#BlogTour The Shape of Darkness by Laura Purcell

Today its an absolute pleasure to take part in the BlogTour The Shape of Darkness by Laura Purcell.

About the Author

Laura Purcell is a former bookseller and lives in Colchester with her husband and pet guinea pigs. Her first novel for Raven Books, The Silent Companions, was a Radio 2 and Zoe Ball ITV Book Club pick and was the winner of the WHSmith Thumping Good Read Award, while her subsequent books – The Corset and Bone China – established Laura as the queen of the sophisticated, and spooky, page-turner.

Follow @spookypurcell on Twitter, on Amazon, on Goodreads, Visit laurapurcell.com, Buy The Shape of Darkness

About the book

As the age of the photograph dawns in Victorian Bath, silhouette artist Agnes is struggling to keep her business afloat. Still recovering from a serious illness herself, making enough money to support her elderly mother and her orphaned nephew Cedric has never been easy, but then one of her clients is murdered shortly after sitting for Agnes, and then another, and another… Why is the killer seemingly  targeting her business?

Desperately seeking an answer, Agnes approaches Pearl, a child spirit medium lodging in Bath with her older half-sister and her ailing father, hoping that if Pearl can make contact with those who died, they might reveal who killed them.

But Agnes and Pearl quickly discover that instead they may have opened the door to something that they can never put back…

Review

Agnes keeps herself and her family afloat with her silhouette art. When one of her clients is murdered shortly after visiting her she thinks nothing of it other than the fact her work will go unpaid, but that is just the beginning. Then another client is killed.

Supported by her good friend Simon, who always seems to be there to keep her safe, she tries to take care of her nephew and mother, whilst removing the memories and reminders of her difficult sister. Drawn into the story are two sisters making money from the desperation of those who are grieving. One of those people is Agnes, she is eager to connect to those behind the veil. She wants the chance to speak to her lost love. The medium of choice is a young girl with a gift, however it all comes at a price.

I really enjoyed the way the author combines an almost gothic ghostly vibe with a murder mystery, and this constant balancing act between reality and a dark world beyond life as we know it. The aspect of communication with the otherworldly throws up some interesting questions – is there something akin to the power to communicate with the dead, is it all just the hallucinatory ramblings of a woman in denial or is Agnes merely the pawn in a chess game.

It’s a riveting read that keeps the reader engrossed until the end, which is what I’ve come to expect from this particular author.

Buy The Shape of Darkness at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Raven Books pub date 21 January 2021 | Hardback £12.99 | eBook £9.09 | Audio £21. Buy at Amazon com. Hive. Bookshop org. Waterstones.

#BlogTour The Truants by Kate Weinberg

Today it’s a pleasure to take part in the BlogTour The Truants by Kate Weinberg.

About the Author

Kate Weinberg was born and lives in London. She studied English at Oxford and creative writing in East Anglia. She has worked as a slush pile reader, a bookshop assistant, a journalist and a ghost writer. The Truants is her first novel.

Follow @KateWeinberg on Instagram, on Goodreads, on Amazon, Buy The Truants

About the book

People disappear when they most want to be seen

Jess Walker, middle child of a middle-class family, has perfected the art of vanishing in plain sight. But when she arrives at a concrete university campus under flat, grey, East Anglian skies, her world flares with colour.

Drawn into a tightly-knit group of rule breakers – led by their maverick teacher, Lorna Clay – Jess begins to experiment with a new version of herself. But the dynamic between the friends begins to darken as they share secrets, lovers and finally a tragedy. Soon Jess is thrown up against the question she fears most: what is the true cost of an extraordinary life?

Review

This is very much the story of every young adult who ends up discovering complete freedom in the form of university for the first time, perhaps more so when the place has an aura of elitism.

Jess fawns over her lecturer and equally over the people she comes in contact with. Their worlds are different, hence why the pull is so strong. The need to belong and become part of something so bright, wild and free is bigger than the need to be safe. The connections she makes are electrifying and they transform not only the person she was, but also the person she will be one day.

