📖 Book Review ~ Dead Rich by G W Shaw

 

Riverrun
26 May 2022

My thanks to the publisher for my copy of this book

Kai, a carefree once-successful musician is invited by his new Russian girlfriend Zina to join her family's Caribbean holiday. Impulsively accepting he learns that Zina is the daughter of a Russian oligarch, Stepan Pirumov and that the trip is aboard his yacht, the Zinaida, moored in St Thomas in the US Virgin Islands. The crew consists of Captain Marius Falk, the first mate Erin Wade and a hastily assembled staff, including a chief stewardess Marissa from Miami, a chief engineer from Lagos and a personal trainer from Los Angeles. All know how to behave around the very rich.

On arrival Kai discovers that the head of security has been arrested, armed guards are below deck, there's an onboard panic room and a strong sense of all not being quite right beneath the gleaming surfaces of the Pirumov's lives. An unnerving presence punctures the atmosphere: a murderous imposter is on board the Zinaida, but who is it?

Kai will find that the only person he can trust will be Erin and that the world of the super-rich will become a prison from which they must escape. Part locked-room suspense, part adventure story, Dead Rich is an unforgettable, edge of the seat thriller set in the blazing heat of the Caribbean.

📖 My Review...

This stand-alone high octane thriller introduces us to the world of the super rich, those people who can own a multi-billion pound yacht only for it to stand idle in prestigious ports around the world. The Zinaida, named for his daughter, Zina, belongs to Russian oligarch, Stepan Pirumov, is moored in St Thomas in the Virgin Islands and this luxurious floating palace only needs the slightest indication that it is needed for it a well organised team, from around the world, to spring into action.

Kai, a musician down on his luck, has been the latest lover of Zina for just over a week when Zina is summoned by her mother to join the Zinaida in a cruise around the Caribbean. Zina persuades Kai to accompany her on this trip much to the fury of her father who wanted only his family on this voyage. Stepan Pirumov is a man used to having his own way in all things but as we soon discover enemies have a way of infiltrating even the most protected of spaces. Amongst a mixed selection of staff on board the Zinaida, Erin Wade, the first mate, finds herself with rather more than she bargained for at the start of this fateful trip.

I was drawn into the world of the super rich right from the start and wallowed in the description of  a lifestyle that very few of us can ever imagine. Dead Rich is rather timely, as many of these super yachts are currently impounded, their owners subject to scrutiny. With a fine eye for even the smallest of detail and with vivid description of life on board we get the impression of what it could be like to be this super rich but with a lifestyle in which you are forever looking over your shoulder for enemies who are not afraid to kill in order to get what they want.

Exciting, fast paced and wonderfully descriptive, I raced through Dead Rich in the space of a couple of afternoons. There are plenty of twists, turns and red herrings and a fitting conclusion which brings everything together in a very satisfactory way. All in all, perfect escapism which would be great for holiday reading 😊

Best Read with...an Expresso Martini

About the Author

As a journalist working for magazines and newspapers in the UK and US, GW Shaw travelled widely, reporting from China, Russia, the USA, Mali, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Africa.

As William Shaw he is the author of several acclaimed police procedurals, including the Alex Cupidi series set in Dungeness.

He now lives in Brighton.

Twitter @william1shaw #DeadRich

@riverrunbooks 

📖 Blog Tour ~ The Murder Box by Olivia Kiernan

 

Delighted to take part in this Blog Tour on Publication Day

Riverrun
22 July 2021

Frankie Sheehan #4

My thanks to the publishers for my copy of this book
and the invitation to be part of this Blog Blast

Some games can be deadly. At first, Detective Chief Superintendent Frankie Sheehan believes the murder mystery game sent to her office is a birthday gift from one of her colleagues. But when Frankie studies the game's contents, she notices a striking resemblance between the 'murder victim' and missing twenty-twoyear-old Lydia Callin. As Frankie and her team investigate, a series of grisly crimes connected to the game are discovered across Dublin city and Lydia's involvement with a shadowy network of murder mystery players becomes clear. On the hunt for Lydia's murderer, Frankie is drawn more deeply into the game. Every successful move brings her closer to the killer. But the real question is not what happens should she lose – but what happens if she wins.

📖 My thoughts..

