Book Extract:’The Ruined Land’, by Clare Rhoden

The Ruined Land – Chronicles of the Pale #3

Exiled from the Pale, humachine Hector has found a home with the tribes Outside.

Or has he?

While the canini struggle to care for the human twins, Feather travels Broad Plain to reunite them with their father. But his own family is scattered as the Pale sends out its terrifying army and the land itself buckles beneath them.

Can anyone survive the ruination of the land?

In this gripping conclusion to the Chronicles of the Pale, the citizens of the mighty Pale have as much to lose as the communities of the Outside.

Purchase Links:

UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ruined-Land-Chronicles-Pale/dp/1925652734/

US – https://www.amazon.com/Ruined-Land-Chronicles-Pale/dp/1925652734/

AUhttps://www.amazon.com.au/Ruined-Land-Clare-Rhoden/dp/1925652734/

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Review: ‘A Shadow on the Lens’, by Sam Hurcom #CompulsiveReaders #BlogTour

A Shadow on the Lens
Details Here

The Postmaster looked over my shoulder. As I turned to look I saw a flicker of movement from across the street. I felt unseen eyes peer at me.
He walked away without another word. I watched as he climbed onto his bicycle and sped away down the street. I turned back and looked over my shoulder.
Someone had been watching us.
1904. Thomas Bexley, one of the first forensic photographers, is called to the sleepy and remote Welsh village of Dinas Powys, several miles down the coast from the thriving port of Cardiff. A young girl by the name of Betsan Tilny has been found murdered in the woodland – her body bound and horribly burnt. But the crime scene appears to have been staged, and worse still: the locals are reluctant to help.

As the strange case unfolds, Thomas senses a growing presence watching him, and try as he may, the villagers seem intent on keeping their secret. Then one night, in the grip of a fever, he develops the photographic plates from the crime scene in a makeshift darkroom in the cellar of his lodgings. There, he finds a face dimly visible in the photographs; a face hovering around the body of the dead girl – the face of Betsan Tilny.

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Review: ‘Broad Plain Darkening’, by Clare Rhoden

Broad Plain Darkening – Chronicles of the Pale #2

The safe world of the Pale is under threat.

Inside the policosmos, the new Regent Adaeze strives for dominance over the all-powerful Senior Forecaster, but the Pale’s humachine citizens are unaware that their city is close to collapse.

Outside on Broad Plain, the exiled human Hector undertakes a dangerous trek to find a safe haven for the orphaned twins.

How can anyone survive as their world shifts underneath them?

Purchase Linkviewbook.at/clarerhodenbroadplain

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Review: ‘The Pale’, by Clare Rhoden

The Outside can be a dangerous place.

But so can the inside.

It’s been years since the original cataclysm, but life has been structured, peaceful, and most of all uneventful in the Pale. The humachine citizens welcome the order provided by their ruler, the baleful Regent.

However, when one of their own rescues a human boy, Hector, from ravenous ferals on the Outside, their careful systems are turned upside down.

As Hector grows more and more human-strange, the citizens of the Pale grow uneasy.

What will happen when the Outside tries to get in?

Purchase Link  – viewbook.at/clarerhodenthepale

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Review: ‘Lost Solace’, by Karl Drinkwater

Sometimes spaceships disappear with everyone on board – the Lost Ships. But sometimes they come back, strangely altered, derelict, and rumoured to be full of horrors.

Opal is on a mission. She’s been seeking something her whole life. Something she is willing to die for. And she thinks it might be on a Lost Ship.

Opal has stolen Clarissa, an experimental AI-controlled spaceship, from the military. Together they have tracked down a Lost Ship, in a lonely nebula far from colonised space.

The Lost Ship is falling into the gravity well of a neutron star, and will soon be truly lost … forever. Legends say the ships harbour death, but there’s no time for indecision.

Opal gears up to board it. She’s just one woman, entering an alien and lethal environment. But perhaps with the aid of Clarissa’s intelligence – and an armoured spacesuit – Opal may stand a chance.

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Review: ‘Storytellers’, by Bjorn Larssen

Storytellers

In March 1920 Icelandic days are short and cold, but the nights are long. For most, on those nights, funny, sad, and dramatic stories are told around the fire. But there is nothing dramatic about Gunnar, a hermit blacksmith who barely manages to make ends meet. He knows nobody will remember him – they already don’t. All he wants is peace, the company of his animals, and a steady supply of his medication. Sometimes he wonders what it would feel like to have a story of his own. He’s about to find out.

Sigurd – a man with a plan, a broken ankle, and shocking amounts of money – won’t talk about himself but is happy to tell a story that just might get Gunnar killed. The blacksmith’s other “friends” are just as eager to write him into stories of their own – from Brynhildur who wants to fix Gunnar, then marry him, his doctor who is on the precipice of calling for an intervention, The Conservative Women of Iceland who want to rehabilitate Gunnar’s “heathen ways” – even the wretched elf has plans for the blacksmith.

As his defenses begin to crumble, Gunnar decides that perhaps his life is due for a change – on his own terms. But can he avoid the endings others have in mind for him, and forge his own?

Purchase Links:

UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/Storytellers-Bj%C3%B8rn-Larssen-ebook/dp/B07P8Z74CC

US  – https://www.amazon.com/Storytellers-Bj%C3%B8rn-Larssen-ebook/dp/B07P8Z74CC

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Review: ‘A Modern Family’, by Helga Flatland

The Norwegian Anne Tyler makes her English debut in a
beautiful, bittersweet novel of regret, relationships and rare
psychological insights…

THE BOOK

When Liv, Ellen and Håkon, along with their partners and children, arrive
in Rome to celebrate their father’s seventieth birthday, a quiet earthquake
occurs: their parents have decided to divorce.

Shocked and disbelieving, the siblings try to come to terms with their
parents’ decision as it echoes through the homes they have built for
themselves, and forces them to reconstruct the shared narrative of their
childhood and family history.

A bittersweet novel of regret, relationships and rare psychological
insights, A Modern Family encourages us to look at the people closest to
us a little more carefully, and ultimately reveals that it’s never too late for
change…
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Extract Post: ‘Injections of Insanity’, by Lorraine Mace

Injections of Insanity

Detective Inspector Paolo Sterling has just six weeks to solve a series of murders by insulin injection, with nothing to connect the victims except the manner of death and a note left at each crime scene.

The murderer, determined to avenge a wrong from many years earlier, gets close to his prey by assuming various identities.

Can Paolo win in his race against the pretender?

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