February 2020 – Page 2 – Everything Is Better With Dragons

Review: The Dark Side of the Mind, by Kerry Daynes

**BLURB**
Welcome to the world of the forensic psychologist, where the people you meet are wildly unpredictable and often frightening.

The job: to delve into the psyche of convicted men and women to try to understand what lies behind their often brutal actions.

Follow in the footsteps of Kerry Daynes, one of the most sought-after forensic psychologists in the business and consultant on major police investigations.

Kerry’s job has taken her to the cells of maximum-security prisons, police interview rooms, the wards of secure hospitals and the witness box of the court room.

Her work has helped solve a cold case, convict the guilty and prevent a vicious attack.

Spending every moment of your life staring into the darker side of life comes with a price. Kerry’s frank memoir gives an unforgettable insight into the personal and professional dangers in store for a female psychologist working with some of the most disturbing men and women.

·        **Paperback:** 304 pages
·        **Publisher:** Endeavour; 01 edition (20 Feb. 2020)
·        **Language:** English
·        **ISBN-10:** 1788402170
·        **ISBN-13:** 978-1788402170

**Amazon:** https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dark-Side-Mind-Forensic-Psychologist/dp/1788402170

Review: QualityLand, by Marc-Uwe Kling

THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY meets 1984. In the near-future, all decision-making is automated, until one man makes a brazen choice of his own, with global consequences.

Welcome to QualityLand, the best country on Earth. Here, a universal ranking system determines the social advantages and career opportunities of every member of society. An automated matchmaking service knows the best partners for everyone and helps with the break up when your ideal match (frequently) changes. And the foolproof algorithms of the biggest, most successful company in the world, TheShop, know what you want before you do and conveniently deliver to your doorstep before you even order it.

In QualityCity, Peter Jobless is a machine scrapper who can’t quite bring himself to destroy the imperfect machines sent his way, and has become the unwitting leader of a band of robotic misfits hidden in his home and workplace. One day, Peter receives a product from TheShop he absolutely, positively knows he does not want, and which he decides, at great personal cost, to return. The only problem: doing so means proving the perfect algorithm of TheShop wrong, calling into question the very foundations of QualityLand itself.

Hardcover, 352 pages

Published January 7th 2020 by Grand Central Publishing (first published September 22nd 2017)

ISBN:1538732963 (ISBN13: 9781538732960)

My Review

I recieved a copy of this novel from Orion in return for an honest review.

In a world where everything is controlled by algorithms, and a few massive corporations control everything and know everything about you, Peter Jobless is a Level 9 Useless who runs his grandad’s second hand shop. Except repairing anything is illegal and he just has a building full of damaged goods. He keeps getting sent pink dolphin dildoes and doesn’t want them. When a beautiful stranger hi-jacks his car his solution presents itself. Helped by Kiki, the beautiful stranger, and a collection of slightly faulty AI controlled devices including a drone afraid of heights, a sexdroid that can’t get it up and a battle robot that can’t follow orders, he seeks justice. Meanwhile, there’s an election campaign taking place, between a rabidly right-wing ideologue and an android with progressive ideas. Eventually Peter and the new president meet, with explosive results.

I really rather enjoyed this book. It was funny, insightful and the characters were sympathetic, even the despicable ones. The author tackles questions of AI development, consumer and business ethics, nationalism and how we make the world a fairer place with humour and no preaching. It does really seem that logical explanations can’t beat emotions in politics, but John of Us tries.

Must recommend.

Blog Tour Calendar: Chasing Solace, by Karl Drinkwater

Review: Hidden Wyndham, by Amy Binns

New biography explores the secret love life of celebrated author John Wyndham

Hidden Wyndham: Life, Love, Letters includes previously unpublished love letters from The Day of the Triffids author

The first biography of the life of science fiction author John Wyndham is now available. It includes the first publication of a collection of love letters to his long-term partner and later wife, Grace Wilson.

Hidden Wyndham: Life, Love, Letters, by Dr Amy Binns, author and senior lecturer in journalism at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), explores Wyndham’s wealthy but traumatic childhood. This was transformed by a spell at the first mixed-sex public school Bedales from 1915 to 1918, the source of the strange but fervent feminism of Consider Her Ways and Trouble with Lichen.

The biography covers his formative years as a pulp fiction writer, his experiences as a censor during the Blitz and his part in the Normandy landings. He described his struggles with his conscience in a moving series of letters to Grace, the teacher with whom he had a 36 year love affair.

