Today I am delighted to be able to reveal the cover of new book to come:
Leaving Fatherland, thanks to Cranthorpe Milner Publishers and LoveBooksTours. It tells of a rather interesting and different Second World War 2 story. Check out the evocative cover and then the blurb below.
Blurb
Oskar Bachmann always imagined that giving his first lecture would be the defining moment of his life. It was, but not in the way he expected… Growing up a misfit in Nazi Germany, a victim of his father’s beatings, Oskar’s love of books is a constant comfort in a world turned upside-down by violence. As a student, as a pilot in the brutal Luftwaffe during the Second World War, in an unhappy marriage to an English bride, he finds himself returning over and over to the circumstances of his childhood. What was the source and cause of his father’s abuse? Could there have been more to it than he had once believed? Little did Oskar know that his first lecture at the University of Tübingen would ultimately lead to the end of a lifetime of searching… and finally reveal the figure who had been controlling his life from a distance.
A chill in the air and one down the spine, until it envelops you. Discover the blurb and the rest of my review below. This is part of a series of reviews as part of the Tennison project.
Blurb
A coffin is dug up by builders in the grounds of an historic convent – inside is the body of a young nun.
In a city as old as London, the discovery is hardly surprising. But when scratch marks are found on the inside of the coffin lid, Detective Jane Tennison believes she has unearthed a mystery far darker than any she’s investigated before.
However, not everyone agrees. Tennison’s superiors dismiss it as an historic cold case, and the Church seems desperate to conceal the facts from the investigation.
It’s clear that someone is hiding the truth, and perhaps even the killer. Tennison must pray she can find both – before they are buried forever . . .
In Unholy Murder, Tennison must lift the lid on the most chilling murder case of her career.
Review
Spine-tingling and darkly chilling, this latest book in the Tennison series leaves its mark. Murder, let’s face it, its always going to be dark in some ways or another. Being unexpected killed isn’t exactly going to be light. This, however, is the darkest case that Jane Tennison has to solve, to date and the darkest and more tense one that readers will read.
Imagine the horror of digging up a coffin, when you’re just going about your daily job of construction. That’s what recent builders discover and it sparks, what turns out to be a rather more complicated investigation than what Jane Tennison first thought. A nun is unearthed, it’s a cold case and scratch marks are discovered on the coffin, just where you wouldn’t expect to see such a thing.
Both the priest and the builder are intriguing characters. The priest, you get the feeling, may actually want to assist Tennison, but feels conflicted between doing what’s right, which may go against certain things within the church, which you sense is hiding some truths, or to stay tight with his religion. The layers of complexity, in that not everything is black and white works well in the character development.
Tennison is still having, not just work issues, but also personal ones that interweave throughout this mystery, which continues her character profile. This takes readers further into her life story, with its conflicts, relationship building and slight, occasional elements of ease. She never really settles and life is often not plain-sailing.
For a chilling and rather haunting read, I recommend Unholy Murder.
This Is Your Own Time You’re Wasting By Lee Parkinson and Adam Parkinson
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
One for teachers to have a chuckle over, resonate with and for parents/caregivers to find greater insight. Discover more in the blurb and review below, of a book that’s based on the Sunday Times Bestseller, that started life as a successful podcast. Thanks to Harper Collins for the book, in-exchange of an honest review.
Blurb
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
The side-splittingly hilarious and heart-warming new book from your favourite teacher duo and hosts of Two Mr Ps in a Pod(cast)
Remember the distant days of lockdown and those futile attempts to homeschool distracted, disinterested kids?
Parents rejoiced to send them back to school, while teachers prepared to face them all again … Five. Days. A. Week! Coming out the other side of the pandemic years, podcast sensations Lee and Adam Parkinson – aka the Two Mr Ps – bring you the most hilarious, ridiculous anecdotes from inside our primary schools.
Join in on the classroom antics as they share the unexpected pitfalls of online teaching, all the reasons you need a strong stomach to take on Early Years and why not every household item makes a suitable Harry Potter wand …
Review
From teacher duo and hosts of Two Mr Ps in a Pod(cast), brings funny book: This Is Your Own Time You’re Wasting. It will resonate with most child educators and support staff. I, myself work with children of many ages and have done for many years and this is a book for both parents/caregivers and education staff to have fun over, especially staff. There are anecdotes galore, from Show and Tell and how not everything might be quite what you would expect to kids wanting to share every detail with you, including bodily functions to stories they tell to the antics they get up to. For parents/caregivers, there are certain things that will give them insights into what they may not see in the home and also a small bit about staff.
It also serves a little bit of a reminder of education in the pandemic, to a certain extent as the focus is on teachers and we know that there are many other people involved to make education work.
The style is chatty, much like a podcast is, so it makes this a book that’s easy to dip in and out of, rather perhaps, feeling the need to read it all in one go. For the type of book it is, I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing or way to read it.
Happy Publication Day to Glen Dahlgren on the concluding part of the award-winning Chronicles of Chaos, The Realm of Gods. Check out the eerie, atmospheric cover, the intriguing build-up in the blurb and more about the author, including a link to Glen’s blog below…
Blurb
In a realm where dreams and reality intertwine, the final battle brews.
The gods of Order have vanished. Despite priests like Dantess and Myra struggling to maintain peace, the Harbingers of Chaos fan the flames of rebellion, bringing the world to the brink of war.
