie Jai has written is a story about family experiencing loss and about how each of them deal with their grief.

The only things Cassandra knows about her family are the stories she's heard in snatches over the years: about the aunt and cousin she never got to meet, about the man from the folded-up photograph in one of her aunt's drawers, and of course about her cousin Chevy, and his troubled past - but no one utters a word about them any more.

When a call from one of her sisters brings Cassandra news of Chevy's death, she has to return home for the funeral. To Toronto and the big house on Florence Street, where her sisters are hiding more than themselves in their rooms, where the tension brewing between her mother and aunts has been decades in the making, and where sooner or later every secret, unspoken word and painful memory will find its way out into the open.

The Maidens by Alex Michaelides

 I was a big fan of The Silent Patient. I was late to the party reading it but the glowing reviews certainly weren't lying.

And now here I am again, we'll call it fashionably late to reading Alex Michaelides latest release, The Maidens. But I thought it only fitting to get my review out on the novels paperback release date. 

Edward Fosca is a murderer. Of this Mariana is certain. But Fosca is untouchable. A handsome and charismatic Greek Tragedy professor at Cambridge University, Fosca is adored by staff and students alike—particularly by the members of a secret society of female students known as The Maidens.

Mariana Andros is a brilliant but troubled group therapist who becomes fixated on The Maidens when one member, a friend of Mariana’s niece Zoe, is found murdered in Cambridge.

Mariana, who was once herself a student at the university, quickly suspects that behind the idyllic beauty of the spires and turrets, and beneath the ancient traditions, lies something sinister. And she becomes convinced that, despite his alibi, Edward Fosca is guilty of the murder. But why would the professor target one of his students? And why does he keep returning to the rites of Persephone, the maiden, and her journey to the underworld?

When another body is found, Mariana’s obsession with proving Fosca’s guilt spirals out of control, threatening to destroy her credibility as well as her closest relationships. But Mariana is determined to stop this killer, even if it costs her everything—including her own life.

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw Blog Tour

 There are moments where I really want to just sit and read but I perhaps don't have the time to really escape into a story. 

That's where I've really fallen in love with short stories.

They allow small periods where I can delve into a book, get the benefit of reading fiction and then get on with whatever I need to be doing.

So when I was given the chance to join the blog tour for Deesha Philyaw's book The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, I just knew I was in for a treat.

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies explores the raw and tender places where black women and girls dare to follow their desires and pursue a momentary reprieve from being good. The nine stories in this collection feature four generations of characters grappling with who they want to be in the world, caught as they are between the church's double standards and their own needs and passions. With their secret longings, new love, and forbidden affairs, these church ladies are as seductive as they want to be, as vulnerable as they need to be, as unfaithful and unrepentant as they care to be, and as free as they deserve to be.