I loved the feel and voice of this read. Very Room with a View aesthetic meets The Girls by Cline. The devastating upheaval of emotions when you’re coming-of-age and finding yourself. Experiencing the first throes of passion, desire and attraction. Enjoying the freedom of not being tethered by the rules of your childhood and yet somehow reluctantly acknowledging the need for structure when you abandon it completely.

Weinberg delivers a constantly moving river of prose, which surges with the ambiguity of love and life. Moments in time become ethereal, due to the romanticised slant the world of academia and literature is slathered in. The characters become players in a cheap daytime soap and by doing so burst the bubble of egotistical hedonistic culture they have all become immersed in. There is no escaping life itself even if you choose to hide from it for a while – eventually it will catch up with you.

I enjoyed the read. I thought it was subtle, driven by the complexity of the emotions and characters, but ultimately by the powerful writing.

Buy The Truants at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing; pub date out in paperback June 2020 – £8.99. Buy at Amazon com.

#BlogTour Tsarina by Ellen Alpsten

Today it’s my turn on the BlogTour Tsarina by Ellen Alpsten.

About the Author

Ellen Alpsten was born and raised in the Kenyan highlands, before attending L’Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris. Whilst studying for her Msc in PPE she won the Grande École short story competition with her novella Meeting Mr. Gandhi and was encouraged to continue writing. Upon graduating, she worked as a producer and presenter for Bloomberg TV in London. She contributes to international publications such as Vogue, Standpoint and Conde Nast Traveller. Tsarina is her first novel. She lives in London with her husband and three children.

Follow @Ealpsten_author on Twitter, on Goodreads, on Amazon, Buy Tsarina

About the book

Spring 1699: Illegitimate, destitute and strikingly beautiful, Marta has survived the brutal Russian winter in her remote Baltic village. Sold by her family into household labour at the age of fifteen, Marta survives by committing a crime that will force her to go on the run.

A world away, Russia’s young ruler, Tsar Peter I, passionate and iron-willed, has a vision for transforming the traditionalist Tsardom of Russia into a modern, Western empire. Countless lives will be lost in the process. Falling prey to the Great Northern War, Marta cheats death at every turn, finding work as a washerwoman at a battle camp.

One night at a celebration, she encounters Peter the Great. Relying on her wits and her formidable courage, and fuelled by ambition, desire and the sheer will to live, Marta will become Catherine I of Russia. But her rise to the top is ridden with peril; how long will she survive the machinations of Peter’s court, and more importantly, Peter himself?

Review

Moments away from changing the destiny of his second wife, the tsar of Russia never completes his task to name an heir, and Catherine takes the opportunity to take a firm hold on the power and the country.

The tagline for this book is spot on – The most powerful woman history forgot. Everyone loves a bit of Catherine the Great, but what about Marta, Catherine I of Russia? She paved the way for Catherine the Great and other women who came before and after her. For someone who was a serf and illiterate she added her own touch after the reign of a ruler who changed the political, legal and architectural landscape of Russia. Her reasonable changes enhanced the strides Peter the Great achieved.

Alpsten strips away the myth that has been built over the years, the narrative of the lovely calm woman who ruled alone for a short period of time with patience. Instead she tells the more realistic tale of a woman determined and cunning enough to survive the manipulations of the Russian court. A woman humiliated, tortured and consumed with sorrow, and yet ultimately she was a survivor.

It’s not a pretty tale – some of these Peters were a often a screw short of a plank to be nailed into. If anything this fictional tale explains in part why centuries later the peasants rose up.

The author does take a few historical liberties in the name of creativity, fiction and art, but that’s only to be expected with historical fiction. It’s written in lyrical prose and in a way that takes you back to Russian literature.

Buy Tsarina at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing; pub date 14 May 2020 | Hardback £16.99 | eBook £14.26. Buy at Amazon com. Buy at Waterstones.

