#Review By Lou of True Love By Paddy Crewe #TrueLove #PaddyCrewe @DoubledayUK #LiteraryFiction @RandomTTours #BlogTour

True Love
By Paddy Crewe

True Love, which covers all different types of love, is set in the 1980’s that’s gritty and meaningful. It’s an excellent literary read for both young adults and adults alike. It would also be a fantastic read for school classes and adult reading groups alike. There’s much to be learnt from and be inspired by. Today I have a review as part of the Random T. Tours blog tour and thanks to Doubleday UK for a copy.

Blurb

What does it mean to love and be loved?

It is the 1980s and Finn and Keely are growing up in the North East of England.

Keely is a fighter. Even in the face of loss she strives to seek connection, but finds that she’s not always searching in the right places.

Finn is quiet, sensitive, distant. He spends much of his time alone, yet deep down he wants to discover the thrill of relating to others.

When the two finally meet, everything is changed. Love – with all of its attendant joys and costs – is thrust upon them, and each must decide if they will bend or break under its pressure. True Love is a story of the trials of youth, the bonds of family and friendship, and of how much we are willing to risk to have ourselves be seen.

Review

Gritty, gripping and meaningful this is a terrific read!
Connections and that desire to connect with others is human nature and you can feel it sparking off the page. It’s brilliant that it isn’t all romantic love, it also covers agape love, unconditional love etc.

Keely is the true heroine of the piece. She has love running through her bones for her family. She comes from a generation of sea coalers in the North East of England. Life is tough in a way that young people and adults today can learn a lot from.

Keely has immense reserves of resilience and love to the point where she even gives up on some of her dreams and becomes a sea coaler for a time so her family survives, since a great tragedy occurs. I feel great connection to Keely with that level of selflessness she demonstrates and resilience she pulls up and keeps going, even when life throws her the toughest and most unfair of times. Her strength of character is only to be admired.

Finn is quiet and lives with his grandparents as his own parents are living their own lives. Nature, especially the water gives him solace and comfort. He does finally find that there’s more to life and becomes a bit more of a character you want to read when he joins a band. Keely and Finn then meet and their lives begin a new chapter and to change…

The writing is lyrical in places and sweeps you along with the sea into Keely and Finn’s absorbing, quietly intense stories. This is a book that I highly recommend.

About the Author

Paddy Crewe was born in Middlesbrough and studied at Goldsmiths. His debut novel, My Name Is Yip, has been shortlisted for the Betty Trask, the Wilbur Smith, a South Bank Sky Arts Award and The Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award, and longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize.

#Review of The Virtue Season By L.M. Nathan @lmnathanwriter @RandomTTours #YoungAdult #Dystopia

The Virtue Season
By L.M. Nathan

Peeking! What a cover to then dip further into the pages of. Discover the blurb and my review of The Virtue Season below as part of The Random T. Tours blog tour.

Blurb

The world didn’t end all at once but drip by drip…

“An utterly compelling dystopia…A simply stunning debut” – Kat Ellis, author of Harrow Lake

Manon Pawlak has just turned eighteen, a debutant at the start of the Virtue Season: a process that will result in a match with a suitable genetic mate. Her best friend, Agatha, has been decommissioned, forbidden to partake in the season and unite with the boy who has had her heart since they were children.

When Manon’s mother wades out into the waters of Penn Vale with stones sewn into the lining of her coat, Manon’s genetic purity is called into question and she’s forced to rely on the fisherman’s son, Wick, to keep her secret. But as they dance, the truth about their world starts to unravel, and Manon finds herself at the centre of it all. And the council is watching.

Review

Manon Pawlak is the main character in The Virtue Season. It’s a complex and at times, profound YA tale of forbidden romance and about women’s rights and enduring love. It’s as scandalous as Bridgerton and as dark at times as The Handmaid’s Tale and The Hunger Games. It’s quite a mashup, but an interesting one all the same that makes this debut quite a compelling read, along with a good style of writing.

