#BookReview By Lou of The Duck With No Luck #GemmaMerino @MacmillanKidsUK #ChildrensBook #PictureBook #TheDuckWithNoLuck

The Duck With No Luck
By Gemma Merino

Children love having fun with the book – The Crocodile Who Didn’t Like Water, which I’ve had the pleasure to read to many children, so it’s with pleasure that I review the picture book – The Duck With No Luck. It’s suitable for pre-schoolers and the early years of primary school.

Blurb

What’s a fed-up duck who feels all out of luck supposed to do? Go and ask a wise owl for help, of course! But watch out for the hungry Fox . . .

From the award-winning Gemma Merino, author of the The Crocodile Who Didn’t Like Water, The Duck With No Luck is a funny, uplifting and reassuring tale about how to tackle the ups and downs of life, take a more positive look at things and appreciate all you have.

After a particularly unlucky moment, Duck has had enough! Heading off to ask Wise Owl why he’s so unlucky, he comes across a lonely Swan, a hungry Fox and a bare tree, all looking for answers of their own. Will Wise Owl’s advice help Duck to find his luck after all? And has he just been looking in the wrong place all along?

Review

It’s half-term holidays for many people and books can be just the “ticket” to entertain and spend cosy times together.

The Duck With No Luck has great rhythm throughout the humorous plot. Join the journey as you follow Duck who is on a quest to find his luck. Will he be able to find it? Along the way you come across Wise Owl, Swan and Fox who Duck hopes can help. Books where different animals are met brings adventure, no matter how long or short and this one has a good pace to it.

The moral is to appreciate what is around you more and see this as being lucky, which in turn helps with emotional and resilience building. It is great that that there is humour and illustrations throughout, which makes it fun for children.

It’s a great book to read independently or with adults at home, in a nursery/ELC/school, Bookbug and rhyme time sessions.

#Review By Lou of Four Weddings And A Christmas By Phillipa Ashley @PhillipaAshley @AvonBooksUK #ContemporaryFiction #UpliftingFiction

Four Weddings And A Christmas
By Phillipa Ashley

Full of Festive cheer and a great pick-me-up. Discover more about Four Weddings and A Christmas in the blurb and review and what magazine it first appeared in below.

Blurb

Can the spirit of Christmas reignite an old flame?

With her thriving business, Cottage Angels, Freya Bolton prepares the Lake District’s holiday homes for Christmas visitors. It’s her job to think of everything, from cinnamon-scented candles to tasteful decorations and hampers of seasonal treats.

If only her love life were such a success… After being burned by past relationships, she’s now determined to steer clear of love for good.

So when she bumps into gorgeous – and single – ex-boyfriend Travis, a no-strings festive fling seems perfect.

But when her feelings for him begin to develop, is she on track for another romantic calamity? Or could this Christmas give her the gift of true love?

Review

Get the festive treats together and cosy up this festive season with Four Weddings and a Christmas. It’s a gorgeous feel-good, cosy read.
Freya Bolton has her own business, Cottage Angels, she set up with Mimi, managing various properties in the Lake District. It’s a busy time with guests due to arrive at Waterfall Cottage, but freezing weather has burst a pipe and still a festive fair and a carol concert to organise. She also harbours secret emotions.

Reunions of Freya’s ex-boyfriend, initially brings an atmosphere as icy as the weather. His brother, Sebastian, who Travis and Bree are concerned about because he appears to be abandoning his music and career.
Meet Hamza Eassa, a famous wildlife photographer for the BBC, who is setting up a gallery display, but is also curious about Travis’s return to the Lakes.

Discovering their complex relationships is fascinating. There are darker times hanging over the characters and the question of reconciliation, as well as whether romance will be let in or not.

Four Weddings and A Christmas has warmth, humour and festive cheer, pitched just right for Christmas.

Do check out Free Magazine: Writers Narrative Magazine where this and some other reviews by myself and other writers appear alongside interesting articles.

Thanks to Avon Books for a review copy.

#Review By Lou of Blood Ribbons By Lin Le Versha @linleversha @HobeckBooks #StephGrantMurderMystery #CrimeFiction

Blood Ribbons
By Lin Le Versha

Take a holiday along the Rhine, but watch out for crime in the latest Steph Grant book. There’s plenty to be intrigued about. Find out more in the blurb and my review below. Thanks to Hobeck Books for the review copy and inviting me onto the blog tour.

