Before I Say I Do by Vicki Bradley Blog Tour@RandomThingsTours @Anne Cater.

Hi Welcome to my stop on the tour. Thanks to Anne Cater for the invite and thanks also to Vicki Bradley for the story.

ABOUT THE BOOK:
Before I Say I Do Vicki Bradley
28th May 2020 | Paperback | £7.99
BeforeISayIDo @vbradleywriter
Winner of the inaugural Write here, Right Now Prize 2018, in partnership with the Bradford Literature Festival, a debut by experienced Met Police detective constable
Her dream wedding is about to become her worst nightmare
Julia is nervous and it’s not just because she’s about to get married. There’s a lot that her soon to-be husband, Mark, doesn’t know – and she is determined to keep it that way.
As she walks down the aisle, spotting Mark is his tailored suit, she knows she is taking her first steps to happiness- her past can’t catch her now. He turns to face her…
But it isn’t Mark in the beautiful suit – it’s his best man. Because Mark is missing. And Julia’s past is closer than she thinks.
Perfect for fans of Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll and Now You See Her by Heidi Perks

MY THOUGHTS AND REVIEW:

This is Vicki’s debut novel and she has written a solid story. It is a mixture of a psychological thriller and police procedural. You would think it would fall between to stools but it works very well and really enjoyed it!

Before I Say I Do is told through two points of view. That of Julia Talbot, the bride. And Alanna Loxton the police officer. Both are fantastic female characters, that are written so well. It’s Julia’s wedding day and she’s full of excitement and enthusiasm for the day ahead.

But when Julia turns up for her wedding day something is wrong, the man at the altar is not her groom but his best man. So what has happened to the groom, has he been involved in an accident or has he taken cold feet. Or is there something more sinister? The fact that he isn’t there is a mystery that needs to be solved. You will need to read the book to find out.

One thing Julia and Alanna are both agreed on is they both want answers.

Bradley knows how to ramp up the tension and the start of the book is quite sedate compared to the rest of the narrative. As book progresses it throws up more questions than answers.

Another thread is the narrative of a murdered girl. Vicki weaves these various threads together to have great chemistry between the characters and wrap the whole thing up in a satisfying bundle.

I hope there will be another book starring Alanna as I think she is a superb character. I enjoyed this book an I think you will to.

THE AUTHOR:
Vicki Bradley is a detective constable in the Metropolitan Police Service. She has had a varied career, as a uniformed response driver in Brent and then as a detective Constable in Southwark CID. She has managed High Risk Sex Offenders and worked on the Serious Organised Crime Command. She is currently on a 5-year career creak to focus on her writing. Vicki completed a Creative Writing MA at City University in 2016. Before I Say I Do won the Write Here, Right Now competition, came 3rd in the First Novel Prize and has been shortlisted for the Virago New Crime Writer 2017 and Peters Fraser and Dunlop Prize 2016. She enjoys travelling the world and climbing mountains. Vicki lives in London with her husband.

Until Summer Comes Around by Glenn Rolfe/ Blog Tour/ Maine @RandomThingsTours@Anne Cater Vampires/Horror/First Love

Hi and welcome to my stop on the tour. Thanks to Glenn Rolfe for the tale

Anne Cater for the invite…..Flame Tree Press for the ARC.

About The Book
“Rolfe is the real deal, folks, and anything he writes is well worth checking out.” – Gord Rollo, author of The Jigsaw Man and The Crucifixion Gord Rollo, author of The Jigsaw Man and The Crucifixion Experiments Experiments
When fifteen year old Rocky Zukas meets a mysterious dark-haired girl named November, his world is forever changed. The young couple falls under the spell of summer love, but not everyone approves. November’s brother, Gabriel, is the keeper of the family’s secret, and big brother is always watching, growing more sinister as his bloodlust gets the best of him. Directing his attention to Rocky’s family, Gabriel aims to make sure little sister knows who is in charge.
FLAME TREE PRESS FLAME TREE PRESS is the new fiction imprint of Flame Tree Publishing. Launched in 2018 the list brings together brilliant new authors and the more established; the award winners, and exciting, original voices.
UNTIL SUMMER COMES AROUND
Glenn Rolfe Publication date: May 2020

MY THOUGHTS:

Set in a small town in Maine, New England and being about vampires may remind some readers about the settings of books by Stephen King. Though similar in some ways they are unalike in others.