It’ll make older teens and young adults really think more about the relationships they form, as well as being able to escape into a tale of romance and power. It lures readers into a dystopian readers into a world run by power hungry people who want to create the perfect state. A state where everyone has to be perfect or the unthinkable happens. I won’t say what as it would be a bit of a spoiler.

It makes for an interesting, thoughtful read that becomes rather immersive because you want to know how it ends.

#Review By Lou of The Wild Swimmers By William Shaw @william1shaw @QuercusBooks #TheWildSwimmers

The Wild Swimmers
By William Shaw

So many people are into wild swimming these days, this may send shivers down the spine that is caused more than just the cold water. Discover the blurb and my review below…

Blurb

If only Alexandra Cupidi had turned south instead of north, she would have found the dead woman.

Instead it is her vulnerable daughter Zoë who stumbles across Mimi Greene’s lifeless body on the shoreline. A regular wild swimmer with a group of close friends, it’s out of character for Mimi to have been swimming alone, especially in bad weather. DS Cupidi starts to suspect this is more than just an accidental drowning.

Meanwhile, her friend and colleague Jill Ferriter receives a mysterious letter from a man who claims to be her father. Stephen Dowles has been in prison for the last twenty years, convicted of two brutal and senseless murders.

With Cupidi obsessed by the death of Mimi Greene, Ferriter must lean on Bill South to uncover the facts around Dowles’ conviction, revisiting old colleagues and criminals.

The Wild Swimmers is an explosive return to the DS Alexandra Cupidi Series, where the shores of the south Kent coastline expose deadly secrets.

Review

Wild swimming has increased in popularity to the point where it almost appears a normal pastime. Add a crime and the chills come from more than just the cold water lapping up onto your body.

Tension and suspense is created when regular swimmer, Mimi’s lifeless body is found in an unusual set of circumstances. Of course, accidental drowning seems the most logical explanation, but something more sinister is discovered when DS Alexandra Cupidi digs deeper, unconvinced that this experienced swimmer got into so much trouble that she’d die.

Shaw’s writing envelops you in the atmosphere of the setting he creates and draws you into the complexities and nuances of the characters. It’s a fascinating, involving read that becomes more than just finding a dead body as things become more twisty with mysterious letters and a prison inmate.

Rather fun, there are also unexpected reminisces of the summer of 1990, which lightens the atmosphere up a little here and there.

#Review By Lou of The Winner By C.J. Parsons @charlopar @HQstories #PsychologicalThriller #TheWinner

The Winner
By C.J. Parsons

C.J. Parsons excels in this psychological thriller that will really get inside your head and makes you think about what we think we see, clearer.
Check out the blurb and my full review below, as well as the cover you could simply splash into.

Blurb

Fame, fortune, followers. Be careful what you wish for…

Heather thought she’d been left behind in life, until she won a place in the luxurious ‘Triple F’ lottery, where fame, fortune and followers await 12 lucky winners.

The rules are simple: live the lifestyle of your dreams and win £5,000 a week for the rest of your life, plus six months of fame on the country’s most popular app – as long as you’re not bottom of the rankings. Lose your followers, and you lose everything.

But there’s trouble in paradise.

Too many winners are falling victim to tragedy: addiction, depression, even suicide. Someone, somewhere, seems to know their secrets, and is stirring up hatred online. And Heather has secrets of her own.

Suddenly she’s not worried about losing her lifestyle. She’s afraid of losing her life.

Review

Truly focusing on desires, the projections of what we’re meant to be, it can get to some people. Heather is the main character in this warning tale of wanting more out of life, but it isn’t all it seems.

Imagine winning £5000 per week, having what’s reckoned to be the fancy lifestyle and the fame and followers that comes with it. Sounds amazing, right? Like having life cracked and all will be perfect. That’s what Heather thinks because life hasn’t been great to her, until this once in a lifetime opportunity. She’s going to be a winner!

This is a cleverly written cautionary tale that takes readers to the dark side of such desires and obsessions. The stakes are high and so is the price to pay when it comes to these social media influencers. That’s when it becomes a gripping psychological drama that plays out. Someone plays with the winners minds and knows their secrets. The wins become more damaging to people than they can ever imagine.