When a cleverly put together Murder Box game is delivered to the police incident room at the Irish Gardaí’s Bureau for Serious Crime, Detective Chief Superintendent Frankie Sheehan is under the impression that it is a gift for her birthday. Baffled by a real life investigation into the disappearance of a local celebrity, which doesn't appear to be leading anywhere, Frankie is eager for distraction but when a young woman is reported missing, suddenly the contents of the Murder Box take on a rather sinister meaning.

I thought the idea of the Murder Box was an intriguing way to open the story and pretty soon Frankie and her team find that this sinister box offers much more than they could ever have imagined. Before long, it's a race against time to discover more about those who are involved in this dangerous murder game before something happens and another person disappears from the city of Dublin.

I've met DCS Frankie Sheehan before and I am always impressed with the way she throws herself into the investigation, often putting herself, and her team, in grave danger, but as always, her grit and tenacity to get the case solved is to her credit. Frankie's relationship with her police partner, Baz Harwood, is an interesting one, they each have each others backs and yet in The Murder Box, Baz seems to be preoccupied and isn't always on top form, so the different dynamic between them is interesting to observe.

This clever author has now given us four thrilling adventures in which Frankie Sheehan and her team get to solve some really challenging crimes and whilst The Murder Box can be read comfortably as a standalone, as with all series it's best if you follow from the start and enjoy this talented author's intricately plotted crime novels.

About the Author

Olivia Kiernan is an Irish writer living in the UK. She was born and raised in County Meath, near the famed heritage town of Kells and holds an MA in Creative Writing awarded by the University of Sussex.

Twitter @livkiernan #TheMurderBox

@quercusbooks @riverrunbooks

Book Review ~ The Trawlerman by William Shaw

 

Quercus/Riverrun
13 May 2021

DS Alexandra Cupidi #4

My thanks to the publishers for my copy of this book

A DOUBLE MURDER The naked corpses of Aylmer and Mary Younis are discovered in their home. The only clues are a note written in blood and an eerie report of two spectral figures departing the crime scene. Officer Jill Ferriter is charged with investigating the murders while her colleague Alex Cupidi is on leave, recovering from post-traumatic stress. 

AN ELABORATE SCAM The dead couple had made investments in a green reforestry scheme in Guatemala, resulting in the loss of all their savings. What is more disturbing is that Cupidi and Ferriter's disgraced former colleague and friend Bill South is also on the list of investors and the Younis's were not the only losers. 

AN UNLIKELY KILLER Despite being in counselling and receiving official warnings to stay away from police work Cupidi finds herself dragged into the case and begins to trawl among the secrets and lies that are held in the fishing community of Folkestone. Desperate to exonerate South she finds herself murderously compromised when personal relationships cloud her judgement.

My Thoughts..

DS Alex Cupidi is finding it difficult to be on sick leave especially when two serious crimes occurs almost on her doorstep. Bored, and with nothing better to do than see a counsellor to talk about her PTSD, Alex soon discovers that once a crime detective, always a crime detective, and she just can't stop herself from getting involved in a rather gruesome, crime scene.

Both crimes, one which happened in the past, and one very much placed in the future, are well plotted and explained and all the details are nicely woven together to form a complicated crime drama. The story flows really well and once I started to get involved with the story, and the characters, I found that I couldn't put the book down and that's unusual for me with a new series where I haven't read any of the previous books. The author gives enough of the back story to understand what makes Alexandra Cupidi tick, and there are interesting snippets of her somewhat fractious life with her seventeen year old daughter, Zӧe.

The Trawlerman is a well put together crime drama, which I could easily see translate well to a television series. I enjoyed how the author brought to life both the wildness of Dungeness and the closeness of a small community who suddenly find themselves under police scrutiny.

As with all series it is better to start at the beginning but The Trawlerman, as I found out, also works well as a standalone police drama.

About the Author

WILLIAM SHAW was born in Newton Abbot, Devon, grew up in Nigeria and lived for sixteen years in Hackney. He has been shortlisted for the CWA Historical Dagger, longlisted for the Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year and nominated for a Barry Award. A regular at festivals, he organises panel talks and CWA events across the country. He is the author of the Breen & Tozer crime series set in sixties London: A Song from Dead Lips, A House of Knives and A Book of Scars; and the standalone The Birdwatcher. Salt Lane and Deadland are spin-offs to The Birdwatcher. For over twenty years he has written on popular culture and sub-culture for various publications including the Observer and the New York Times. He lives in Brighton with his family.