Blurb

Former police officer, Steph Grant, and her partner, Chief Inspector Philip Hale, are chaperoning students from the college where she now works to Arnhem. A body is found tangled in the rushes on the banks of the Rhine, close to the river boat where they are on board, enjoying a river cruise. Working with Dutch police, the pair investigate further, and quickly discover that no one is safe – be they pupils, veterans or staff.

Review

The Rhine, a popular place for a river cruise. It’s idyllic and relaxing with much to explore. Steph Grant and her partner, Philip Hale kindly chaperone students/learners for the this amazing experience for them. They are also joined by war veterans and their carers, so it all looks promising for the teenagers studies as they head to Arnhem in the Netherlands.
The tranquility doesn’t last! There’s a body found, so an investigation naturally begins. It takes its twists and turns with other criminal activity being uncovered along the way.

The Steph Grant series has been good so far. Each can be read as part of the series or stand-alone. In Ribbons of Blood it was good to see the main characters in a different light and situation. It keeps the interest going. Sometimes scenarios like the one this book presents don’t work that well, but this one does. The author has kept enough intrigue and mystery to keep readers hooked to see how it ends.
It’s a book that people will be able to relate to with carers and war veterans and it’s this that adds another layer of interest in characterisation to this particular storyline.

#Review of Her Secret Life By Anna E. Collins @bookouture #AnnaECollins #HerSecretLife #Thriller

Her Secret Life
By Anna E. Collins

Her Secret Life is full of secrets and lies as lives twist and turn in emotional ways. Check out the blurb and my review below, thanks to Bookouture for inviting me onto the blog tour.

Blurb

I thought I could trust my mother. But everything I thought I knew was a lie…

It’s been a year since my husband died. A whole year that I’ve had to play the grieving widow. But the truth is that he destroyed my life. He’s the reason I haven’t spoken to my mother or sisters in years. Now, I’m finally free to tell them the truth…. But as I approach my childhood home for the first time in twenty years, my heart drops at the sight of police tape, and it shatters when I’m told my mother’s body has been recovered from the lake behind the house. I’m too late.

Desperate for answers, my sisters and I search her house. But something isn’t right. Her clothes are missing and everything is covered in a thick layer of dust. Our mother hasn’t lived here for months. Then we’re told we’ve inherited a house we never knew existed. Is that where she’s been hiding, all this time?

We’re certain this house is the key to revealing why our mother died. But when we finally unearth the truth, everything we thought we knew about our past comes crashing down. Because my mother’s secret goes much deeper than my own…

But will it drive me and my sisters apart forever? Or does it have the power to finally heal our rift?

Fans of Lianne Moriarty, Mary Ellen Taylor, Diane Chamberlain and Laura Dave will adore this completely gripping page-turner about how the people closest to us can have the most heartbreaking of secrets.

Review

3 sisters who no longer know each other, meet. Their mother is now dead as is her father. Everything was breaking in this family and huge estrangements had occurred, until death’s occurred. This however, opens up a whole lot of secrets and lies as the sisters hunt for truths and answers, but will they move further together or will previous rifts re-open to become a chasm?

Her Secret Life is an emotional rollercoaster of a read. With writing being of page-turning quality, this book is gripping and keeps you curious.
There’s good character development, with the sisters having compelling stories.
It just shows that sometimes lives twist and turn through certain events.

I recommend this to those who like family-based thrillers.

About the Author

ANNA E. COLLINS is a Seattle-area author who writes stories about the lives and loves of women. Once upon a time she was a teacher with a master’s degree in educational psychology. Nowadays, plotting fiction and raising humans are her main pursuits. Find her (and her canine sidekick) on Instagram, @aeccreates.

#Review By Lou of The Spy Coast By Tess Gerritsen @tessgerritsen @TransworldBooks @alisonbarrow @RandomTTours #TheSpyCoast #MartiniClub #BlogTour

The Spy Coast
By Tess Gerritsen

Excitingly, Tess Gerritsen has a new spy thriller – The Spy Coast. A new series from the author who brought us Rizzoli and Isles in books like The Surgeon. Find out more in the blurb below and my opinions in the review below.

