Showing posts with label review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label review. Show all posts

Monday, 6 July 2026

Secrets of the Italian Guesthouse, by Sue Moorcroft

As regular readers of the blog will know, I've been friends with Sue Moorcroft since we first met at the Kettering Writers Group in 1999 (we genre writers were consigned to the back of the room, where we had a great laugh).  Since then she's gone from strength to strength, hitting number one in the Kindle Bestseller charts (with The Christmas Promise) on her way to becoming a Sunday Times Best Seller, while her novel A Summer To Remember won the Goldsboro Books Contemporary Romantic Novel Award 2020.  As well as featuring her a lot on blog (to see more, click this link), I'm pleased to be part of the blog tour for her latest novel, Secrets Of The Italian Guesthouse, which has just been published in paperback and e-book. This also marks the first novel of her new deal for The Legacy Trilogy with Renegade Books, an imprint of John Murray Press (see the press release here).


Two sisters she's never met
A first love who's impossible to forget...

For Jade, life in Lake Como is la dolce vita. Until her beloved grandmother passes, leaving Jade not just the family's bustling guesthouse to run, but two life-changing secrets to confront...

The pensione hasn't just been left to Jade, it's also been inherited by her sisters - who she had no idea existed. As Erin and Rosalie arrive in Italy, Jade is forced to face the heart-wrenching prospect of sharing her last remaining tie to the woman who raised her.

Jade is desperately trying to hold on to the past, but there's one person she would prefer to leave firmly behind: her first love, Leo. He's back in the city that is filled with the memories they once made together. But as Jade fights to take control of her future and her heart, why do all cobbled roads lead back to Leo?

Lose yourself in the first, utterly romantic novel in a brand-new trilogy, filled with new beginnings and second chances. Perfect for fans of Sarah Morgan and Milly Johnson.
 
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Over the years, I've read a lot of Sue Moorcroft's work and, I have to say, this is one of her best. Plus, it's the start of a trilogy, so reading through and picking up what's key to this novel, or perhaps others in the series, has been fun. 

I really enjoyed it, as it’s a wonderful meditation on family, friends and loyalty, with real heart that moved me at times. As ever, it’s full of and adventure, a very keen sense of location (Lake Como has never come across so well on the printed page!) and some nicely nostalgic moments, both for family and long-ago love affairs.

The story is as tight as a spring, the twists and turns perfectly blended in and the whole thing flows smoothly and seamlessly. Jade, the heroine, is very likeable and - given her situation - what might have come across as selfishness from another writer sounds perfectly reasonable (and human) here. Leo was a great Moorcroft hero, all cheekbones, fringe, presence and heart and the raunchy bits were done well. Erin and Rosalie, Jade’s sister, came across well and are nicely set up for the other books in the series. The cast list is rounded out by Leo’s parents and brother, who bring a nice sense of humour to the occasion and Jade’s Gran is a strong presence, even though the story only begins once she’s gone. I could discuss other characters but, to do so, would spoil your enjoyment. 

This is a great book, full of heart, humour and drama and I would very much recommend it.

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Universal Book Link - https://geni.us/ItalianGuesthouse

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Sue Moorcroft is an international bestselling author and has reached the #1 spot on Kindle UK. She’s won the Goldsboro Books Contemporary Romantic Novel Award, Readers’ Best Romantic Novel award and the Katie Fforde Bursary. 

Her short stories, serials, columns, writing ‘how to’ and courses have appeared around the world.

Born into an army family in Germany, Sue spent much of her childhood in Cyprus and Malta but settled in Northamptonshire at the age of ten. An avid reader, she also loves Formula 1, travel, family and friends, dance exercise and yoga.


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Monday, 27 May 2024

Under A Summer Skye, by Sue Moorcroft

As regular readers of the blog will know, I've been friends with Sue Moorcroft since we first met at the Kettering Writers Group in 1999 (we genre writers were consigned to the back of the room, where we had a great laugh).  Since then she's gone from strength to strength, hitting number one in the Kindle Bestseller charts (with The Christmas Promise) on her way to becoming a Sunday Times Best Seller, while her novel A Summer To Remember won the Goldsboro Books Contemporary Romantic Novel Award 2020.  As well as featuring her a lot on blog (to see more, click this link), I'm pleased to be part of the blog tour for her latest novel, Under A Summer Skye, which has just been published in paperback and e-book.

A chance encounter is about to change everything for Thea Wynter.

The moment she arrived on the Isle of Skye, life changed for Thea. Running from a succession of wrong turns, she comes to the island in search of blue sea, endless skies, and mountains that make the heart soar. Here, she feels at peace.

As head gardener at Rothach Hall, life is exactly how she wants it, with her days spent working in the glorious clifftop garden and her evenings in the cosy local village.

But an encounter with a stranger from the mainland brings with it an unexpected turn – and only time will tell if he is friend or foe.

It seems that even on Skye, life can catch up with you, and Thea is soon faced with the past she left behind – and with it, the family she’s never met…

From old lives to new beginnings, lose yourself on the beautiful Isle of Skye with Thea as she discovers how many possibilities life can truly hold if you look hard enough.

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Thea Wynter is head gardener at Rothach Hall and enjoys her life, with days spent working hard in glorious gardens and evenings at the cosy village pub with her friends and sister. But Thea has a secret. She’s running from her old life and now it’s catching up with her while, at the same time, she meets a mysterious stranger who might be friend or foe.