#BlogTour You Will Be Safe Here by Damian Barr

Today it’s my turn on the BlogTour You Will Be Safe Here by Damian Barr, and it’s also the last day of the tour.About the Author

Damian Barr is an award-winning writer and columnist. Maggie & Me, his memoir about coming of age and coming out in Thatcher’s Britain, was a BBC Radio 4 ‘Book of the Week’, Sunday Times ‘Memoir of the Year’ and won the Paddy Power Political Books ‘Satire’ Award and Stonewall Writer of the Year Award. Damian writes columns for the Big Issue and High Life and often appears on BBC Radio 4. He is creator and host of his own Literary Salon that premieres work from established and emerging writers. You Will Be Safe Here is his debut novel. Damian Barr lives in Brighton.

Follow @damian_barr on Twitter, on Goodreads, Visit damianbarr.com, Buy You Will Be Safe Here

About the book

A beautiful and heart-breaking story set in South Africa where two mothers – a century apart – must fight for their sons, unaware their fates are inextricably linked.

Orange Free State, 1901. At the height of the Boer War, Sarah van der Watt and her six-year-old son Fred can only watch as the British burn their farm. The polite invaders cart them off to Bloemfontein Concentration Camp promising you will be safe here.

Johannesburg, 2010. Sixteen-year-old Willem is an outsider who just wants to be left alone with his Harry Potter books and Britney, his beloved pug. Worried he’s turning out soft, his Ma and her new boyfriend send him to New Dawn Safari Camp, where they ‘make men out of boys.’ Guaranteed.

The red earth of the veldt keeps countless secrets whether beaten by the blistering sun or stretching out beneath starlit stillness. But no secret can stay buried forever.

Review

The common thread between the two stories are mothers and what they are willing to do to help their sons survive. Sometimes those decisions are wrong and sometimes you have do the last thing you expected to save them. And as a child you believe your mother is making the right choice for you. From a mother trying to save her starving child in a war torn South Africa or a mother wanting to make ‘a man’ out of her son.

Did British colonisation lay the groundwork for apartheid in South Africa? A question often posed, especially whilst discussing the history and repercussions of white men on that particular continent. It’s easy to forget that the Cape Colony was under the rule of the Dutch before falling to the British Crown – then Dutch and then British again, which should explain a lot of the conflict between the Boers and the British Crown.

The systemic racism already existed between the white South Africans and the indigenous Africans. The Dutch took their land, established a servant master system, which was powered by eugenic beliefs and religious sanctimony.

It’s easier to understand why many of the downtrodden chose to help the British during the Boer war and why the Boers consider any hands-upper a traitor. Simultaneously there is a lack of documentation or photographic evidence to show the atrocities and numbers of victims when it comes to the black concentration camps the British set up. Conveniently the atrocities against the white Boers is documented well enough to teach further generations the same systemic racism and hatred, instead of teaching them not to repeat the mistakes of the past.

It’s a fascinating combination of historical and political fiction based on facts.

Barr takes an often forgotten period in history and uses it as a tool to inform and entertain. It’s an engrossing read, which brings many questions to the surface. The tidal wave of destruction left in the wake of oppression, war and disastrous war tactics.

Willem’s story is actually worthy of a book by itself and so is the Boer refugee or containment camp story. Together the two give an overall glimpse of a destructive and neglectful family pattern passed on from generation to generation.

Buy You Will Be Safe Here at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing; pub date 4 April 2019. Buy at Amazon com.

#BlogTour A Theatre for Dreamers by Polly Samson

Today it’s my turn on the BlogTour A Theatre for Dreamers by Polly Samson.

About the Author

Polly Samson is the author of two short story collections and two previous novels. Her work has been shortlisted for prizes, translated into several languages and has been dramatized on BBC Radio 4. She has written lyrics to four number one albums and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Follow @PollySamson on Twitter, on Goodreads, on Amazon, Visit pollysamson.com, Buy A Theater for Dreamers

About the book

A Theatre for Dreamers is a novel about a place and a circle that have transfixed the world for decades 1960. The world is dancing on the edge of revolution, and nowhere more so than on the Greek island of Hydra, where a circle of poets, painters and musicians live tangled lives, ruled by the writers Charmian Clift and George Johnston, troubled king and queen of bohemia. Forming within this circle is a triangle: its points the magnetic, destructive writer Axel Jensen, his dazzling wife Marianne Ihlen, and a young Canadian poet named Leonard Cohen.