Blurb

Maggie Bird is a lot of things. A chicken farmer. A courteous neighbor. And a seemingly average 60-year-old woman living a quiet life in bucolic Purity, Maine. She attends a weekly book club where she drinks martinis (stirred, not shaken) with her other retired friends. She’s a darned good rifle shot. And she never talks about her past.

When a mysterious woman turns up dead in Maggie’s driveway, she knows it’s a calling card from old times. It’s been fifteen years since she ran assets for the CIA and managed Operation Cyrano, which blew apart her life and cost her the man she loved.

Maggie and her “book club” swiftly revert to espionage mode. These old dogs hunt as only Langley alumni can, burning a trail from London to Bangkok to Milan to stay one step ahead of those who want former agent Bird dead. Maggie knows that some parts of the past refuse to stay buried. And that sometimes an old spy has to give up her ghosts

Review

There’s been a few books where the characters are retirees and, although I am nowhere near that age and stage in life, I must say I am enjoying them. This one is also a rather good read. It’s a different style in some ways for Tess Gerritsen in that it isn’t as gruesome as her earlier writings, such as her Rizzoli and Isles series, but she retains the power to create suspense and holds you within the pages from start to finish.

The Spy Coast introduces retiree, Maggie Bird, who wants to settle down in the seaside town of Purity, Maine. She really gets in the retired lifestyle, she keeps chickens and attends a bookclub with rather a fun name the ‘Martini Club.’
All retired people, naturally have a past, a life before they reach that stage in life, hers just happens to be being a spy.
The quiet life of course doesn’t last long. There’s a body in Maggie’s driveway and not by any coincidence or accident, it’s personal and deliberate. Chillingly, it links to her past…
There’s espionage, action and a mystery to be solved.

The book is gripping from beginning to end with interesting characters. The isolated setting lends itself perfectly for a crime to happen. Add to that, great writing and characterisation of smart, quick witted former spies and this is a great read for the start of a new series. I look forward to reading more…

About the Author

International bestselling author TESS GERRITSEN began to write fiction whilst on maternity leave as a physician. She published her first novel in 1987 and has since sold over forty million copies of her books in forty countries.

Her series featuring homicide detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles inspired the television series Rizzoli and Isles, starring Angie Harmon and Sasha Alexander.

Now retired from medicine, she lives in Maine and writes full time.

#Review of Dark Truth – A Joe Wilde Investigation By C.D. Steele @BookGuild #CrimeFiction #PrivateInvestigatorFiction #CrimeTrilogy #JoeWildeInvestigation

Dark Truth
By C.D. Steele

It started with False Truth and now there’s the stunning page-turner of a second book in Dark Truth. Discover the blurb and my review below. Thanks to Christopher Steele for requesting an honest review.

Blurb

‘Dark Truth’, the second in a series of three novels, is a suspenseful mystery thriller full of intrigue that will leave you guessing right until the very end. Private investigator Joe Wilde is hired by Tom and Marie Archer to investigate the disappearance of their six-year-old daughter Laura. Joe also takes on an unusual case for a client by the name of Jack Riley. Jack believes he was framed to make it look like he was cheating on his fiancée Claire Brooks. Claire has been the target of disturbing vandalism. As Joe helps the police investigate Laura’s disappearance, he uncovers disturbing secrets concerning the Archers and some of their neighbours. Meanwhile the attacks on Claire become more extreme. Fearing for her life, Claire also hires Joe. As Joe continues to investigate, he puts himself in great danger.

Review

Dark Truth is intensely chilling from the start, with someone creeping upon his victim. From there, the chapters are short and snappy. Personally, I’m rather enjoying this style and it works well for this book.

As the story builds about what is happening to Claire, it is spine-tingling how she died and how technology is used. It tells the dark side of how people use it and how twisted some relationships can become.

DCI Whelan and P.I. Joe Wilde have a challenging working relationship, where info isn’t always being passed on. It’s a type of working relationship that will be familiar to many in, at least certain sectors. The exposing it in this book is interesting and it is quite a change from colleagues just rubbing along. The tensions are there for all to see and feel. It’s clever as Dark Truth then doesn’t solely focus on the crimes, it also delves into the darker side of certain personality types.

As much as False Truth, the first book, was very compelling and well-written, this one exceeds it. It’s tightly written and an excellent page-turner.