Galen, drawn into the heart of the Dreaming—an ethereal realm where past, present, and future collide—confronts not only his nemesis, the cunning Carnaubas, but a horrifying truth: the exiled gods of Order still hunger for dominion.
Luckily, Galen is not alone. Eve, a young girl gifted with the uncanny ability to see the threads the connect everything, joins him on a desperate quest to find the elusive god of Chaos, their only hope for preventing Order’s return.
The Realm of Gods is more than just a story; it’s a descent into the battle between Order and Chaos, a testament to the enduring power of human connection, and a battle cry for rebellion against tyranny.
Author bio
Glen Dahlgren is the award-winning author of the acclaimed book series, the Chronicles of Chaos, dubbed “what fantasy fiction should be” by New York Times bestselling author and fantasy legend Piers Anthony.
Books in this now complete series won multiple Readers’ Favorite Gold Medals, American Fiction Awards, Independent Author Network Book of the Year awards, and the Dante Rossetti Award.
Glen has also written, designed, directed, and produced critically-acclaimed, narrative-driven computer games for the last three decades. What’s more, he had the honor of creating original fantasy and science-fiction storylines that took established, world-class literary properties into interactive experiences. He collaborated with celebrated authors Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman (The Death Gate Cycle), Robert Jordan (The Wheel of Time – now a TV series from Amazon), Frederik Pohl (Heechee saga), Terry Brooks (Shannara), and Piers Anthony (Xanth) to bring their creations to the small screens. In addition, he crafted licensor-approved fiction for the Star Trek franchise as well as Stan Sakai’s epic graphic novel series, Usagi Yojimb
Vanitas and Other Tales of Art and Obsession By Jake Kendall
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 5.
Art, it can be beautiful, provocative and for some, an obsession, this is an intriguing book, covering all of that in a series of stories. Find out in the blurb below about the book and my thoughts in my review.
Blurb
Spanning 300 years of art history and weaving art styles including Cubism, Surrealism, and the Baroque into his prose, Jake Kendall’s collection tells the stories of those with an obsession for creation – artists who sacrifice friendships, careers, romance, and even their own happiness in pursuit of a vision.
Review
Take a paint brush and create a few strokes, pick up a keyboard and type some words. Weave art and words, bound together, add in imagery and raw emotion and that’s what is brought together in Vanitas. Art comes in many styles and has done as fashions and times change over millennia. It takes, almost a life of its own and for some artists, became an obsession. Loves lost, life or bits of it like sanity, lost. You get a feeling of how important for the pursuit of perfection, the next picture it is for the artists. It can be quite an intense read at times, which fits it all perfectly.
The characters in the book are well-drawn. There are real artists, such as Michelangelo, Monet, Van Gogh that appear in the stories. The romance, obsession and imagery seduces you to read further.
There’s the artiness of the prose, but not to be mistaken for floweriness with no substance. You learn things behind what brings the artists to a certain point in their lives. You can almost feel the artistic style of the artists as you read the prose as it imitates their time, their paintings, their brushstrokes.
This is a clever story of prose imitating artwork and what goes on inside an artistic mind.
Oh, you lucky readers of my blog. You have the opportunity to win a copy of Death Flight. 1 UK Based Winner will be picked at random. Click Like, Follow My Blog. It’s as easy as that Winner will be picked by Wednesday 28th February.
Sarah Sultoon has worked for CNN and currently works for channel 4 news. She has tackles one of the most horrific periods of Argentinian history – Argentina’s dirty war, the ‘death flights’ and ‘The Disappeared’. She’s been long-listed for CWA awards. Find out more about her and the book in this post.
Blurb
Argentina. 1998. Human remains are found on a beach on the outskirts of Buenos Aires – a gruesome echo of when the tide brought home dozens of mutilated bodies thrown from planes during Argentina’s Dirty War. Flights of death, with passengers known as The Disappeared. International Tribune reporter Jonny Murphy is in Buenos Aires interviewing families of the missing, desperate to keep their memory alive, when the body turns up. His investigations with his companion, freelance photographer Paloma Glenn, have barely started when Argentina’s simmering financial crisis explodes around them. As the fabric of society starts to disintegrate and Argentine cities burn around them, Jonny and Paloma are suddenly thrust centre stage, fighting to secure both their jobs and their livelihoods. But Jonny is also fighting something else, an echo from his own past that he’ll never shake, and as it catches up with him and Paloma, he must make choices that will endanger everything he knows…
About the Author
Sarah Sultoon is a journalist and writer, whose work as an international news executive at CNN has taken her all over the world, from the seats of power in both Westminster and Washington to the frontlines of Iraq and Afghanistan. She has extensive experience in conflict zones, winning three Peabody awards for her work on the war in Syria, an Emmy for her contribution to the coverage of Europe’s migrant crisis in 2015, and a number of Royal Television Society gongs.
When not reading or writing she can usually be found somewhere outside, either running, swimming or throwing a ball for her three children and dog … Her debut thriller The Source is currently in production with Lime Pictures, and was a Capital Crime Book Club pick and a number one bestseller on Kindle.
The Shot (2022) and Dirt (2023) followed, with multiple award longlistings, including the CWA Daggers.
Sarah currently works for Channel 4 News and lives in London.
Bookmarks and Stages by Lou 