R Cawkwell

Review: These Lost & Broken Things, by Helen Fields

Buy Link:
https://amzn.to/39I76BR

**Pre-order for £2.49 for a limited time**

Blurb

Maiden-Mother-Murderer

How dangerous is a woman with nothing left to lose?

The year is 1905. London is a playground for the rich and a death trap for the poor. When Sofia Logan’s husband dies unexpectedly, leaving her penniless with two young children, she knows she will do anything to keep them from the workhouse. But can she bring herself to murder? Even if she has done it before…

Emmet Vinsant, wealthy industrialist, offers Sofia a job in one of his gaming houses. He knows more about Sofia’s past than he has revealed. Brought up as part of a travelling fair, she’s an expert at counting cards and spotting cheats, and Vinsant puts her talents to good use. His demands on her grow until she finds herself with blood on her hands.

Set against the backdrop of the Suffragette protests, with industry changing the face of the city but disease still rampant, and poverty the greatest threat of all, every decision you make is life or death. Either yours or someone else’s. Read best-selling crime writer Helen Fields’ first explosive historical thriller.

Goodreads

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50666797-these-lost-broken-things?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=jGECB5gTj9&rank=2

Buy Link

https://amzn.to/2vH4aX2

Review: The City Among The Stars, by Francis Carsac

First English translation of the celebrated Golden Age Science Fiction Classic.

“This stunning classic stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Arthur C. Clarke, Asimov, and Heinlein. No devotee of great sf should miss The City of the Stars.” New York Times and USA Today bestselling authors W. Michael Gear and Kathleen O’Neal Gear

Tankar Holroy, Lieutenant in the Stellar Guard of Earth’s Empire, floats in space after his spaceship is sabotaged. Rescued by an enormous, unknown ship, he awakes to discover himself saved by the People of the Stars who are born and live in space with minimal contact with planets and their occupants whom they call, with contempt, planetaries.

The chilly welcome he receives from the ship s leader, the Teknor, is followed by overt hostility from the other inhabitants of the Tilsin. Only a woman named Orena reaches out to him.

Tankar soon realizes that he was rescued for his knowledge of tracers, the technology that allows Empire ships to track others through hyperspace, a technology the People of the Stars lack. Out of spite, he refuses to deliver the one piece of knowledge that can protect the people who saved but now spurn him – and the consequences will be catastrophic.

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.

Blog tour calendar: The City Among The Stars, by Francis Carsac

Book Blitz: The Strange Book of Jacob Boyce by Tom Gillespie @tom_gillespie @lovebooksgroup

A spiralling obsession. A missing wife. A terrifying secret. Will he find her before it’s too late?

When Dr Jacob Boyce’s wife goes missing, the police put it down to a simple marital dispute. Jacob, however, fears something darker. Following her trail to Spain, he becomes convinced that Ella’s disappearance is tied to a mysterious painting whose hidden geometric and numerical riddles he’s been obsessively trying to solve for months. Obscure, hallucinogenic clues, and bizarre, larger-than-life characters, guide an increasingly unhinged Jacob through a nightmarish Spanish landscape to an art forger’s studio in Madrid, where he comes face-to-face with a centuries-old horror, and the terrifying, mind-bending, truth about his wife.

About the Author

Tom Gillespie grew up in a small town just outside Glasgow. After completing a Masters in English at Glasgow University, he spent the next ten years pursuing a musical career as a singer/songwriter, playing, recording and touring the UK and Europe with his band. He now lives in Bath with his wife, daughter and hyper-neurotic cat, where he works at the university as an English lecturer. Tom writes long and short stories. His stories have appeared in many magazines, journals and e-zines. He is co-author of Glass Work Humans-an anthology of stories and poems, published by Valley Press. Visit Tom at tom-gillespie.com

Extract: Celeste Three Is Missing, by Chris Calder

Celeste Three Is Missing

The world’s first earth-orbit passenger plane, the sensational Celeste Three, takes off from its base in Arizona, also the only place where it is designed land. On a routine flight the craft disappears.