Twitter @william1shaw #TheTrawlerman

Website

@riverrunbooks @QuercusBooks

Social Blast ~ Tiger by Polly Clark

Riverrun
2 May 2019

My thanks to the publishers and Ana and Katya for the invitation to be part of this social media blast

A mesmerising and epic literary novel set between the wilds of Siberia and the UK about mothers, daughters and the wild side of female nature, from the prize-winning author of Larchfield

Frieda is a primatologist, sensitively attuned to her research of animal behaviour. A violent attack shatters her world and, battling addiction and her fears, she must start afresh at Torbet Zoo as they prepare to welcome their new ward: a magnificent Siberian tiger. 

Tomas is a Russian conservationist, steward of one of the world’s harshest environments, who fears that the natural order of the forest has been toppled. The King tiger has been killed by poachers, and a spectacular tigress now prowls his vast territory. 

In the freezing winter, when all living things compete ruthlessly for survival, the tiger’s path crosses with a native mother and daughter eking out a defiant but perilous existence in the snow-shrouded wilderness. To control her domain, the Undeghe people tell tales of how the tiger must punish every infraction. They bear grudges. They never forget. They will kill those who try and fail to kill them. 

The fourth and final narrative takes the reader deep into the world of the tiger herself. A magnificently immersive reading experience, Tiger plunges the reader into one of the world’s last surviving wild places with blistering authenticity.

Tiger is a bewitching novel that brings together three humans and a tiger (and - soon - legions of enchanted readers) in the snow-smothered Siberian forest. 

My thoughts..

There's such a stark beauty to Tiger, that at times the narrative quite took my breath away, not just because it gets right into the very core of those who survive in the ice of the Siberian wilderness, where this magnificent creature calls home, but also because of the perceptive interpretation of those who are so passionate about animal conservation, to the exclusion of their own safety.

The story follows three characters, Frieda, is a primatologist, who has been damaged by an incident in her past and yet, her unique ability to communicate with animals, will be her salvation. Tomas is a Russian conservationist who coexists with the Siberian tiger in a tough environment which fairly crackles with ice and frost. Edit is an Udeghe huntress whose ability to eke out an existence in an area where the majestic tiger rules supreme makes for absolutely compelling reading.

The author writes beautifully about something she feels so passionate about and her impeccable research into the Siberian tiger truly brings this creature to life in a way that most of us will never get to witness. Getting into the mind-set of this magnificent animal is not an easy task and yet, the chapters which track the bold savagery, and the utter vulnerability, of this big cat is really quite special. Tiger is divided into sections, each one blending quite seamlessly, and yet, they each have a very different atmosphere and bring something completely unique to the story, so that I always felt like I was being given a privileged glimpse into a secretive world.

I devoured Tiger in a couple of reading sessions because I couldn’t put the book down, becoming so engrossed in the story that when I looked up from the page it took me a while to realise that I wasn’t still deep in the freezing temperatures of the snow forests of the Russian Taiga.

About the Author 

Photo credit : Murdo McLeod

Polly Clark was born in Toronto and lives in Helensburgh on Scotland’s West Coast and on a houseboat in London. Her four poetry collections have between them won the Eric Gregory Award, been shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize and the Michael Marks Awards, and selected twice as one of the Poetry Book Society’s books of the year. Her first novel Larchfield won the MsLexia Novel Prize and was published in 2017 to critical acclaim. 

Polly has worked as a groom for showjumpers, a volunteer ranger for the Wildfowl Trust and as a zookeeper at Edinburgh Zoo. Whilst at the zoo, she became fascinated by animals that retain their true wildness even in captivity, the greatest of these being the tiger.

Website

Twitter @mspollyclark #TigerBook

@anabooks

@katyaellis_

@riverrunbook

#TigerBook

Live Twitter Q&A with Polly Clark

7th May - 8:00 pm @riverrunbooks

Social Media Blast ~ The Dollmaker by Nina Allen

Riverrun
4 April 2019

My thanks to the publishers for my copy of this book

Stitch by perfect stitch, Andrew Garvie makes exquisite dolls in the finest antique style. Like him, they are diminutive but graceful, unique, and with surprising depths. Perhaps that's why he answers the enigmatic personal ad in his collector's magazine.