The latest novel from the ever excellent Sue Moorcroft is the first book in the Skye Sisters trilogy (the first trilogy Moorcroft has embarked upon) and takes place, mostly, on the Isle of Skye. The isle plays a key role, in both this and (presumably) the next two books and Sue paints it wonderfully, from the views to the colours, from the roads to the buildings, making the place feel alive. The same can be said of her characters who, as always, spring off the page. 

Thea is a conflicted woman, who tries to do the right thing but sometimes doesn’t, who adores her adopted sisters and parents, who’s been hurt in love but is trying to escape from a mistake she made years before, where a man was injured - his fault, not hers - but for which she managed to cop the blame of the public. Ezzie, who works at Rothach Hall, is equally well sketched, perhaps more vulnerable (as we later discover) but acting as a perfect foil for her younger sister. The eldest sister, Valentina, lives away from Skye and has less of a part to play here, so it’ll be interesting to see her story explored in another book. The sense of family that’s created, both blood and adopted, is sensitively explored and adds real weight to the emotions of the piece.

The characterisation is thorough and all of them - from the leads to the support - are relatable (even the ones who serves at the antagonists) and I quickly came to care for Thea and her situation, especially when family matters take a shift about halfway through. Dev, the romantic lead, is as conflicted as the object of his affections and that’s played out so well, you feel for him even knowing that the news will come out at some point - hey, it’s a Sue Moorcroft novel. There are always obstacles. 

With some nicely-timed comic relief from Daisy the dog, who initially brings Thea and Dev together, a sure sense of place - both in Scotland and France - and a good pace, this is a cracking novel that shows Moorcroft on top form. I’m really looking forward to reading the stories of the other two sisters now.

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Buy the book here - books2read.com/MoorcroftUASS

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Sue Moorcroft is an international bestselling author and has reached the #1 spot on Kindle UK. She’s won the Goldsboro Books Contemporary Romantic Novel Award, Readers’ Best Romantic Novel award and the Katie Fforde Bursary. Published by HarperCollins in the UK, US and Canada and by other publishers around the world.

Her short stories, serials, columns, writing ‘how to’ and courses have appeared around the world.

Born into an army family in Germany, Sue spent much of her childhood in Cyprus and Malta but settled in Northamptonshire at the age of ten. An avid reader, she also loves Formula 1, travel, family and friends, dance exercise and yoga.

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Monday, 13 November 2023

The Ideal Couple, by Anna Willett

I am pleased to be part of the blog tour for Anna Willett's new novel from The Book Folks, The ideal Couple.

When detectives try to close a missing persons case, a small town’s twisted secrets begin to unravel…

A couple disappear in a region of the outback known for its gold mining. Some three years on, there is still no trace of them.

Detective Veronika Pope is handed the cold case. It’s cold only in name. When she turns up to the godforsaken town where the couple were last seen, the heat is sweltering; suspicion simmering.

The detectives stay in the same seedy hotel as the couple did. The townsfolk aren’t welcoming. Nobody wants the cops probing into their affairs.

From what Pope can gather, the missing duo were the perfect couple. Loving. Happy together. The picture of marital bliss.

Assuming a murder but missing a motive, the detectives do make progress. They might even find the bodies, as the trail is hot. Almost too hot to touch.

Pope is in serious danger of getting burned…

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My review:
Veronica Pope runs a cold case squad out of Perth and is called in, with her partner Jim, to investigate the disappearance of an apparently loving couple three years ago in the small outback town of Iron Creek. The red-dust coated ten streets are home to a hotel, a garage, a museum and a handful of people waiting for life to pass them by. The rest of Pope’s team are back at base, investigating the missing couple’s blended family and in-laws.

This is the fourth book in the Pope series but the first I’ve read and, apart from a couple of mentions of previous cases and a tease of her past that looks like it will be resolved in book 5, it’s a solid standalone that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Iron Creek literally comes to life, you can almost feel the heat and the oppressive dust and feel the knocks the townsfolk are taking. The characterisation is smart and brisk, giving us a life-story in a paragraph sometimes and leaving the reader to figure things out the next. The case itself is well plotted and constructed - it took me a while to get the main villain - and there’s plenty of grubbiness amongst the sweat to keep the attention as the pace crackles.

An excellent read which I would highly recommend and now I’m going to dive into the earlier cases! 

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Anna Willett was born in the United Kingdom and emigrated to Australia with her family when she was six years old. She developed a love of reading thanks to her mother who introduced her to authors such as Stephen King, Mario Puzo and John Steinbeck to name just a few.

Although her reading tastes are eclectic, when it comes to writing, Anna is drawn to thrillers and dark tales. Anna writes about the shadowy side of the human experience and how ordinary people cope in extraordinary situations. Common tropes in Anna’s writing include people who get into trouble after they leave the safety of the city and the rupturing of domestic bubbles in which those who one is supposed to trust become a threat.

Anna lives in Western Australia with her husband and their two children. When she’s not writing or reading, she enjoy movies, dining out and bushwalking with her dogs.


