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A bit late, due to illness, here is my review on the Reading Between The Lines blog tour for psychological thriller, Behind the Curtain. Can Penny escape and what happened to the first wife? What happens Behind The Curtain isn’t all a bed of roses… Let’s pull back the curtain bit by bit as you discover the cover, blurb, then my review. If you choose to read the actual book, you’ll finish up wanting to pull the curtain wide open after many peeks in.
Two wives:
One dead,
One alive,
One perfect husband
Penny-May cannot quite believe her luck when the handsome and charming Sam is interested in her, especially so soon after the death of his first wife, Lucy.
As the relationship develops and Sam’s true nature begins to emerge, Penny-May believes that it is all her fault for not being perfect, for not doing as she is told, for not being Lucy.
After all, according to everyone else, he’s the perfect gentleman. Isn’t he?
As desperation sets in, Penny-May is stunned to come across the diaries of Sam’s first wife.
Will the legacy of Lucy’s hidden diaries finally give Penny-May the strength and upper hand to escape Sam?
Dare to slowly peel back the curtain to see what you’ll find…
Is Sam so perfect or is he too good to be true? That’s the question. He’s the perfect gentleman, comes across as treating people well enough and is seen by people as a bit of a heart-throb to boot. He’s the type of man Penny-May fell for and Lucy, before him, until she died. He comes across as a lovely, unfortunate guy who was recently widowed… until more details emerge…
Behind the Curtain examines men like this, who come across as easy to fall for, who are deceptive in their nature, with the dark-side being well hidden, until a moment in time comes and bit by bit it starts to break out.
Penny-May does the classic thing of examining herself and wondering if the problem is her, if she isn’t perfect enough for Sam, if she just isn’t good enough when his behaviour changes. The love wasn’t skin deep, it had penetrated further, she really fell for him and the abuse that emerged crept under her, harming her, slowly penetrating into her psyche, chipping away. She comes across diaries from his first wife and they’re so revealing about what happened to her. You wish she came across them earlier, before she fell in love with him, but life doesn’t work like that, so that wouldn’t have been realistic. The book has a realism about it, it’s so well done.
For some, Behind The Curtain may be a difficult read, but I found it fascinating, even with it striking a certain chord, hitting all the emotional points and compels that will for Penny-May to be alright in the end and to get through it and escape.
It’s very well written.
I am thrilled to receive the second instalment of the Lara Arden crime series for the blog tour after the rather chilling debut, Can I Trust You? A bit late, due to illness, here is my review of Private Investigations, but first, take a look at the cover and blurb…
A young girl is in a coma after a tragic road accident. Another young girl has washed up on a remote beach, her identity unknown. An old man is murdered and hastily buried in a makeshift grave. A tormented pastor is unable to erase old misdeeds.
Different souls, but with one common link – the past.
Detective Inspector Lara Arden has her own demons to deal with. But as she investigates this raft of seemingly disparate crimes, she begins to suspect there’s a further common link at work here – her own past.
When all roads lead back to a former children’s home called Kenwood – and a macabre half-size windmill sited in its grounds – suspicion hardens into conviction.
Lara always believed that Kenwood had to be destroyed. Its old stories haunted it too strongly, like spirits yet to find their voice.
But do the tendrils of its past cling to everyone associated with it, too?
And do they need to be destroyed as well?
Near death and actual death gives DI Lara Arden a lot to hit her desk that requires investigating. All leads to former children’s home, Kenwood. From there, it becomes increasingly darkly atmospheric. Windmills can either be romantic, curious or dark objects. This one errs more to the dark side. It has a past that lingers across it and the grounds. I imagine if you stood there, you would feel it in the air above. It can certainly be felt as the pages turn.
Weston, now in a hospice, gets a visit from DI Arden. She has a letter in her hand and wants to know more about what went on in the place. It’s brutal and highlights a dark truth of some places and of some people who become corrupt and of the secrets kept by the victims.
Whilst trying to solve the crimes, DI Arden isn’t without her own demons from her past. There’s fascinating character exploration within the book as well as the mystery to solve, all culminating a surprise ending.
Second books are some of the hardest, lots of authors say so, well this one was well worth the wait!
“Rob Gittins is a highly acclaimed dramatist whose work has been enjoyed by millions
in TV and radio dramas.’
Nicholas Rhea – author of the Constable series, adapted for TV as Heartbeat.”
Black Loch is Peter May’s latest book, set 10 years later than the previous Hebridean/Lewis book. You can find out more here: The Black Loch
I saw this talk in person. You can watch this until end of September online. The link at the end of my review.
He discussed his career as a journalist and working in tv and becoming an author. It came as quite a surprise how challenging it was to get published and how no one initially wanted to publish The Black House, which later became book 1 of the highly successful Lewis Trilogy. Now, he’s been tempted back to writing more set in this area all these years later. The Black Loch is out now! You won’t be disappointed. It turns out, it was as wise move to return to the Hebrides.
He wrote a series set in China, which was intriguing to hear about as he talked about actually going over to the country. He divulged about a “propaganda office” which was not as scary as it sounds and was a marketing department for books. It was interesting to hear about how things work in a different country to the UK. He also talked about his publisher liking this series and urging him to carry on, but how he. at a certain stage, wanted to move onto writing other things.
Overall, it was an insightful, interesting talk.
You can watch this until 30th September from the Bloody Scotland site here: Digital Link
*Please note I am not affiliated nor gain from Bloody Scotland, just merely sharing the digital link.
Elini Kyriacou’s novel, The Unspeakable Acts of Zina Pavlou was chosen for Between the Covers on BBC2. I seem to remember watching this episode.
Based on true events. it tells the story of the penultimate woman to be hanged in Britain. The audience were told about how it is told from the translator’s view.
It’s set in the 1950’s and she fascinatingly talked a bit about these times and how she indulged in researching the different cigarette brands, what the branding looked like, thinking about how her characters would feel and what it meant to have a certain brand… After watching a documentary about the last person to be hanged and being impressed by the balance the presenter/historian presented, I felt it would be interesting to hear about this particular case too.
David Grieg’s book, Columbas Bones takes readers into Vikings times, so pretty different for a crime novel. One Viking wakes up the next morning to find himself alone, hungover, and abandoned by his crew mates. He can’t swim, there are no boats, and the only surviving monk on the island has taken his sword….
He’s looked at the period of 835 and is steeped in the history of real monks in Iona, philosophy, meditation and a time of religious change. He talked about Christianity spreading into countries and communities of people who had different standards and beliefs and some people taking on this new religion. Crime, he reassured people, does happen as it is a crime book after all. He also talked about how this was interesting to research.
AJ West’s book, The Betrayal of Thomas True, essentially takes readers into a little known part of history. We’ve all heard of the term, mollycoddling or mollycoddle, but probably have not ever thought about its origins or that you can split the word. So, splitting the word for a moment we have – Coddle – to treat someone gently and Molly, which has its origins as far back as at least the 18th century, the time of Molly Houses. Mollies was the term used for effeminate homosexual men. It was fascinating hearing about this, since language evolves as it is a living thing (so said Melvin Bragg in The Adventure of English), but certain words remain in some way or another.
His book promises to take readers on an emotional journey to the Molly Houses. He tells of some horrific things that happened to gay people, but how the Molly Houses were places of sanctuary and refuge. What was pleasing and perhaps surprising to hear was that it wasn’t always other gay people taking them in, they were straight people who wanted to protect them. So, it sounds quite a book of exploration.
Bookmarks and Stages by Lou 