Letter by letter, Bramber Winters reveals more of her strange, sheltered life in an institution on Bodmin Moor, and the terrible events that put her there as a child. Andrew knows what it is to be trapped, and as they knit closer together, he weaves a curious plan to rescue her.

On his journey through the old towns of England, he reads the fairy tales of Ewa Chaplin--potent, eldritch stories which, like her lifelike dolls, pluck at the edges of reality and thread their way into his mind. When Andrew and Bramber meet at last, they will have a choice--to break free and, unlike their dolls, come to life.

My thoughts..

Andrew Garvie has liked dolls ever since he saw Marina Blue sitting in the shop window just before his seventh birthday. And what then started was, for Andrew, a complete obsession with dolls of all shapes and sizes, both antique and modern. When he answers an advert and starts a correspondence with a young woman with the glorious name of Bramber Winters, he realises that he has found a kindred spirit.

What then follows is a really unusual but beautifully atmospheric love story which looks at what it's like to be different in a world which doesn't always understand diversity. Both Andrew and Bramber have their own special difficulties which are sensitively explored and as we discover more about them as people, so the story of the doll maker becomes all the more persuasive.

The Dollmaker is not always an easy read as it's sometimes quite dark, however the lyricism of the writing is convincing, being part fantasy, part magical realism, and always with a tantalising glimpse of a hidden obsessive world in which Andrew and Bramber are the only two participants. I was especially impressed with the way the story is constructed, with chapters which are individually very different and yet, which reveal completely both Andrew and Bramber's stories, and yet, there's also the inclusion of several complete fairy stories by the author Ewa Chaplin, who features somewhat ethereally in the story, but whose influence, nevertheless dominates.

The Dollmaker is quirkily different with a unique style which may not appeal to everyone but which kept me entertained from start to finish.

About the Author

Nina Allen is a novelist and short story writer. Her previous fiction has won several prizes, including the British Science Fiction Award for Best Novel, the Novella Award and the Grand Prix de L'Imaginaire for Best Translated Work. She lives and works in Rothesay, on the Isle of Bute. The Dollmaker is her third novel.

Twitter #AndrewandBramber

@katyaellis_@anabooks

@riverrunbooks

Twitter and Instagram @QuercusBooks

Review ~ All Rivers Run Free by Natasha Carthew

🌠 Happy Paperback Publication Day 🌠

Riverrun
21 February 2019

My thanks to the publishers and Ana for my copy of this book

Brittle but not yet broken, Ia Pendilly ekes out a fierce life in a caravan on the coast of Cornwall. In years of living with Bran - her embattled, battering cousin and common law husband - she's never yet had her own baby. So when she discovers the waif washed up on the shore, Ia takes the risk and rescues her. And the girl, in turn, will rescue something in Ia - bringing back a memory she's lost, giving her the strength to escape, and leading her on a journey downriver.

It will take her into the fringes of a society she's shunned, collapsed around its own isolation. It will take her through a valley ravaged by floods, into a world not too far from reckoning. It will take her in search of her sister, and the dark remembrance of their parting. It will take her, break her, remake her, in the shapes of freedom.

My thoughts..

Ia Pengilly lives a solitary life on the Cornish coast, eking out a desolate existence, relying on her considerable wits and her innate ability to salvage the gifts the seas throw up. Her joyless relationship with her much older cousin, Bran, who uses and abuses her, and simply doesn't care enough to love her, is as bleak as her existence.

Set in some futuristic world where neither hope nor charity is allowed to flourish, gangs roam and pilfer, and when the light is on in Ia's isolated caravan, men, with their own specific needs, come a-calling.

There is a cold, cheerlessness to the story which I found utterly compelling and the barren nature of Ia's life is offset against the poetic quality of the words which rumble and turn at every opportunity. I loved the unique way that the prose skittered and danced, and was so in tune with the nature of its surroundings that it became totally immersive. I knew I was impressed when I read the opening paragraph three times, and so mesmerising is the narrative that even further into the novel I had to keep turning back to re-read a word, or a cleverly constructed sentence.