THE IDEAL COUPLE is the fourth title in the Cold Case Mysteries series featuring Veronika Pope and the full list of books is as follows:

1. THE WOMAN BEHIND HER
2. THE FAMILY MAN
3. THE NEWLYWED
4. THE IDEAL COUPLE

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Monday, 17 July 2023

The Piper's Children, by Iain Henn

I am pleased to be part of the blog tour for Iain Henn's new novel from The Book Folks, The Piper's Children.
A baffling mystery sets an FBI agent on a dangerous path...

Park rangers are puzzled when a child is found wandering alone in the middle of a forest near Seattle.

Stranger still, he speaks a peculiar language that sounds a little like German, and is dressed in clothes people wore in the Middle Ages.

With no one having reported him missing, FBI Special Agent Will McCord assembles a dedicated unit to investigate the case, placing Detective Ilona Farris at its head.

Their relationship is edgy. They used to be an item. But McCord knows Farris is the best person for the job. Especially when more children turn up in similar circumstances.

Farris isn’t convinced that she is in fact the right person. Memories of a traumatic incident in her own childhood begin to emerge, and threaten to cloud her judgement.

Can she bury her demons and solve the mystery of these children, seemingly lost in time?

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My review:

Starting with a bang - and a touch of surrealism - Henn hits the ground running and puts us straight into the story. Ilona Farris is drafted into a newly set up FBI team, headed by her ex-lover, when a boy is found in a Seattle forest speaking German and apparently on the run from the Pied Piper. 

Things get a lot weirder from that point on, but the pacing and structure keep you completely on board at all times. Peopled with believable characters - the best of which is Farris herself, sporting both a secret and a terrifying experience from her childhood that will help the investigation - and a keen sense of location, this works perfectly and is never less than readable. 

Red herrings abound, there’s a lot of suspense and weirdness as well as a plot that makes perfect sense once you discover all the details. I thoroughly enjoyed this and look forward to more stories about the team. Very highly recommended.

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Born in Sydney, Australia, Iain Henn worked for many years in print media production for newspapers, magazines, and direct marketing agencies, and as a writer for small business websites.

He has written fiction from a young age. Somewhere in his house, there is still a framed copy of his first published story, a ‘5-minute fiction’ tale in Woman’s Day. Since then, he has never looked back, having short stories published in various magazines worldwide, and now his suspenseful thrillers and mysteries. 

Commenting on what influenced his writing journey, he describes a moment that has stayed with him. On his first day in his first job, as a teenage messenger boy, he left the office via a back exit into a narrow alleyway where he saw the body of a man crumpled on the ground. He had just jumped out of a window from the neighbouring building. The paramedics were already approaching. When Iain returned an hour or so later, the body and the surrounding activity were gone, there was just a chalk outline on the ground where the body had been. Ever since he has wondered who that man was, what led him to suicide, and what his future might have been had he lived. Decades later, that chalk outline is often on the writer’s mind when telling the stories of his characters’ lives.

Authors who have inspired Iain include Daphne Du Maurier, Ken Follett, Michael Crichton, Tess Gerritsen, Michael Robotham, and Harlen Coben. He lives on the New South Wales coast with his wife.

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Monday, 29 May 2023

An Italian Island Summer, by Sue Moorcroft

Regular readers of the blog will know I've been friends with Sue Moorcroft since we first met at the Kettering Writers Group in 1999 (we genre writers were consigned to the back of the room, where we had a great laugh).  Since then she's gone from strength to strength, hitting number one in the Kindle Bestseller charts (with The Christmas Promise) on her way to becoming a Sunday Times Best Seller, while her novel A Summer To Remember won the Goldsboro Books Contemporary Romantic Novel Award 2020.  As well as featuring her a lot on blog (to see more, click this link), I'm also pleased to be one of her beta-readers and thoroughly enjoyed her latest novel, An Italian Island Summer, which has just been published in paperback and e-book.

Will one summer in Sicily change her life for ever?

After her marriage falls apart, Ursula Quinn is offered the chance to spend the summer working at a hotel on a beautiful island off the coast of Sicily, Italy. Excited by a new adventure, she sets off at once.

At Residenza dei Tringali, Ursula receives a warm welcome from everyone except Alfio, son of the Tringali family. He gave up his life in Barcelona to help his mother Agata with the ailing business, and is frustrated with Ursula’s interference – and she in turn is less than impressed with his attitude. As they spend more time together, though, they begin to see each other in a different light.

But what with Ursula’s ex-husband on her tail, family secrets surfacing and an unexpected offer that makes Alfio question his whole life, there’s plenty to distract them from one another. Can she face her past and he his future, and together make the most of their Sicilian summer?

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A new book by Sue is always welcome and this time we see the return of a character, Ursula, who played a role in one of her earlier novels. As always, there are plenty of twists and turns as we follow the story of Alfio and Ursula and part of the fun is watching the blocks put into their path and how they might get around.

Told with Sue's usual sure-hand skill, the book moves at a good pace and is filled with characters who burst into life from the page. Family life, in all its forms, is well represented, there's a lovely and lovable cat and the antagonists are realistically horrible. With a well realised - and used - central location, a lovely atmosphere that is well maintained and some great writing, this is another winner!
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Buy the book from Amazon here

UK here
USA here


Sue Moorcroft is an international bestselling author and has reached the #1 spot on Kindle UK. She’s won the Goldsboro Books Contemporary Romantic Novel Award, Readers’ Best Romantic Novel award and the Katie Fforde Bursary. Published by HarperCollins in the UK, US and Canada and by other publishers around the world.

