📖 Blog Tour ~ Together Again at the Cornish Country Hospital

Boldwood Book
3 April 2025

Thanks to the publisher and Rachel’s Random Resources
for my copy of the book and the invitation to the tour

A lost love…

A&E Nurse Amy Spencer lives a very ordinary life in Port Kara. She loves her job at the hospital and has a great group of friends, but there is something or someone missing from her life. Amy’s tried dating but no one ever compares with the one boy that got away – Lijah Byrne.

A surprise arrival…

Lijah’s life since he left Port Kara has been what dreams are made of. But lately Lijah has started to feel hollow – the fame and celebrity he once craved now makes him feel trapped. The only place he’s ever felt safe is Port Kara… so maybe it’s time to go back home?

A reunion written in the stars.

When Amy bumps into Lijah again, she only sees the boy she once loved with all her heart. But their lives are so different now. Amy knows a rekindling of their past love will end in heartbreak, but she can’t give up her second chance to be with the man she loves.

📖 My Review..

Amy loves her challenging role as an A&E nurse working at St Piran’s hospital, her natural affinity for people, and her need to care and nurture makes her ideal for this area of nursing. However, Amy always feels like there is someone missing from her life. Lijah Byrne is a global musician who returns to his home town of Port Kara to recharge and find the space to make some difficult decisions. Amy and Lijah, once childhood sweethearts, have some unfinished business together and it is this relationship which forms the basis of another cosy story which takes us back into the heart of this lovely, fictional Cornish town. 

Beautifully written, this little corner of Cornwall comes alive as we follow the fates and fortunes of those characters who call this place home. It’s very much a story of light and shade with characters having their share of worry and some facing difficult choices but through it all a strong sense of both community and friendship comes across.  Being in Port Kara is always such a joy, this little bit of Cornwall now feels so familiar that it is like returning to a much loved home and I thoroughly enjoy catching up with all the characters who make these cosy stories such a joy to read.

Whilst this now the fifth book in the Cornish Country Hospital series it is possible to read as a standalone story, however, it does make sense to read this lovely series from the beginning so that you can get to know and love the characters who make this such a successful series.

About the Author

Jo Bartlett is the bestselling author of over nineteen women’s fiction titles. She fits her writing in between her two day jobs as an educational consultant and university lecturer and lives with her family and three dogs on the Kent coast.

Twitter /  X  @J_B_Writer #TogetherAgainAtThecornishCountryHospital

Newsletter BookBub

@BoldwoodBooks #BoldwoodBloggers

@rararesources

📖 Book Review ~ The Last Mrs Sinclair by T J Emerson

Boldwood Books
26 March 2025

Thanks to the publisher for the opportunity to read this book 

Leah Williams knows exactly what she wants from life – comfort, luxury and security. All the things she would have had if her childhood hadn’t been derailed by her father’s bad decisions. And then she meets Miles Sinclair. After the death of his wife last year, Miles is ready to start living his life again, and Leah knows just how to help him… what could be so wrong with that?

When Miles takes Leah to his chateau in the French countryside, she's excited to get a taste of the life she deserves, even if it means enduring the presence of Miles’ cousin Vivienne, who seems determined to insert the memory of his dead wife into every conversation.

But the Chateau Clairvallon has a history, not least as the place where the last Mrs Sinclair died. And as Leah discovers more about the accident that took her predecessor's life, she begins to realise that the family she's set her sights on isn't quite what it seems.

📖My Review..

Oh my word, what a tangled web of lies this turned out to be. Quite delicious in the way it manipulated both the characters and the reader so that you’re left with a wry smile at the end.

Leah Williams is a beautiful young woman, who knows what she wants and once she is approached by Miles Sinclair in swanky London bar, she wants what he has to offer. He’s rich, a grieving widower, and seems to be so beguiled by Leah that their thirty year age gap is no barrier to lust.  Once at Miles’ chateau in France, their relationship strengthens and the only down side of this idyllic setting is the domineering presence of Miles’ cousin, Vivienne, who acts as chatelaine of the chateau, and who is a constant reminder of the past.

All is not what it seems at the chateau, there’s a definite sinister edginess and some deadly secrets about what happened to the last Mrs Sinclair and with some clever twists I didn’t see coming The Last Mrs Sinclair is a definite page turner.

About the Author 

T.J. Emerson’s debut psychological thriller was published by Legend Press and received brilliant reviews. Her short stories and features have been widely published in anthologies and magazines, and she works as a literary consultant and writing tutor. She lives in Scotland.

X @TracyJEmerson #TheLastMrsSinclair

X @BoldwoodBooks

📖 Blog Tour ~ The Lavender Bride by Alexandra Weston

Boldwood Books
28 March 2025

Thanks to the publisher for my copy of the book 
And to Rachel’s RandomResources forthe invitation to the blog tour

 

An English rose with American dreams

Audrey Wade longs to escape her domineering father and the bleak streets of post-war Yorkshire. Hollywood glitters with glamour, freedom, and the promise of a life with her best friend Freddie. But when Freddie abandons her, Audrey is left to chase her dreams alone.