Into their midst arrives teenage Erica, with little more than a bundle of blank notebooks and her grief for her mother. Settling on the periphery of this circle, she watches, entranced and disquieted, as a paradise unravels.

Burning with the heat and light of Greece, A Theatre for Dreamers is a spellbinding novel about utopian dreams and innocence lost – and the wars waged between men and women on the battlegrounds of genius.

Review

After the death of her mother Erica travels to discover the secrets her mother kept hidden from an abusive husband and her children. She becomes immersed in the world of a group of poets, painters and musicians on the Greek island of Hydra.

Although the focus may be on the literary aspect of the book and the hedonistic lifestyle of the artists and followers, I have to spare a moment and say something about Erica and Bobby. It may seem like freedom at first, but Bobby quickly reverts to what he knows, which is to treat his sister the way his father has treated them both. Cruel, dismissive and abusive. The father makes the man out of the son or in this case passes on his negative traits. These moments define the relationships Erica has with men.

It’s literary fiction, one of few remaining periods in the 20th century when artists gathered and pushed the power, talent and ideas.

Nowadays it has become such an isolated experience. Creativity not exchanged perhaps for fear of ideas being taken. The possibility of fame, fortune and acknowledgement are so rare that creativity is kept in isolation until the artist is ready to expose. The Studio 54 moments that smacked of no rules and complete lack of inhibition. Gone are the 20s when Hemingway, Stein, Fitzgerald, Joyce were inspired by each other, much like Johnston, Cohen, Clift and Jensen in this book on Hydra.

Samson captures the passion driven escapades, which in turn drove the creativity and defined some more than others. In particular she really grasps how women were still considered to be sub-par and incapable of creative brilliance – not like men were.

Sometimes it feels as if the surroundings take over the story though, but saying that it is definitely a strength of the author.

Buy A Theatre for Dreamers at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Bloomsbury Circus: Publication date 2 April 2020 – Hardback: £14.99 Ebook: £12.58. Buy at Amazon com.

#PaperbackPublicationDay! The Flower Girls by Alice Clark-Platts

Today it’s Paperback Publication Day for The Flower Girls by Alice Clark-Platts. To celebrate Bloomsbury Raven has given me two copies of this spectacular book to give to two lucky readers!

To enter the Giveaway just leave a comment below. Trust me you don’t want to miss this cracking read.About the Author

Alice is a former human rights lawyer who used to work for the UK Government. As a litigator, she worked on cases involving Winnie Mandela and the rapper Snoop Dogg. She re-located to the tropics and now lives in wonderful Singapore.

She also writes short stories which have been published in various anthologies. And when she’s not writing, she is running The Singapore Writers’ Group which she founded in 2012. This is a fantastic group of both professional and amateur writers who meet monthly and attend workshops and critique sessions.

Follow @aclarkplatts @BloomsburyRaven on Twitter, on Goodreads, on Facebook, Visit aliceclarkplatts.com, Buy The Flower Girls

About the book

The Flower Girls. Laurel and Primrose.

One convicted of murder, the other given a new identity.

Now, nineteen years later, another child has gone missing.

And The Flower Girls are about to hit the headlines all over again…

Review

Laurel and Primrose are little girls who like to play in the woods. Two little girls who take a baby with them into the woods and only two of the three little girls come back out again. The world despises them, the nation spends years hunting them, but only one of them spends time behind bars,

Even after so many years the public believes Laurel and Primrose deserve to be punished until they themselves take their last breath.

Laurel, the elder of the two, is seen as the main perpetrator and locked up. The youngest girl is renamed Rosie and is raised normally in society as if the events had never taken place at all. The public and the family members of the victim keep finding out where she lives, so she feels like a hunted animal.

When another young child goes missing where Rosie happens to be spending the night she becomes an instant suspect, thanks to the help of a writer, who is hungry for a sensational story. She is then forced to reconsider her attitude towards Laurel and whether or not she should help her get parole.