All Rivers Run Free is a story about self-discovery and self-worth, and of how lives are shaped and moulded by those we love, who are carried close to our hearts. It's also about a ferocious need to survive in a world where the dark shades of grief and loss are allowed to colour everything.

About the Author

Natasha Carthew is a startling new voice from beyond the limits of common urban experience. She tells a tale of marginalisation and motherhood in prose that crashes like waves on rocks; rough, breathless and beautiful. Natasha has been published previously as a poet and young adult writer and her books have been nominated for the Carnegie Award and shortlisted for several national awards including the Branford Boase. She lives in Cornwall with her girlfriend of twenty years and spends most of her time writing outdoors in all weathers. Her identity as a country writer has led her to become a survival expert, a trained walking-guide and to teach Wild Writing workshops. Natasha is the driving force behind a proposed Working Class Literary Festival planned for 2020.

A note from the author..

When I began writing All Rivers Run Free I wanted to tell a story that dealt with the issue of mental illness, while exploring the nature/nurture question of why we behave in a certain way. With Ia I wanted to create a character that we could root for from the very start, a woman who despite living in a lonely, abusive relationship and a lifetime of adversity, finds pleasure in small things and never gives up hope. The world she creates to protect herself was central to the story: she has a love of nature, collecting found objects and keeps looking beyond the cove for something life-changing. This is a woman who has lost family in the past and through her unborn babies has lost her future family. She sees no way out so she creates an alternative reality. Despite the heartache, I wanted All Rivers Run Free to be an uplifting story that followed Ia on an emotional journey, a transformation from innocence into horror and horror into tenderness. It was vital that this story said something important about the human condition, a presentation of suffering and cruelty played out against a beautiful, harsh backdrop of a recently collapsed Cornwall. I was born and raised in a council house on the south coast of Cornwall and have always taken inspiration from my homeland. I left school at fifteen with barely any qualifications and instead of higher education I embarked on a journey of low paid jobs while I worked on my writing career. From an early age I wrote poetry and had early successes in top UK and US magazines which led to three books, the third being published with Onlywomen Press. I consider myself a Country writer; rural issues, the environment and nature are always at the forefront of my work and I like to tell stories in a traditional, timeless way. I live in a cottage in the Cornish countryside with my girlfriend and when I am not writing in my outdoor cabin, I can be found climbing cliff-tops and getting lost on the moors of Cornwall.

Natasha Carthew

Twitter @NatashaCarthew #AllRiversRunFree

@riverunbooks

Amazon UK

Blog Tour ~ A River in the Trees by Jacqueline O'Mahony

Jaffareadstoo is delighted to host one of today's stops on the  A River in the Trees Blog Tour

Riverrun
10 January 2019

My thanks to the publishers for my copy of this book and the invitation to be part of the blog tour

Two women. Two stories. One hundred years of secrets. Everything I love about dual time stories is found in A River in the Trees which looks at two very different women whose stories overlap and interweave in a story of family secrets and hidden tragedy.

1919, and in West Cork, Hannah is living a bleak existence on the family farm. It's a life of hardship which is made all the more complicated by the family's involvement in the Irish War of Independence. Hiding a group of rebel fighters in the attic at the farmhouse puts Hannah and her family in grave danger from the notorious Black and Tans who will stop at nothing to apprehend the rebels and prevent insurrection. Hannah is attracted to O'Riada, the fanatical leader of the rebels, a connection which will have repercussions for  Hannah, and her family, for generations to come.

In 2019, Ellen is at a crossroads in her life. Unsatisfied by both her work and her relationship with her husband, Ellen returns to Ireland to discover more about her family history. What she finds when she starts to dig into the past is both poignant and shocking in equal measure.

Moving both forwards and backward quite seamlessly A River in the Trees is a beautifully written story about family secrets. It's about living in a time when families were divided not just by politics  but by the way the harsh realities of life influenced everything about their world and their place in it. Moving forwards a hundred years and Ellen's story shows her to be in a very different world but yet, the parallels still remain of troubled family dynamics and of relationships which are fractured beyond repair.