After the war, he transformed the searing experiences of wartime London, France and Germany into a series of bestselling novels: The Day of the Triffids, The Chrysalids, The Midwich Cuckoos and The Kraken Wakes. But he remained intensely private, shunning fame and finally retiring to live anonymously with Grace in the countryside he loved.

Hidden Wyndham is distributed by Gardners Books and is now available on the Waterstones and Amazon websites, in Kindle and in paperback edition.

Blog tour calendar: The Coronation, by Justin Newland

Promo Post – Trust In You, by Julia Firlotte

Trust In You

From the moment she met him, Ella Peterson had questions. As always, though, she’s too shy to ask.

Older and sexy as hell, mysterious Adam Brook soon sweeps sheltered Ella off her feet; but is he as perfect as he appears to be, or is there more to him than he’s telling her?

Ella’s world has already turned upside down after moving from England to rural Kansas. She and her sisters were hoping for a more secure future, but instead find that life can be tough when jobs are scarce and the stakes often higher than anticipated.

When events spiral out of Ella’s control, she learns the person she needs to rely on most is herself and her instincts on who to trust in the future.

It’s just that her instincts are screaming at her to trust Adam; it’s what he tells her that makes that a problem.

Pre-order Links

UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/Trust-You-romance-intrigue-Falling/dp/1916167012

US – https://www.amazon.com/Trust-You-romance-intrigue-Falling/dp/1916167012

Publication Date: 6^th April

Join Julia Firlotte’s mailing list and receive the first three chapters of Trust in You – https://www.juliafirlotteauthor.com/

Author Bio:

Julia is an avid reader of all things romance, and she has read hundreds of books across a variety of sub-genres and began writing her own novels in 2018. Four books are currently in various stages of editing and completion, the first of which is finished and will be on sale in spring 2020.

Julia has always been passionate about languages and fiction and has a degree in Languages And Trade and an A-Level in English Literature. When Julia is not writing or editing her own novels, she usually has her nose in books by other authors and is otherwise kept busy caring for her family, going to the gym and carrying out her day job. Julia lives on the South Coast of England with her two children, husband and cats.

Media Links –

Author Website: www.juliafirlotteauthor.com

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/JuliaFirlotteAuthor/

Facebook Group: Romance Chit Chat

https://www.facebook.com/groups/501897750557397/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/juliafirlotte

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19484358.Julia_Christine_Firlotte

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/juliafirlotte/

Audiobook Review: The Wreckage, by Robin Morgan-Bentley

One fatal crash. Two colliding worlds. Three wrecked lives.

School teacher Ben is driving on the motorway, on his usual commute to work.

A day like any other…

Except for one man who, in a final despairing act, jumps in front of Ben’s car, turning the teacher’s world upside down in a single horrifying instant…

Wracked with guilt and desperate to clear his conscience, he develops a friendship with Alice, the dead man’s wife, and her 7-year-old son Max.

But as he tries to escape the trauma of the wreckage, could he go too far in trying to make amends?

How would you cope, knowing you’d caused someone’s death?

Audiobook Published: February 6th 2020 by Trapeze

My Review

I was sent a digital copy of this audiobook by the publisher as part of the blog tour and in return for an honest review. Not sure they’ll send me others because I’m not going to be entirely positive about this book.

I liked the premise, it’s a good ‘what if’, and the characters are very different from each other, different backgrounds and histories that are part of the text. The narration, and the voice actors, was very good. I got a lot from the intonation and pronunciation. A lot of background information beyond the text, from listening to the way the narrators embodied the characters.

The setting is very clear – middle class, middle of the road, middle England. The characters fit the setting. Ben’s parents are really quite funny in a ‘Mrs Bucket’ sort of way.

Unfortunately, the plot wasn’t as defined as the setting and characters. It didn’t seem to have a direction or any thrust, it meandered. Alice and Ben are deeply unlikeable people. Alice is damaged and unpleasant, and Ben is immature and stalkery. Now, normally I would have just found that fascinating and want to see how things would turn out, because complex characters are more interesting that simple ones and a good strong plot can do wonders with those, but they just didn’t interest me, it fell flat. That is, I think the author tried too hard to make them ‘complex’ and ‘interesting’. And Max is way too perfect to be real. And that ‘trying too hard’ put me off.

This book didn’t work for me. Might work for someone else and it certainly got a lot of 4 and 5 stars on GoodReads, so it could just be a personal taste thing.