Her short stories, serials, columns, writing ‘how to’ and courses have appeared around the world.

Born into an army family in Germany, Sue spent much of her childhood in Cyprus and Malta but settled in Northamptonshire at the age of ten. An avid reader, she also loves Formula 1, travel, family and friends, dance exercise and yoga.

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The Missing American, by Julie Highmore

I am pleased to be part of the blog tour for Julie Highmore, making her debut with The Book Folks with her novel The Missing American.

New to the private investigator game, Edie Fox is delighted when a handsome American client with disconcertingly dazzling teeth asks her to find his missing cousin, Isabella. Especially when he leaves her a bundle of cash to get started.

However, the case quickly gets complicated, and so does her life when a one-night stand from her Oxford university days gets in touch and asks if her 26-year-old daughter, Maeve, is also his child. Judging a chaotic home, a brimming wine glass, a daughter besotted with her new-found daddy, and a rekindled old flame, Edie must try to focus on the job.

But with unreliable witnesses, a less than trustworthy client, and an assistant with her mind on other things, Edie will be up against it and risks losing all.

THE MISSING AMERICAN is the first book in a series of hilarious cozy mysteries by bestselling author Julie Highmore. Look out for the next book in the series, THE RUNAWAY HUSBAND, coming soon!

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Edie Fox is new to the private investigating business and delighted when a handsome American client asks her to find his missing cousin, Isabella and hands over a bundle of cash. The case quickly gets complicated, however and so does her life when the father (a one-night-stand from her university days) of her twentysomething daughter Maeve, turns up out of the blue. With a chaotic home-life, a rekindled old flame and a job with unreliable witnesses and an untrustworthy client, Edie is up against it as she tries to find Isabella.

I'm not well read in the cosy crime field but the blurb for this was intriguing and, with news that a second book is on the way, I decided to give it a go and I’m really glad I did. Told with a clear, dry voice, this reminded me of the hardboiled novels of the forties with Edie’s ever complicated homelife impeding on the case (and vice versa) and her observations about events were often very humorous. The case twists and turns, almost everyone’s a suspect and there’s a lovely sense of location (it’s set in the less desirable areas of Oxford) that really grounds the whole piece. It’s also not afraid to show the seamier side of life, which was refreshing. 

Edie is a fantastic character, fully rounded and believable and even though she’s an amateur, she puts the clues together well. With a varied and often eccentric supporting cast, all of them fully living and breathing and with plenty of smart lines to amuse, there was a touch of “The Beiderbecke Affair” about this and that just made me love it all the more. Very highly recommended.

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The daughter of an RAF officer, Julie Highmore moved around a lot as a child but eventually settled in Oxford in her twenties. After having three children, she studied first at Westminster College, then Oxford Brookes University and gained a first class degree in English. As part of the course, she studied creative writing with Philip Pullman, who encouraged her to continue with her writing after graduation. This she did, and her published work includes nine rom-com novels, and more recently, a crime fiction series for The Book Folks.

When not writing, Julie enjoys music, binge-watching a good TV series, country strolls, doing the New York Times crossword and hanging out with her husband and ever-expanding family.

Click here for more info on the writer: https://thebookfolks.com/author/julie-highmore/

The Missing American features the somewhat flawed, Oxford-based private investigator, Edie Fox; a single mother and very young grandmother who inadvertently gets her precious family caught up in her first big case. The Oxford she knows is based in the more edgy and diverse east of the city, full of small Victorian houses, students, cafes, delis and retired lecturers.



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Monday, 24 April 2023

The Name On The Bullet, by John Dean

I am pleased to be the first port of call on the latest blog tour from John Dean, a stablemate of mine at The Book Folks, who is promoting his new novel The Name On The Bullet, which was published on April 4th.

After a policeman is shot dead, DCI John Blizzard seizes a chance to settle old scores

When a high-profile detective on a reality TV cop show is killed, John Blizzard fancies old-school gangster Nathaniel Callaghan for the crime.

With the aging boss’s control over his northern crime empire on the wane, Blizzard sees an opportunity to turn his associates against him. But MI5 are also in on the action, and the different departments are in danger of scuppering each other’s investigation.

Yet as skeletons clatter out of the closet, it dawns on Blizzard that things are not as clear cut as they seem.
Who had murder on their mind, and who wrote the name on the bullet?

* * *
When a policeman fronting a reality TV cop show is killed, his colleague DCI John Blizzard seizes a chance to settle old scores with local gangster Nathaniel Callaghan, who appears to be behind the murder. But as the investigation continues, drawing in MI5 and other departments, it seems that things aren’t as clear cut as they seem.

This is the eleventh book in the DCI Blizzard series and, thankfully, works perfectly well as a stand-alone since it’s the first of John Dean’s books I’ve read. This has plenty of twists and turns, some more surprisingly than others and the book was helped along by a keen sense of location and nice sense of humour. There are a lot of characters (I did have to go back with a couple of names, to check who they were) but they’re briskly introduced and work well, particularly with the little brushes of personal life we see (especially for Blizzard). The backstory is well constructed and details of it are fed out at a good interval, helping keep the reader off-guard. Told with a decent pace, some clever writing and a straightforward voice, this works really well and I’d very much recommend it.