I started to read A River in the Trees at the start of this new year and by the time I was just a few pages into the story, I knew that this book, my first read of the year, was rather special. I turned the pages eagerly wanting to know more, not just about Ellen in the here and now but also about Hannah,  a true heroine, whose  desperately sad story will stay with me for a long, long time.

A River in the Trees already heads my ' Reads of the Year  in 2019 ' list.

About the Author

Jacqueline O'Mahony is from, Cork, Ireland. She did her BA in Ireland, her MA at the University of Bologna, and her PhD in History as a Fulbright Scholar at Duke University, and at Boston College. She has worked as a writer, editor and stylist at Tatler, Vogue and the Irish Independent. 

She lives in Notting Hill with her husband and three young children.

Twitter @jacomahony #ARiverInTheTrees

@QuercusBooks @riverrunbooks

Review ~ Testament by Kim Sherwood

I always try to have a Remembrance Read on the go in November

Riverrun
12 July 2018

My thanks to the publishers for my copy of this book

Her family was always complicated. It's why Eva was closest to her grandfather: a charismatic painter - and a keeper of secrets. So when he dies, she's hit by a greater loss - of the questions he never answered, and the past he never shared.

It's then she finds the letter from the Jewish Museum in Berlin. They have uncovered the testimony he gave after his forced labour service in Hungary, which took him to the death camps and then to England as a refugee. This is how he survived.

But there is a deeper story that Eva will unravel - of how her grandfather learnt to live afterwards. As she confronts the lies that have haunted her family, their identity shifts and her own takes shape. The testament is in her hands.

My thoughts about it..

When Eva's beloved grandfather dies she's realises that his death brings about far more questions than it does answers for it would seem that Joseph Silk has not been entirely truthful about his experiences during the Second World War.

Skillfully blending the past with the present a story emerges of a dark and shadowy time when Joseph was forced to work in horrendous circumstances in a labour camp in Hungary. His survival, from this dreadful time, was something he carried with him for the rest of his life, and yet, he didn't want to be defined by the terrible things he had witnessed. After his death, certain documents come to light which reveal more details about Joseph's WW2 experiences, and following a trip to the Jewish Museum in Berlin to read these documents, Eva must come to terms with the secrets  her grandfather had kept hidden for so long. A  burden of secrets and heartbreaking memories which Joseph Silk had wanted to be kept hidden forever.

Testament is a beautifully written and very moving story about the trauma of living through the holocaust and of the guilt and confusion of being one of the survivors. It's about the terror of being displaced without the shelter of home and family, and of the uncertainty of making a new future when all seemed hopeless.

A commendable and poignant debut novel from a talented new writer.

About the Author

Kim Sherwood was born in Camden in 1989. She studied on the Creative Writing MA at the University of East Anglia, going on to teach creative writing at UEA and the University of Sussex. Kim's stories and articles have appeared in numerous journals, including Mslexia, Lighthouse, and Going Down Swinging. The manuscript of her debut novel, Testament, won the 2016 Bath Novel Award. Kim began writing Testament in 2011 after her grandfather, the actor George Baker, passed away. In the same year, Kim's grandmother began to talk about her experiences as a Holocaust Survivor for the first time. These events provided seeds for a story that grew as Kim undertook research into the events of  the Holocaust in Hungary, and as extremism rose again across Europe.

Kim lives in Bath. She is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of the West of England. Testament is her first novel.

Twitter @kimtsherwood #Testament

@riverrunbooks @QuercusBooks

Blog Tour ~ All Rivers Run Free

Jaffareadstoo is delighted to host today's stop on the All Rivers Run Free Blog Tour

Quercus
19 April 2018

My thanks to the publisher for my invitation to be part of this blog tour

What's it all about..

Brittle but not yet broken, Ia Pendilly ekes out a fierce life in a caravan on the coast of Cornwall. In years of living with Bran - her embattled, battering cousin and common law husband - she's never yet had her own baby. So when she discovers the waif washed up on the shore, Ia takes the risk and rescues her. And the girl, in turn, will rescue something in Ia - bringing back a memory she's lost, giving her the strength to escape, and leading her on a journey downriver.

It will take her into the fringes of a society she's shunned, collapsed around its own isolation. It will take her through a valley ravaged by floods, into a world not too far from reckoning. It will take her in search of her sister, and the dark remembrance of their parting. It will take her, break her, remake her, in the shapes of freedom.