In setting his book in small town Maine, Glenn leave himself open to being a Stephen King clone, but I can assure you he is not.

Glenn has his own voice and plays with the tropes of vampires. His vampires, though weakened by the sun are not destroyed by it!

Set in 1986 a young boy named Rocky meets November: the girl of his dreams. But as you read on you are sure this is not the dream Rocky has in his mind.

Many a young girl has an overprotective older brother, but not many suitors find the brother is a vampire!

Another thing Glenn brings to the party is the (normality?) of the vampire family. The older sibling being a teenage delinquent who takes his bad boy act to another whole new level. You might say he has a thirst for new things!

There is also a burgeoning young love between Rocky and November. Is this a love that will survive or is it doomed to failure? You will need to read to find out!

Glenn’s prose is crisp and sparse. With short chapters and just enough detail to move the story along. I enjoyed it. You may too.

THE AUTHOR:
Glenn Rolfe Glenn Rolfe is an author/singer/songwriter from the haunted woods of New England. He has studied Creative Writing at Southern New Hampshire University, and continues his education in the world of horror by devouring the novels of Stephen King, Ronald Malfi, Jack Ketchum, and many others. He and his wife, Meghan, have three children, Ruby, Ramona, and Axl. He is grateful to be loved despite his weirdness.
He is a Splatterpunk Award nominee and the author of The Window, Becoming, Blood and Rain, The Haunted Halls, Chasing Ghosts, Abram’s Bridge, Things We Fear, Boom Town, and the collections, Slush. and Land of Bones.
He is hard at work on many more. Stay tuned

Tomb of Gods by Brian Moreland # Blog Tour@RandomThingsTours @AnneCater/Horror/Egypt/Tombs

Welcome to my stop on the tour. Thanks to Anne Cater for the invite and Brian for the story.

BLURB:

“Brian Moreland writes with one eye on characterization and the other on scaring the life out of you.” — Maynard Sims, author of Stronghold and Maynard Sims, author of Stronghold and The Eighth Witch The Eighth Witch
Deep inside the tomb exists a hidden world of wonder and terror. Deep inside the tomb exists a hidden world of wonder and terror.
In 1935, British archaeologists vanished inside an Egyptian cave. A year later, one man returned covered in mysterious scars.
Egyptologist Imogen Riley desperately wants to know what happened to the ill-fated expedition led by her grandfather. On a quest for answers, she joins a team of archeologists and soldiers in Egypt. Inside a mountain tomb, they’ve found a technologically advanced relic and a maze of tunnels. Dr. Nathan Trummel believes this tomb leads to the most guarded secrets of the pharaohs. When the explorers venture deep into the caves, they discover a hidden world of wonder and terror.
FLAME TREE PRESS FLAME TREE PRESS is the new fiction imprint of Flame Tree Publishing. Launched in 2018 the list brings together brilliant new authors and the more established; the award winners, and exciting, original voices

MY THOUGHTS

This was my first read by Brian and I really enjoyed it. It was a tale of the seen and unseen, known and unknown. A book full of adventure and past guilts.

Imogen Riley goes on an expedition to see if what happened to an expedition led by her grandfather. Her grandfather is the only survivor of this expedition; suffering from a form of insanity that seems to loosen his group of reality.

His body is body is covered in strange markings that no one seems to be able to translate; do they have a meaning? Armed with her grandfather’s journal she joins an expedition led by his academic partner Dr Nathan Trummel.