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John Dean is a former journalist who worked on regional newspapers for 17 years before going freelance in 1997. As a freelance, he wrote for regional and national newspapers and for many magazines on subjects as diverse as crime, wildlife and business before retiring in March 2020 to concentrate on his crime fiction. He also runs creative writing courses. 

John lives in South West Scotland and his website can be found at http://johndean.ning.com/

THE NAME ON THE BULLET is the eleventh standalone murder mystery by John Dean to feature stalwart crime-solver DCI John Blizzard. The full list of books is as follows:

1. THE LONG DEAD
2. STRANGE LITTLE GIRL
3. THE RAILWAY MAN
4. THE SECRETS MAN
5. A BREACH OF TRUST
6. DEATH LIST
7. A FLICKER IN THE NIGHT
8. THE LATCH MAN
9. NO AGE TO DIE
10. THE VENGEANCE MAN
11. THE NAME ON THE BULLET



The book can be picked up from Amazon on these links

Free with Kindle Unlimited and available in paperback and hardcover.

Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C1GNRDRS/

Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0C1GNRDRS/

Amazon CA: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0C1GNRDRS/

Amazon AU: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B0C1GNRDRS/


You can follow the rest of the tour at these great blogs



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Monday, 6 February 2023

The Shelter, by James Everington - Redux Reviews 2

Welcome to the second edition of the thread where I revisit reviews of books by friends and writers I admire, to highlight the works for readers who might have missed them the first time they appeared.

This time it's The Shelter, by James Everington, a novella I originally reviewed in 2013.

It’s a long, drowsy summer at the end of the 1980s, and Alan Dean and three of his friends cross the fields behind their village to look for a rumoured WW2 air raid shelter. Only half believing that it even exists beyond schoolboy gossip, the four boys nevertheless feel an odd tension and unease. 

And when they do find the shelter, and go down inside it, the strange and horrifying events that follow will test their adolescent friendships to breaking point, and affect the rest of their lives...

During the long summer of 1989, thirteen year-old Alan Dean hung around with three friends - Mark, Tom and Duncan.  Mark was a charismatic bully, a bad seed who was used to getting what he wanted and when he suggested the four of them explore an old shelter, they all agreed.  At the same time, a local boy called Martin had gone missing and the newspapers are asking if a killer’s on the loose but once Alan and his friends find the shelter, they experience something strange and horrifying that will change all their lives forever.

I love coming-of-age tales and I love eighties nostalgia and so, as my introduction to the writing of James Everington, this couldn’t have gone much better at all.  Although he’s at the opposite end of the decade to me (in terms of points of reference), he perfectly evokes a long boring summer to the extent that the reader can almost feel the prickly heat and hear the flies buzzing and there’s nothing that knocks this illusion at all.  The characters are well drawn, though Alan - who narrates - is probably the only one most people will identify with - Tom and Duncan are herd animals, not quite smart enough to strike out on their own and instead happy to be the muscle, whilst Mark is almost chilling in his relentness need to be in control, though Everington spotlights his vulnerability well as the story progresses.  The peer pressure too is well evoked, with the other boys being two years old than Alan, so he goes along them with because he’s too scared not to, plus he likes the increased social status their comradeship gives him.

The shelter itself is a superb invention, very real and with a claustrophobic atmosphere that is almost tangible.  When Alan sees what he sees, we’re there on the ladder with him and equally desperate for release.

With an afterword that explains where the story came from, which is interesting in itself, this is an excellent novella.  It has good pace, believable characters, a nice use of location and a sureness in the telling that pulls the reader through.  A wonderful exploration of powerful, quiet horror, this is well worth a read and highly recommended.


The novella is available from Amazon as a paperback here and as an ebook here.

James & I first met at Andromeda Con in Birmingham in 2013 (which I wrote about here), though we'd been chatting through social media for a while. We instantly hit it off and I quickly became a big fan of his excellent writing. When he told me about The Shelter, which originally appeared in 2011, it sounded right up my street and proved to absolutely be so.

Our friendship endures to this day and his writing just gets better and better (he's been reviewed in The Guardian, don't you know!).





Sledge-Lit in Derby, November 2017
James, me and Alison Littlewood



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Monday, 23 January 2023

The Tooth Fairy, by Graham Joyce (a review)

In a new edition of the occasional series, I want to tell you about a book I've just read and loved, which I think adds to the horror genre and that I think you'll enjoy if you're a fan. In this case, the book first came out in 1996 and was written by the late and much-missed Graham Joyce, so the chances are you might have already heard of it. I'd been putting off reading it for a long, long time and when I finally picked it up I was pleased to find it inscribed to me and I realised I bought it from him at a Terror Scribes gathering in Leicester in 2001 (which I wrote about here).