My thoughts about it..

Ia Pengilly lives a solitary life on the Cornish coast, eking out a desolate existence, relying on her considerable wits and her innate ability to salvage the gifts the seas throw up. Her joyless relationship with her much older cousin, Bran, who uses and abuses her, and simply doesn't care enough to love her, is as bleak as her existence.

Set in some futuristic world where neither hope nor charity is allowed to flourish, gangs roam and pilfer, and when the light is on in Ia's isolated caravan, men, with their own specific needs, come a-calling.

There is a cold, cheerlessness to the story which I found utterly compelling and the barren nature of Ia's life is offset against the poetic quality of the words which rumble and turn at every opportunity. I loved the unique way that the prose skittered and danced, and was so in tune with the nature of its surroundings that it became totally immersive. I knew I was impressed when I read the opening paragraph three times, and so mesmerising is the narrative that even further into the novel I had to keep turning back to re-read a word, or a cleverly constructed sentence.

All Rivers Run Free is a story about self-discovery and self-worth, and of how lives are shaped and moulded by those we love, who are carried close to our hearts. It's also about a ferocious need to survive in a world where the dark shades of grief and loss are allowed to colour everything.

About the Author

Natasha Carthew has been published previously as a poet and young adult writer and her books have been nominated for the Carnegie Award and shortlisted for several national awards including the Branford Boase. She lives in Cornwall with her girlfriend of twenty years and spends most of her time writing outdoors in all weathers. Her identity as a country writer has led her to become a survival expert, a trained walking-guide and to teach Wild Writing workshops.

Twitter @NatashaCarthew #AllRiversRunFree

@riverunbooks

Amazon UK

Blog Tour ~ Too Close to Breathe by Olivia Kiernan

Jaffareadstoo is delighted to be hosting one of the Blog Tour stops for Too Close to Breathe

Riverrun
5 April 2018

My thanks to the publisher for my copy of this book
 and to Anne at Random Things Tours for her invitation to be part of this blog tour

What's it all about..

Detective Frankie Sheehan is recovering from a violent knife attack and dealing with the first awakenings of post-traumatic stress disorder when she’s called back to work. At first, Eleanor Costello’s death looks like suicide but soon the perfect pieces of Eleanor’s life begin to fracture, sending Sheehan and her team into a complex murder investigation for Dublin’s deadliest killer. The case deepens as does the body count and Frankie is forced to confront her own demons as the lines between victim and killer become increasingly blurred.

My thoughts about it...

Frankie Sheehan has just returned to her role as Detective Chief Superintendent with the Dublin Gardaí. That she is recovering from something traumatic is only hinted at, but it is obvious from the start, of what turns out to be a complex police investigation, that Frankie is still damaged by her past experience.

When the body of Dr Eleanor Costello, a well-respected scientist, is discovered at her home, the initial conclusion is that it is suicide however, DCS Sheehan and her police team, begin to think otherwise when clues suggest that there is more to understand about Dr Costello’s death than at first appears.

What then follows is a complex and convoluted police procedural investigation which explores the dark side of Eleanor Costello’s life. We are given a glimpse into the sinister chat rooms that flourish in the shadow of the dark web and which hint at violence and shady dealings. And throughout it all Frankie strives to keep a level head, and whilst she mostly appears well grounded, there are times when her past trauma seems to make her question her natural ability to get results.

This first visit into the complicated world of DCS Sheehan is an interesting one.The police procedural background is sharply authentic especially the super charged atmosphere of the incident room. I especially enjoyed reading of the banter between police colleagues, and the fraught and frantic race against time to solve a complex crime is done with an insightful eye for detail. Overall, the police investigation is well developed and the characters that flit into and out of the story have enough faults, quirks and bad habits to keep you guessing who did what, to whom, and why. 

However, it is DCS Frankie Sheehan who is the real star of the show. She's tough, non-compromising and a real force to be reckoned with, and with so much more to understand about her complex personality, I can only see her character going from strength to strength.

Too Close To Breathe is a startlingly good debut novel and I’m already looking forward to seeing where this talented author will take us to in book two of the series.