Winning is lifechanging, but not in the way that the winners of this lottery imagine it would be in this gripping, page-turning read that draws you in from the start and hard to put down until the end.

#Review by Lou of Whole Life Sentence By Lynda La Plante @LaPlanteLynda #WholeLifeSentence #teamtennison @ZaffreBooks @bonnierbooks_uk @Tr4cyF3nt0n

Whole Life Sentence
By Lynda La Plante

Please join me as we, on Team Tennison, celebrate the publication day of Whole Life Sentence. The final book in the Tennison series and the one that then takes readers up to the point where Prime Suspect begins. ”It ends where it all begins”…

It has been a real privilege to be part of this team, reviewing all of the Tennison books. I’m now sorry to see the end of this amazing opportunity.
Discover the blurb and my final review on this series below.

BLURB

IT ENDS WHERE IT ALL BEGAN…

DETECTIVE JANE TENNISON’S POLICE CAREER HANGS IN THE BALANCE: A SINGLE STEP FROM GLORY – OR RUIN.

While she has elbowed her way into an elite team investigating non-domestic murders, there is nothing elite about her first assignments: a missing teenager cold case and an apparent suicide Tennison suspects is, in fact, murder.

But as she uncovers explosive evidence, Tennison’s new colleagues watch like vultures circling prey. And, one by one, the cases no one else wanted are taken from her – and the glory along with them.

Now Tennison has had enough: of the rampant sexism, snide remarks and undermining. It’s time to take what is rightfully hers from those who have held her back.

She just has to do what she does best: find her prime suspect . . .

Review

If you’ve been following the books, you’ve also been charting the rise and rise of Jane Tennison’s career. We’ve seen her tackle crime, develop in both her career and personally.
This finale of the Tennison series does not disappoint!

The year in this book is 1991. Jane Tennison applied for another promotion and was successful. The reception she is met with isn’t exactly the warmest, but she’s faced that throughout her entire career. DCS Kiernan isn’t totally overjoyed by her appointment, but there’s a cold case sitting on his desk that needs tending to, dating back to 1986. She had been hoping for a more current, live case now she’s within the Area Major Incident Team (AMIT). Brittany Hall, a student last seen in a pub, then vanished. It becomes a more involved case than what’s on the surface. She’s also handed an apparent suicide case, but Tennison grows suspicious and thinks there’s more to it than meets the eye, so does some digging. What she uncovers is intriguing and brings up new angles and leads to follow-up.

Lynda La Plante, once again leads the reader along a dark, twisty path, where there’s both the male dominated career and the case itself to navigate. We see the tenacity that’s grown over the series and the results of her hard work and determination pay off even more in this book. It perfectly bridges between where she was when she first started to now and where she heads to in the series we know as Prime Suspect. It’s all expertly written and compelling and Whole Life Sentence is particularly engaging and shows a glimmer of how things progress in the ranks and gives a little hope in the form of a new WPC.

Will she find her prime suspect in time and navigate the obstacles of career and personal life? You’ll have to read it to find out.

Relaunch and other news of Tip of The Iceberg and This Is Not A Pipe by David Jarvis @David_Jarvis_ @HobeckBooks

Since recently signing a contract with popular indy publisher, Hobeck Books, David Jarvis’s ‘Mike’ Kingdom eco-crime series has a new home, new cover and a whole nice relaunch. The first two, The Tip of the Iceberg and This Is Not A Pipe are available now. Find out more below, including reviews and a new title…

The books are intelligent, witty and thought-provoking eco-thrillers. The Tip of The Iceberg introduces former CIA Analyst, Michaela ‘Mike’ Kingdom, who is embarking on various missions, uncovering illegal oil rigs in Antarctica and discovering who killed a British government minister.

Domestically, she is recovering from life changing injuries and mental trauma. She also needs to track down her missing brother-in-law.

Find my original reviews here: Tip of the Iceberg And This Is Not A Pipe

This intriguing, intricate series will then continue with a new mission in The Violin and The Candlestick, coming soon…