When seven-year-old Sam Southall loses a tooth, he’s visited by the Tooth Fairy, a demonic being (sometimes male, sometimes female) that apparently only he can see, but whose malignant influence spills over onto his family and friends. The Tooth Fairy hangs around as Sam grows up, teaching him to make mischief at school and influencing his actions. One day she insists Sam’s friend Terry sleeps over and that same night, Terry's father shoots his wife, his other children, and himself…

I am a huge Graham Joyce fan and I’d been holding this back (the book was published in 1996) because  - well, there aren't a lot of his I have yet to read - but I’m so glad I did. Filled with Joyce’s wonderous prose, mastery of character and dialogue and a brilliant evocation of a seventies childhood (the timespan is never properly specified), this was just glorious. The lives of Sam, Terry and Clive are imbued with a sense of love and melancholy and the introduction of Alice to the group works brilliantly - she’s just as vivid a character as them, even if her motives aren’t always clear. And while the boys navigate friendships, parents and the rigours of becoming teenagers, the Tooth Fairy is always there, an ever-present reminder that things don’t always go right, however much you try to make them. There are scenes of horror - Terry’s family, Tooley the scout, poor Linda in London - and they’re shocking but the book, ultimately, is about friendship and love and I found it by turns funny and sad and eminently readable. I cannot recommend this highly enough and I envy those who have yet to discover its sense of wonder.

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Graham Joyce was born the mining village of Kerseley, near Coventry, on 22nd October 1954, where he grew up.  He obtained his bachelor’s degree in education at Bishop Lonsdale college, an MA in English and American Literature at the University of Leicester and in 2004 was awarded a PhD in Creative Writing at Nottingham Trent University.

In 1988, he quit his job and went to live on the Greek island of Lesbos, to concentrate on writing.  His first novel, Dreamside, funded travel to the Middle East and he went on to write fourteen novels, five young adult novels, and an autobiographical book about his experiences as goalie for the England Writers' football team (which, by the way, is excellent).  He also wrote numerous short stories.

Over his career, he won the British Fantasy Award for Best Novel five times, the World Fantasy Award , the French Grand Prix De L'Imaginaire twice and the prestigious O Henry award for his short story An Ordinary Soldier of the Queen. In 2008 he was awarded the Honorary degree of Master of Letters by the University of Derby.

He continued to write and teach creative writing at Nottingham Trent University until his death on 9th September 2014.

Biography from the Graham Joyce website

I was lucky to meet him on several occasions and we got to know each other well enough we'd chat and share a laugh whenever we were in the same place (usually at FantasyCon).  I saw him at WFC (he was heading downstairs, I was heading up, he said "Hello mate!" and changed direction so we could walk and talk for a while) in Brighton and got to tell him how much his novel The Year Of The Ladybird meant to me and he seemed genuinely moved when I told him it made me cry.  However, when I asked him if he was going to write a short story, detailing the love affair after the novels end, he told me to bugger off!  

I miss his presence and his writing.

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Monday, 9 January 2023

Review for STILL WATERS RUN

I'm happy to report that my fourth mainstream thriller, Still Waters Run from The Book Folks is doing okay for itself and picking up some nice reviews.

In late summer, sixteen-year-old Dan and his recently divorced mother head to a Norfolk seaside town’s holiday park for a vacation.

Shy Dan soon strikes up a friendship with a girl of his age, quirky and pretty Charlie, and his mother is swept off her feet by a suave local property developer.

Yet a shadow is cast over their stay when one of the camp attendants, Mia, goes missing. And things go from bad to worse when her body turns up near the town’s derelict lido.

Charlie draws Dan into her efforts to discover the truth about Mia’s death. But as the locals close ranks, cracks begin to show in their new friendships, and he’ll soon find himself in deep water.

This could turn out to be a holiday that mother and son will remember for all the wrong reasons, if they survive.

* *
Stephen Bacon posted a review on his own blog and said he had "a real blast reading" it. As well as picking up on the nostalgia, he also made the perceptive comment that "there's an interesting romantic aspect for Jude here too, and one that has much to say about the desires and vulnerabilities of middle-aged characters, an angle that is often neglected in crime fiction."

I'm really pleased about that, because the Jude thread is as important as the Dan/Charlie teenaged one in the book and I came to really like Jude as a character - both in herself and also writing her.

You can check out the rest of Steve's review here and there's more to see at both Amazon and Goodreads (links below).

As we move into 2023 I'm hard at work on the first draft of Book 5, which features a married couple going on a guided hike in Northumberland and finding that someone in their party doesn't want everyone to come away alive.

In the meantime, thank you for your continued support and if you choose to read one of my books, don't forget to leave a rating/review!






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Monday, 7 November 2022

A White Christmas on Winter Street, by Sue Moorcroft

Regular readers of the blog will know I've been friends with Sue Moorcroft since we first met at the Kettering Writers Group in 1999 (we genre writers were consigned to the back of the room, where we had a great laugh).  Since then she's gone from strength to strength, hitting number one in the Kindle Bestseller charts (with The Christmas Promise) on her way to becoming a Sunday Times Best Seller, while her novel A Summer To Remember won the Goldsboro Books Contemporary Romantic Novel Award 2020.  As well as featuring her a lot on blog (to see more, click this link), I'm also pleased to be one of her beta-readers and thoroughly enjoyed her latest novel, A White Christmas On Winter Street, which has just been published in paperback and e-book.

When Sky Terran returns to the village of Middledip after losing the job she loves, she anticipates a quiet Christmas getting used to her new life. However, the annual street decoration competition is coming up and this year, the residents of Winter Street are determined to win.

As she is pulled into the preparations, Sky quickly grows to love the quirky, tight-knit community she is now part of. Including the extremely handsome Daz, who soon becomes more than just a friendly neighbour.