They are on a search to find a tomb. A tomb that has difference, set in a tomb that is inside a moutain not in a pyramid.

This leads through a myriad of tunnels that each has a peril for a member of the expedition. All have baggage from their past that affects them and others.

Read on to find out out you will be glad you did.

Brian’s writing is a type that will drag you along in the wake of the words on an exciting tale. His characters are well drawn and what a motley crew they were.

Trummel comes over as a greedy, ambitious and psychopathic. Imogen is a practical, hardened sceptic; believing only what she can see or touch. And Caleb is a photographer with a spiratual bent. The rest are a mixture of mercenary types whose main motives seems to be greed.

I think you will like this book

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Brian Moreland writes a blend of mystery, actionadventure, dark suspense, and horror. His books include Shadows in the Mist, Dead of Winter, The Witching House, The Devil’s Woods, The Seekers, and Darkness Rising. An adventure seeker and lover of world travel, Brian is currently living in various places and writing books and short stories.
Join Brian’s mailing list: http://www.brianmoreland.com/ Follow on Twitter: @BrianMoreland Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BrianMorelandWriter Brian’s blog: http://www.brianmoreland.blogspot.com

On The Road Not Taken by Paul Dodgson/ Blog Tour/Music Memoir @RandomThingsTours@Anne Cater Stage-Fright/A Journey Thru Music

ABOUT THE BOOK:

BLURB On the Road Not Taken is a memoir about the transformational power of music. It begins with a boy growing up in a small town on the Kent coast in the 1970s, who learns to play the guitar and dreams of heading out on the open road with a head full of songs. But when the moment comes to make the choice he is not brave enough to try and do it for a living.

Time passes but the desire to explain the world through music never goes away. And as the years go by it gets harder and harder to risk looking like a fool, of doing the very thing he would most like to do, of actually being himself. Eventually, thirty-five years later, when it feels like time is running out, he walks out onto a stage in front of 500 people and begins to sing again.

What follows is an extraordinary period of self-discovery as he plays pubs, clubs, theatres and festivals, overcoming anxiety to experience the joy of performance.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Road-Not-Taken-memoir-about/dp/1783527757

MY THOUGHTS:

This was delightful book about one man’s journey through music. It is told in two timelines, one when Paul is younger and has a head full of songs. He dreams of stardom.

The other timeline finds a somewhat jaded Paul whose dreams lie shattered at his feet!

Though he still works in the music business as part of a larger ensemble he cannot make the leap into a solo career and as time passes it becomes no more than a pipedream.

He found himself as he says in his own words getting a normal job instead. A lot of this normal job has found Paul involved in the arts; this involves writing about fourteen screenplays for Radio4, a drama-documentary for BBC2 and also wrote the screenplay and music for four musicals commissioned by the Theatre Royal Bath and also continued to direct and produce dramas and documentaries for BBC radio.

A turning point was when his father was in hospital in 2000 after contracting lung cancer. Recuperating after an operation he told Paul of an episode in his life he had never spoken of before.

It was the late 1940’s and he had recently qualified as an engineer with a love of mechanics and a passion for inventing new machines.  He spent 18 months in the City, employed by a Norwegian entrepreneur, designing a fabric printing press they hoped would revolutionise the clothing industry.  As he spoke, it was as if his City came to life. He could see the bombsites, feel the thick London smog  and sensed his frustration at the machine that never quite worked as he hoped.  And that is when he realised how little he really knew about his life.  He died soon afterwards and his stories died with him.  He had never written them down. That’s when he began to write stories from his own life .  

This example of how his father’s dreams had never worked out for him set Paul thinking, he had a dream and at least he tried! So Paul tentatively picked up his music career and from baby steps has seen him progress to pubs, on stage and even festivals.

One thing to take from this book is that your never too old to dream!