About the Author

Olivia Kiernan is an Irish writer living in the UK and author of crime thriller, Too Close to Breathe. She was born and raised in County Meath, near the famed heritage town of Kells and holds an MA in Creative Writing awarded by the University of Sussex. Olivia’s second book, The Killer In Me, will publish in April 2019.

Website

Twitter @LivKiernan #TooCloseToBreathe

**Too Close to Breathe is Published today**


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Blog Tour ~ The Book of Forgotten Authors by Christopher Fowler

Jaffareadstoo is delighted to be hosting today's stop on 

The Book of Forgotten Authors Blog Tour

Like any bibliophile I am always thrilled to have  a book specifically about books and when offered the opportunity to take a look at The Book of Forgotten Authors, well, I couldn't resist...

Riverrun
An imprint of Quercus
October 2017

Why are good authors forgotten? So heads the introduction to this look at 99 authors, their forgotten work, the possible reasons why they have fallen out of favour and the jolly good reasons why some of them should or, quite possibly, shouldn't be back in favour again.

When I was a child I used to love lucky dip packages. That growing feeling of excitement as you tear open your lucky dip bag to see what's inside and for, grown up me, dipping into and out of The Book of Forgotten Authors was rather like a lucky dip into a forgotten world of writers and their art. 

I've been reading adult literature for a long time, and many of these authors I remembered reading  in my dim and distant past, so much so, that perusing the book became more like a long walk down memory lane. Some authors, may be justifiably forgotten, whilst others sparked such an air of nostalgia that, time allowing, I am sorely tempted to head back and re-read some of their work just to see if they will stand the test of time, or if they truly do deserve to languish in that dusty library of forgotten writers.

It's fascinating to see just how trends change and evolve. As a young teen, I devoured the historical fiction of Jean Plaidy and Victoria Holt, all, of course, written by the excellent author, Eleanor Hibbert, who makes an appearance in the book at number 46.  I'm not sure that these gentle stories would work for today's young readers, but for me the thrill of reading about the lives, and loves, of our Kings and Queens, gave me my first taster of historical romantic fiction. The decidedly creepy writer, Dennis Wheatley also makes an appearance at number 96. I remember, in the mid 1970s, his, rather controversial novel, To the Devil A Daughter, being passed surreptitiously around my all girls grammar school. A book which had many well thumbed pages and ear marked corners !

The Book of Forgotten Authors is set out in an easy to read way. The author writes well and captures interesting snippets of information which make the book all the more fascinating to read. I particularly enjoyed the short and concise biographies of each of the authors chosen and whilst the 99 authors are very much the author's own personal choice, I am sure there are many hundreds more forgotten authors who could quite easily have graced the pages. However, many of the forgotten resonated with me and sparked memories which I had long forgotten. 

If you're a bibliophile, or have one close to you, then I am sure that they would enjoy this book of forgotten authors as much as I did.

About the Author

A typical example of the late 20th century midlist author, Christopher Fowler was born in the less attractive part of Greenwich in 1953, the son of a scientist and a legal secretary. He went to a London Guild school, Colfe's, where, avoiding rugby by hiding in the school library, he was able to begin plagiarising in earnest. He published his first novel, Roofworld, described as 'unclassifiable', while working as an advertising copywriter. He left to form The Creative Partnership, a company that changed the face of film marketing, and spent many years working in film, creating movie posters, tag lines, trailers and documentaries, using his friendship with Jude Law to get into nightclubs.

During this time Fowler achieved several pathetic schoolboy fantasies, releasing an appalling Christmas pop single, becoming a male model, posing as the villain in a Batman comic, creating a stage show, writing rubbish in Hollywood, running a night club, appearing in the Pan Books of Horror and standing in for James Bond.

Now the author of over forty novels and short story collections, including his award-winning memoir Paperboy and its sequel Film Freak, he writes the Bryant & May mystery novels, recording the adventures of two Golden Age detectives in modern-day London.

In 2015 he won the CWA Dagger In The Library award for his detective series, once described by his former publisher as 'unsaleable'.

Fowler is still alive and one day plans to realise his ambition to become a Forgotten Author himself.

Website

Twitter @Peculiar

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Huge thanks to Anne Cater for her invitation to be part of this blog tour

 and also to the publishers, Riverrun for my review copy of The Book of Forgotten Authors

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