But when Daz’s ex turns up determined to win him back and it seems he might not be the man Sky thought he was, she remembers how much allowing people into her life – and heart – can hurt. As the snow falls, will she and Daz find a way through – and help win a Christmas victory for Winter Street?

A gorgeously festive novel about love, family and the power of forgiveness from Sunday Times bestseller Sue Moorcroft, perfect for fans of Sarah Morgan and Phillipa Ashley.

* * *

Sky Terran comes from a broken home and her only real family is Freddy Walker, who was briefly her foster brother when they were in the care of Nan Heather in Middledip village. Sky works for property developer Freddy but when his new girlfriend Minnie causes problems, she resigns and moves into The Corner House in Middledip. She plans to do the house up and make it her home but another local, Daz Moran, had been hoping to get it for a Youth Activity Centre. Soon, Sky and Daz are bumping heads over a lot of things.

Sue Moorcroft conjures up another winner with this wintry Christmas tale set resolutely in her wonderful village of Middledip. Characterisation, as always, is strong and vibrant and our lead couple make for a sparky and interesting relationship but the supporting cast is equally well drawn and quirky, from Marietta next door to the lovely Courtney and her brilliant realised son Wilf. 

Middledip shines and there are plenty of nods to Sue’s previous books - places, venues and especially characters - and each one brings a warm smile as you remember where they popped up before. The novel is sometimes challenging, often very funny and also nicely raunchy on occasion. Told with great pace, a keen eye for detail and a wonderful grasp of location, this is a fantastic read I heartily recommend.


Sue Moorcroft is an international bestselling author and has reached the #1 spot on Kindle UK. She’s won the Goldsboro Books Contemporary Romantic Novel Award, Readers’ Best Romantic Novel award and the Katie Fforde Bursary. Published by HarperCollins in the UK, US and Canada and by other publishers around the world.

Her short stories, serials, columns, writing ‘how to’ and courses have appeared around the world.

Born into an army family in Germany, Sue spent much of her childhood in Cyprus and Malta but settled in Northamptonshire at the age of ten. An avid reader, she also loves Formula 1, travel, family and friends, dance exercise and yoga.

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Monday, 20 June 2022

Phoenix, by Steve Byrne - Redux Reviews 1

Welcome to the start of a new thread where I'll revisit reviews of books by friends and writers I admire, to highlight the works for readers who might have missed them the first time they appeared.

We'll begin with Phoenix, a novel by Steve Byrne I originally reviewed in 2013.

Vietnam 1967.
Something monstrous has risen from the ashes of war…
When the US marines enter the hidden village of Mau Giang, they unleash an ancient darkness from within its temple walls. A fearful secret kept for generations by the native Montagnard tribespeople. 
Abraham Curtis travels to Vietnam to visit his sister Jenny, an aid worker in Saigon. Together they join a humanitarian convoy into the Central Highlands, where Jenny is to adopt a child orphaned by the conflict.

But the influence of the breached temple is spreading its contagion across the combat zones of Vietnam like gangrene through flesh, and soon it will destroy Bram’s world. Pursued by a bloodthirsty cult, he must search for his missing sister through the war-torn wastelands, his only companions deserters, rebel soldiers and a woman who may not be quite human.
Across the world, protestors line the streets. The battle lines are drawn - war and peace, hawk or dove. Is this the apocalyptic coming of the Man of Blood, prophesised by Nostradamus, or a delusion brought about by Post-traumatic Stress? On panic filled streets, during the Fall of Saigon, Bram will find his answer.
Forget truth. Forget innocence. There are only casualties.


Bram Curtis is in Saigon in 1967, to visit his sister Jenny who works in an orphanage.  He’s left England, disillusioned and wants to try and find himself in this new country - listen to Hendrix, smoke pot and see what life has to offer.  When he discovers Jenny is planning to adopt a young girl called Lai, he gets roped into the aid convoy to go and reach her, headed by the urbane General Hoan.  After things take a decided turn for the worse (like Hoan himself) and Bram becomes embroiled in the Tet Offensive, the narrative jumps to May 1970 as he searches for his now-missing sister.  His pursuit leads him further in-country and into the orbit of the mysterious - and potentially dangerous - Qui, taking us up to 1975 (there’s a much later coda too), when he must finally confront the Man Of Blood, a supernatural entity that is teased throughout the novel.  
Since my entire knowledge of Vietnam is limited to memories of lessons at school and movies from the 80s and 90s, this isn’t the kind of novel that I would have picked up generally but I’m glad I did in this case.  Starting with a bang and never really letting go of the pace - and it’s a long novel - Byrne relays the story of Bram, a drifter who discovers a cause that consumes his life, with real style.  Vietnam is almost a character in herself, with Saigon painted in rich and detailed depth, from the heat and humidity, the texture of skin and sweat and the hundreds of things that are happening in the streets at once, creating a riot of tactile, broiling humanity.  Later, moving in-country, you get a real sense of both the claustrophobia and humidity of the jungle, of the architecture of the churches and the battered and bruised earth, making it occasionally hard to read it’s so well done.  
The book is filled with vivid characters - and this extends to the most minor of roles, not just Bram, Jen, Hoan or Qui - and yet none of them are guaranteed safe passage to the end of the novel, with some of the deaths (as quick and dirty as you’d expect in a war situation) being quite shocking.  Combine this with a dispassionate eye towards the brutality of war - what is seen and what is perpetrated - and you have a narrative that demands attention.  The supernatural elements are used sparingly but are well written and blended easily into the narrative, so you’re as unaware as the character if you’ve witnessed them or not.  Byrne doesn’t skimp on the set pieces either and there are plenty of them, all superbly constructed and choreographed, never overlong and intense enough to make you feel part of them.  The same is true of the last act, a gruelling journey Bram must take into his own heart of darkness that you can’t tear your eyes from, even down to the gut-punch final few lines.
Steve has clearly done his research in all areas - the locations, the equipment, the theatres of war, the culture and the language - and it shines through perfectly, with nothing coming across as heavy handed or expositional.  Everything the reader learns  - about Vietnam or the horrors - comes through the character, with no obvious info-dumps.
This is a wonderfully constructed novel, tightly edited and with a cracking pace and it deserves a big readership.  Highly recommended.