THE AUTHOR;

Paul Dodgson is a writer, radio producer, teacher and musician. Paul joined the BBC as a studio manager and went on to become a producer making programmes for all BBC Radio networks. In 2001 Paul left the BBC and has since written 16 plays for BBC Radio 4 and been a member of the Eastenders writing team. In the theatre Paul has written several plays for young people and been commissioned to write music and lyrics for five musicals including The Nutcracker at Theatre Royal Bath and Nuffield Southampton. Paul has taught creative writing around the world, has been writer-in-residence at Exeter University and a Hawthornden Fellow. Paul has a particular interest in teaching techniques of memoir writing and three of his BBC radio plays have told life stories including On The Road Not Taken, which began life on BBC Radio 4.

Twitter @pauldodgson

The Girl and the Stars by Mark Lawrence/ Blog Tour/ Fantasy @RandomThingsTours/Anne Cater

ABOUT THE BOOK:

East of the Black Rock, out on the ice, lies a hole down which broken children are thrown .

On the vastness of the ice there is no room for individuals. No one survives alone.

To resist the cold, to endure the months of night when even the air itself b e g i n s t o f r e eze r e q u i r e s a s p e c i a l b r e e d . V a r i a ti o n is dangerous, difference is fatal. And Yaz is different.

Torn from her family, from the boy she thought she would spend her life with, Yaz has to carve a new path for herself in a world whose existence she never suspected. A world full of danger.

Beneath the ice, Yaz will learn that Abeth is older and stranger than she had ever imagined. She will learn that her weaknesses are another kind of strength. And she will learn to challenge the cruel arithmetic of survival that has always governed her people.

Only when it’s darkest can you see the s tars

MY THOUGHTS AND REVIEW:

This is a genre I am not familiar with and I thought I would give it a try. I may read more fantasy in the future.

Yaz is a broken child, at 16 she is headed for the gathering and is expecting to be thrown into the pit with the other broken children. But, when her brother, Zeen is thrown down and she is spared, she jumps after him……

But Zeen is nowhere to be found and Yaz finds herself in a world which is stranger and older than any she has encountered before. She finds herself with other survivors of the drop

This is a tale of ice and cold, magic and stars which shine in the darkness.

It has canibals and black ice which taints others, also corruption and power. But Yaz is a young girl who is determined that her ability to into the river is a strength and not a weakness. Can she save Zeen?

Yaz is a great character, whilst full of doubt is also full of bravery.

Mark has laid the foundations of a world that can only grow and mature. His prose is crisp and of a high quality.

I thank the author for the tale.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Mark Lawrence was born in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, but moved to the UK at the age of one. He went back to the US after taking a PhD in mathematics at Imperial College to work on a variety of research projects including the ‘Star Wars’ missile defence programme. Returning to the UK, he has worked mainly on image processing and decision/reasoning theory. His first trilogy, The Broken Empire, has been universally acclaimed as a ground-breaking work of fantasy, and both The Liar’s Key and The Wheel of Osheim have won the Gemmell Legend award for best fantasy novel. Mark is married, with four children, and lives in Bristol.

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The Soul Killer by Ross Greenwood Blog Tour/Psychopath/ Killer @RachelsRandomResources @Must Read/Cold Blooded/ @One More Chapter

THANKS TO RACHEL FOR THE INVITE AND ROSS FOR THE TALE

ABOUT THE BOOK:

The Soul Killer

‘Repent in this life, rejoice in the next…’

A murder made to look like suicide. Another that appears an accident. DI Barton investigates the tragedies that have shattered a family’s lives, but without obvious leads the case goes nowhere. Then, when the remains of a body are found, everything points to one suspect.

Barton and his team move quickly, and once the killer is behind bars, they can all breathe a sigh of relief. But death still lurks in the shadows, and no one’s soul is safe. Not even those of the detectives…

How do you stop a killer that believes life is a rehearsal for eternity, and their future is worth more than your own…?