On board is Viktor Karenkov, billionaire oil magnate who has used his wealth to evade prosecution for a murder he committed years earlier. Gregory Topozian, the murdered man’s friend, has been waiting for a chance to bring Karenkov to justice. With dogged determination and considerable ingenuity, he conceives an audacious plan.

Getting the craft down in total secrecy is key. And someone has to pay the huge costs involved.

Purchase Links:

Amazon US : https://amzn.to/2R29OLt

Amazon UK: https://amzn.to/2vQNixF

Blog tour calendar: Girl With A Gun, by Diana Nammi and karen Attwood

Extract Post: Ash Mountain, by Helen Fitzgerald

PUBLICATION DATE: 14 MAY 2020 | PAPERBACK ORIGINAL | £8.99 | ORENDA BOOKS

Fran hates her hometown, and she thought she’d escaped. But her father is ill, and needs care. Her relationship is over, and she hates her dead-end job in the city, anyway.

She returns home to nurse her dying father, her distant teenage daughter in tow for the weekends. There, in the sleepy town of Ash Mountain, childhood memories prick at her fragile self-esteem, she falls in love for the first time, and her demanding dad tests her patience, all in the unbearable heat of an Australian summer.

As past friendships and rivalries are renewed, and new ones forged, Fran’s tumultuous home life is the least of her worries, when old crimes rear their heads and a devastating bushfire ravages the town and all of its inhabitants…

Blog Tour Calendar: Celeste Three Is Missing, by Chris Calder

Review: Black Blood, by Jane Eddie

Paperback: 300 pages
Publisher: Book Guild Publishing Ltd (5 Dec. 2019)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1913208060
ISBN-13: 978-1913208066

Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Black-Blood-Jane-Eddie/dp/1913208060

BLURB

Danni was a trainee corporate lawyer before she was forced to flee her life in London. Having escaped a controlling and abusive partner, she now finds herself hiding from another predator – her employer.

Post-Brexit, the U.K. oil industry is on its knees and desperate to turn a profit, but at what cost?

Many companies in Aberdeen have already been forced to sell out to the Russians, but when a prominent CEO is found dead, the number of mysterious deaths offshore have escalated and oil platforms are being targeted by terrorists. But who is actually calling the shots? There is more to these attacks than meets the eye…

As Danni draws ever closer to discovering the truth, she becomes embroiled in a web of secrets and deceit where doing the right thing could cost her life.

Review: Explaining Humans, by Dr Camilla Pang

This book is truly exceptional. Applying science to the problems of human relationships, the perils of perfectionism and the pitfalls of social etiquette, Millie has written a joyous, funny and hugely insightful text for all of us – whether neurotypical or neurodiverse. This ‘outsiders guide to the human race’ is warm, witty and a joy to read.’ Prof Gina Rippon, Cognitive neuroscientist/autism researcher and author of The Gendered Brain.

Diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder at the age of eight, Camilla Pang struggled to understand the world around her and the way people worked. Desperate for a solution, Camilla asked her mother if there was an instruction manual for humans that she could consult. But, without the blueprint to life she was hoping for, Camilla began to create her own. Now armed with a PhD in biochemistry, Camilla dismantles our obscure social customs and identifies what it really means to be human using her unique expertise and a language she knows best: science.

Through a set of scientific principles, this book examines life’s everyday interactions including:

– Decisions and the route we take to make them;
– Conflict and how we can avoid it;
– Relationships and how we establish them;
– Etiquette and how we conform to it.

Explaining Humans is an original and incisive exploration of human nature and the strangeness of social norms, written from the outside looking in. Camilla’s unique perspective of the world, in turn, tells us so much about ourselves – about who we are and why we do it – and is a fascinating guide on how to lead a more connected, happier life.