The book can be found on Amazon here as a paperback and here as an ebook whilst Steve Byrne's website can be found here.


Steve Harris (the man behind Mr Byrne) & I go back a long way, first corresponding in the late 90s when he produced a newsheet called The Inner Circle.  I didn't actually meet him for several years, finally plucking up the courage at one FantasyCon to introduce myself with "are you the Steve Harris who did The Inner Circle?”

Since then we've developed a great friendship, which often involves us talking for hours at Cons about all things horror.  At FantasyCon 2012 (in Brighton, which I wrote about here), he told me about Phoenix, which he was publishing through his own imprint PunkLit and I jumped at the chance to read it.


The first Crusty Exterior gathering - London, April 2015
from left to right - James Everington, Phil Sloman, Steve and me

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Monday, 16 May 2022

Summer at the French Café, by Sue Moorcroft

Regular blog readers will know I've been friends with Sue Moorcroft since we first met at the Kettering Writers Group in 1999 (we genre writers were consigned to the back of the room, where we had a great laugh).  Since then she's gone from strength to strength, hitting number one in the Kindle Bestseller charts (with The Christmas Promise) on her way to becoming a Sunday Times Best Seller, while her novel A Summer To Remember won the Goldsboro Books Contemporary Romantic Novel Award 2020.  As well as featuring her a lot on blog (to see more, click this link), I'm also pleased to be one of her beta-readers and thoroughly enjoyed her latest novel, Summer At The French Cafe, which has just been published in paperback and e-book.

Sparkling sun, strolls in the gorgeous French countryside, that first sip of cool, crisp wine – Summer is Kat’s favourite season. And this year should be no exception…

As soon as Kat Jenson set foot in the idyllic French village of Kirchhoffen, she knew she’d found her home.

Now she has a dreamy boyfriend, a delightful dog and the perfect job managing a bustling book café in the vibrant Parc Lemmel.

But when she learns her boyfriend isn’t all he seems, it’s the start of a difficult summer for Kat. Vindictive troublemakers, work woes and family heartache follow, and the clear blue sky that was her life suddenly seems full of clouds.

Then she gets to know the mysterious Noah, and her sun begins to shine brighter than ever. But Noah has problems of his own – ones that could scupper their new-found happiness. Together, can they overcome their many obstacles, and find love again?

The perfect summer read for fans of Trisha Ashley, Sarah Morgan and Carole Matthews.

Katerina ‘Kat’ Jenson manages the the bookshop Livres et Café at Parc Lemmel, on the edge of Muntsheim, in the Alsace region of France.  When it turns out her boyfriend is not only a family man but his wife is a computer whizz who’s perfectly happy to cause havoc, Kat swears off men.  But then she meets Noah - who comes with his own baggage - and finds herself falling for him.

Another winner from the ever consistent Sue Moorcroft, this is a quick and heartening read filled with the usual mixture of romance, raunch, good humour and grit that she does so well.  Sue is very good at creating instantly believable characters and Kat is exceptionally well realised (she reminded me a little of Cleo from the excellent All That Mullarkey. Kat's character never has a false step and she's equally matched by Noah, who's new to the area as he tracks down his mildly autistic daughter Clemence.  It turns out, his ex-wife Florine is being controlled by her new husband Yohan, who wants a new family in his own image and the little girl is caught up in the middle.  

With Kat’s family and the bookshop owners causing their own issues, the summer is a mixture of incidents and excitement and very soon, you’ll be rooting for this well developed couple to prosper.  

Told with a keen eye for detail, a wonderful grasp of location and a pace that is absolutely pitch-perfect, this is a fantastic read that I heartily recommend.


Sue Moorcroft is an international bestselling author and has reached the #1 spot on Kindle UK. She’s won the Goldsboro Books Contemporary Romantic Novel Award, Readers’ Best Romantic Novel award and the Katie Fforde Bursary. Published by HarperCollins in the UK, US and Canada and by other publishers around the world.

Her short stories, serials, columns, writing ‘how to’ and courses have appeared around the world.

Born into an army family in Germany, Sue spent much of her childhood in Cyprus and Malta but settled in Northamptonshire at the age of ten. An avid reader, she also loves Formula 1, travel, family and friends, dance exercise and yoga.

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