Ross Greenwood writes gritty, heart-pounding thrillers, with twists aplenty, and unforgettable endings. Perfect for fans of Mark Billingham and Stuart MacBride.Purchase Links – https://amzn.to/32oszvj

MY THOUGHTS ABOUT THE BOOK:

Wow, Wow and F***ing Wow’ What a bloody good read! This is definitely not a book for those who are faint of heart and don’t like their books on the gruesome side. We step into two pairs of shoes figuratively. The shoes of the investigating team and the shoes and mind of a Psychopath!

This book is full of twists and turns, gritty and gruesome; and make the reader question how anyone can behave like that and also at times question the psychopath’s sanity and motives! The writing is of a quality that the reader would expect from Ross. If you haven’t read this book you are in for a treat and you will be looking for more of Ross’s work.

This book will grab you by the proverbial throat and drag you along as the author takes you on whirlwind of a read.

All the characters are well rounded and essential to the story, dialogue and writing is of an excellent quality with not a wasted word.

Step into the mind of a killer who wants your soul as well as your life.

A TOP READ!

Author Bio –
Ross Greenwood is the author of six crime thrillers. Before becoming a full-time writer he was most recently a prison officer and so worked everyday with murderers, rapists and thieves for four years. He lives in Peterborough.
Social Media Links –
Newsletter sign up:  http://bit.ly/RossGreenwoodNewsletter
https://twitter.com/greenwoodross
https://www.facebook.com/RossGreenwoodAuthor
http://bookbub.com/authors/ross-greenwood

The Wise Friend by Ramsey Campbell# Blog Tour@ Flame Tree Press# Horror Fiction@ Random Things Tours@ Anne Cater

Thanks to Ramsey for the tale, Flame Tree Press for the ARC and Anne Cater for the invite.

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BLURB:

“An absolute master of modern horror. And a damn fine writer at that” Guillermo del Toro Guillermo del Toro
Patrick Torrington’s aunt Thelma was a successful artist whose late work turned towards the occult. While staying with her in his teens he found evidence that she used to visit magical sites. As an adult he discovers her journal of her explorations, and his teenage son Roy becomes fascinated too. His experiences at the sites scare Patrick away from them, but Roy carries on the search, together with his new girlfriend. Can Patrick convince his son that his increasingly terrible suspicions are real, or will what they’ve helped to rouse take a new hold on the world?
FLAME TREE PRESS FLAME TREE PRESS is the new fiction imprint of Flame Tree Publishing. Launched in 2018 the list brings together brilliant new authors and the more established; the award winners, and exciting, original voices

MY THOUGHTS:

If you are looking for an in your face horror book, then is not the book for you. Ramsey has written a tale that is a slow burner and the bogeyman is always just out of sight! THE WISE FRIEND seems like a nice little story at first, hardly horrific at all. Until it IS!

Patrick loses his Aunt Thelma in suspicious circumstances. She is a artist famous for her paintings of woods in which you see a stranger lurking, or do you? Not any two people see or thing they see the same thing! Patrick and his son Roy find Thelma’s journal about the places she got her inspiration from. Whilst this interests Patrick, Roy seems even more interested in it than Patrick. But how much is down to his own curiosity or the fact that Roy has girlfriend called Bella and she seems to be pushing his interest in his Great Aunt’s journal. Is Bella the nice young woman she would like everyone to believe or does she have another reason.

As I said a very slow burn of a book. It is a slow read and the middle third seemed really slow with all the family matters and the dynamics between certain members were tough reading at times. But then again no family ever runs smoothly. We all have our problems.

The writing was crisp and the scenic descriptions were very well done.. This is the first book by Ramsey Campbell I have read since the 1990’s but I enjoyed it nevertheless.

THE AUTHOR:
The Oxford Companion to English Literature describes Ramsey Campbell as “Britain’s most respected living horror writer”. He has been given more awards than any other writer in the field, including the Grand Master Award of the World Horror Convention, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Horror Writers Association, the Living Legend Award of the International Horror Guild and the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award