A Heartthrob with secrets

Rex Trent is more than Hollywood’s leading man. Charismatic and dangerously handsome, he’s adored by millions and watched by powerful enemies in a paranoid 1950s America. One wrong move could destroy him.

A romance born of ambition and betrayal

When Rex proposes, Audrey is swept into Hollywood’s glamour and high-stakes secrets. But she soon discovers Rex’s dark side and faces a choice: cling to a man who may never love her, or risk everything to forge her own path?

📖 My Review..

Set during the golden age of Hollywood when swoonworthy leading men made hearts flutter all across the globe but some were hiding secret lives which if discovered would inevitably bring their Hollywood dream to a close. Yorkshire born Audrey Wade has escaped her dismal life in post war Sheffield determined to live her best life but the reality of tinsel town is hardly the stuff of her school girls dreams, that is, until she meets Rex Trent at the talent agency where she is a lowly secretary and he a high flying cinema star.

This is a fascinating look at the cinema industry’s grubby hidden side and as we get taken deeper into Audrey’s relationship with Rex so we begin to understand the depth of deception. The Hollywood of the 1950s comes alive, the costumes, the films and the people all succeed in making it feel authentically real. I have enjoyed getting to know Audrey, her initial naivety is refreshing but later she had such strength of character that I couldn’t help but want her to succeed in a world which was tarnished from the start. I was less keen Rex but he was a product of his time, and his story succeeded in laying out a few Hollywood home truths. I wasn’t aware of the meaning of a lavender bride but I had my suspicions from the start which made the outcome of the story all the more compelling.

The Lavender Bride is a beautifully written glimpse into the glitzy world of Hollywood glamour which gradually reveals that all that glitters isn’t always gold.

About the Author

Alexandra Weston writes historical fiction. She has a MA in Creative Writing from York St John University. She has a lifelong passion for history and loves visiting stately homes, museums and old churches. She also writes fantasy as Alys West. She lives with her partner and a ginger cat called Wilf in East Yorkshire. She sings with her local community choir and loves live music, hanging out in bookshops and eating cake.

Facebook

Twitter #TheLavenderBride

Instagram
X@BoldwoodBooks #Boldwoodbloggers
X @rararesources

📖 Book of My Month ~ Greater Sins by Gabrielle Griffiths

Random House
Transworld 

27 March 2025

Thanks to the publisher for the opportunity to read this book

 

Who will cast the first stone?

1915, the Cabrach, Aberdeenshire. An isolated Scottish community is disturbed by a strange discovery : a body in a peat bog, perfectly preserved. Two people haul the body from the ground Lizzie : the wife of a wealthy local landowner, and Johnny, a nomadic singer and farm hand. At hearthside and inn, people whisper : what have we unearthed?

One unveiling brings others. For Lizzie, tenacious but trapped, the discovery reveals unanswered questions about her past while for Johnny, it threatens to uncover a history he’s trying to outrun.

As their stories entwine, a series of unsettling events befalls the isolated ruinous weather, a damaged soldier, strange occurrences that cannot be explained. Against the echoes of distant war, and with the boundaries blurring between right and wrong, everyone is looking for someone to blame…

📖 My Review..

An isolated Scottish community, a place filled with secrets, a bad harvest and the call to war, all combine to make local feelings run high, add into the mix a preserved body found in an ancient peat bog and you have all the right ingredients for a story which is rich in folklore, strong on superstition and thick with jealousy. 

It is 1915 when the bulk of the story takes place and though everything seems to run smoothly, it is a place of secrets. Johnny is a charmer, likes a dram or two of whisky, ekes out a living from the land and takes work wherever he finds it, whilst Lizzie Calder lives in the big house, she is married to William, a wealthy local man who signs up as soon as war is declared. On the surface, Johnny and Lizzie have little in common other than a desire to discover more about the peat woman, despite locals thinking that she was once a witch and is therefore the cause of all the misfortune which has recently befallen the village.

Beautifully written, with a sparseness which mimics the bleakness of its setting, this imaginative novel reveals its secrets ever so slowly. Harsh complexities sit alongside hidden nuances so that it becomes impossible to know where the truth lies. Johnny is an unlikely hero and Lizzie an unlikely heroine but their combined stories work so well that days after finishing the novel I’m still blown away both by the story and the characters, and so for that reason I’m delighted to make it the Book of My Month for April.

About the Author

Gabrielle Griffiths grew up in Aberdeenshire and now lives in Brighton. She was a Madeleine Milburn Agency mentee in 2021 and is a graduate of the Curtis Brown Creative novel writing course. Her short fiction has been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize.

#GreaterSins

X @DoubledayUK