There are definitely parallels that can be drawn between the Bulger case and the fictional Flower Girls, and it invites the reader to ponder and perhaps even debate what happens when a child kills another child. When children commit a heinous crime, it’s perhaps worse than the horror of any adult on child crime, because it is so hard to fathom how a child can do such a terrible thing.

The author goes for the more hard-nosed approach with this plot, so you might think it is going a specific way, but it doesn’t. Clark-Platts allows the story to hover over the dark abyss and takes the reader on the steep decline into the desolate landscape of a cruel and calculated mind.

The Flower Girls is a tense psychological thriller, which takes the reader on a difficult journey of justice and morality. Is there any right or wrong in such tragic circumstances? Then just when you think, as a reader, you have come to a conclusion you feel comfortable with, the author blindsides the reader with the truth. Not a read you should miss.

Buy The Flower Girls at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Raven Books; Hardcover release 24 January 2019

Don’t forget to comment below to enter the Giveaway to win a copy of The Flower Girls!!

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

Patchett is truly a writer who knows and has fine-tuned her craft, which is especially evident within the pages of this powerful tale of family, abandonment, perspectives and above all the individuality of relationships. Not one is the same.

Each relationship we create, foster or even tear asunder is identifiable to ourselves by our own frame of reference, experiences and memories. It is never quite the same for someone else, which is why a group of us can all know a person well and yet experience relationships with that person on a completely different level and way to every other person in said group.

I think that is one of the most poignant parts of the story. It is certainly the aspect that defines the role of the absentee mother. What Danny feels and has experienced isn’t what Maeve experienced in regards to their mother, which in turn also applies to Cyril and the rest of the women from the Dutch house.

The house itself, which is integral to the plot, and the emotions which are tethered to said house become singular relationships in their own right. Once again, it takes on a different level of importance for each one of the characters.

Danny and Maeve struggle with the fact their mother just upped and left them, which is compounded tenfold when their father brings home a new stepmother and two stepsisters. A stepmother who is fascinated by the house and wealth her marriage brings with it. A woman who feels as if Danny and Maeve are the enemies.

The siblings have a strong bond necessitated by the indifference and neglect they experience. Neither of them understands the intricacies of their relationship until others intrude upon it. Towards the end Danny finally understands the measure and depth of their relationship and wherein his peace and happiness really lies.

I loved the way Patchett wove and spun this story. It’s beautiful and yet simultaneously also incredibly sad at times. It’s literary fiction, a beautiful contemporary read about altruistic relationships and family dynamics.

Buy/Pre-order The Dutch House at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing; pub date 24 September 2019. Buy at Amazon com. Buy at Bloomsbury.

Visit annpatchett.com

The Anarchists’ Club by Alex Reeve

This is the second book in the Leo Stanhope series, and if you haven’t read the first one yet, The House on Half Moon Street, then please do, because you are missing out on a great book.

Leo gets called to identify the body of a woman who has been buried in the midst of a burrow of rooms and hallways that harbour a group of anarchists. His first instinct is to lie and his second one is to worry about who wasn’t found with the corpse.

Leo and Rosie end up as a sleuthing duo again in this story, although their relationship is quite rocky. Leo finds it difficult to forgive Rosie for what happened to Leo in that room. They need to have clarification on why Leo feels so betrayed. Not that it was her fault that they ended up there, but perhaps it has more to do with seeing his vulnerable side and being a witness to the worst thing that could possibly happen to Leo or Rosie. She has seen his shame, but then wasn’t she the one who opened that door?

The premise is absolutely refreshing. Reeve wants the reader to understand the limitations for transgender people in this particular era, which can’t really be compared to those in the 21st century. Although, to be completely fair there are still plenty of countries with laws comparable to those in the dark ages.

It’s historical crime fiction with a compelling main character. Reeve has a natural flair for crime and for telling a story. This isn’t a writer who has decided to throw in a transgender character to shake a genre up or be in vogue. He has created a main character with longevity and potential, and it certainly wouldn’t work if he wasn’t such a talented scribe. Luckily he is, which hopefully means we will be hearing a lot more from Reeve in the future.

Buy The Anarchists’ Club (Leo Stanhope 2) at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Raven Books; pub date 2 May 2019. Buy at Amazon com.

Read my review of Half Moon Street by Alex Reeve.

Follow Alex Reeves @storyjoy or @BloomsburyRaven onTwitter

The House on Half Moon Street by Alex Reeve

I really enjoyed this intriguing crime mystery, perhaps because the main character is trying to live their best life, despite the many obstacles in their way.

Charlotte takes the brave step into independence and severs the ties between herself and her family in an attempt to live how she wants and love whom she wants. That life is being Leo, because for all intent and purposes he is a man waiting to walk free from the physical constraints of his female body. Free to love. Free to partake in the pleasures of a physical and sexual relationship. And this is where the story becomes a tale of crime, murder, unrequited passion and jealousy.

What Reeve captures really well is the inequality of gender in that particular time period, although to be fair some things haven’t changed much. He describes the privilege Leo enjoys as a man and then the oppression Charlotte has to endure in equal measures as a woman.

Although in our day and age it is considered more politically correct to assign the correct personal pronoun to Leo, I believe to do the story justice one has to speak of both Charlotte as a woman and Leo as the man Charlotte lives as and is on the inside. It’s important to acknowledge the difficulty, struggle and opposition Charlotte experiences because of her brave choice to live as the man she knows herself to be on the inside. The other side of the coin is the constant fear Leo lives with, because he fears he will be discovered. It would mean prison.

I’m a little disappointed this has been put under the genre of erotic transgender fiction on at least one major retailer. First of all any eroticism is only hinted at and secondly it means a lot of potential readers may not even consider reading this really well-written historical crime fiction story. It’s a cracking read.

I sincerely hope this is the first of many Leo Stanhope books and I’m looking forward to the second in the series, The Anarchist’s Club, in May.

Buy The House on Half Moon Street (Leo Stanhope #1) at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Raven Books; pub date Dec. 2018

Preorder/Buy The Anarchist’s Club (Leo Stanhope #2) at Amazon Uk (pub date 2 May 2019)

Read my review of The Anarchists’ Club by Alex Reeve.

Follow Alex Reeves @storyjoy or @BloomsburyRaven onTwitter

The Flower Girls by Alice Clark-Platts

Laurel and Primrose are little girls who like to play in the woods. Two little girls who take a baby with them into the woods and only two of the three little girls come back out again. The world despises them, the nation spends years hunting them, but only one of them spends time behind bars,

Even after so many years the public believes Laurel and Primrose deserve to be punished until they themselves take their last breath.

Laurel, the elder of the two, is seen as the main perpetrator and locked up. The youngest girl is renamed Rosie and is raised normally in society as if the events had never taken place at all. The public and the family members of the victim keep finding out where she lives, so she feels like a hunted animal.

When another young child goes missing where Rosie happens to be spending the night she becomes an instant suspect, thanks to the help of a writer, who is hungry for a sensational story. She is then forced to reconsider her attitude towards Laurel and whether or not she should help her get parole.

There are definitely parallels that can be drawn between the Bulger case and the fictional Flower Girls, and it invites the reader to ponder and perhaps even debate what happens when a child kills another child. When children commit a heinous crime, it’s perhaps worse than the horror of any adult on child crime, because it is so hard to fathom how a child can do such a terrible thing.

The author goes for the more hard-nosed approach with this plot, so you might think it is going a specific way, but it doesn’t. Clark-Platts allows the story to hover over the dark abyss and takes the reader on the steep decline into the desolate landscape of a cruel and calculated mind.

The Flower Girls is a tense psychological thriller, which takes the reader on a difficult journey of justice and morality. Is there any right or wrong in such tragic circumstances? Then just when you think, as a reader, you have come to a conclusion you feel comfortable with, the author blindsides the reader with the truth. Not a read you should miss.

Buy The Flower Girls at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Raven Books; Hardcover release 24 January 2019

Follow @aclarkplatts @BloomsburyRaven,Visit aliceclarkplatts.com