#Article by Lou – Celebrating Authors – Fern Britton @Fern_Britton #HarperCollinsUK @fictionpubteam #CelebratingAuthors #ContemporaryFiction #LiteraryFiction #RomanticFiction #HistoricalFiction #TV #ReadingCommunity #WritingCommunity #CelebratingAuthors

Celebrating Authors – Fern Britton
By Louise – Lou

As part of my blog in 2023 until it reaches 5 years old in September, I will be celebrating an author or publisher every so often. Join me as I celebrate works of Fern Britton in this part of my series of blog posts. Find a short article and a bit about a couple of her books and links below.

Fern Britton is a well-known TV presenter and author. She has successfully published over 15 books – stand-alone books, novellas and non-fiction over many years and at least one was a Quick Reads book in the Reading Agency scheme. She is also known for her tv presenting on programmes such as Ready Steady Cook, This Morning, Watercolour Challenge (rebooted), My Cornwall and many more.

I’ve read a number of books by Fern Britton, most pre-blog, so one day I will write reviews of more as I highly recommend her; but whilst writing my blog, I have had amazing opportunities such as to review her books and during lockdown, be part of a small group of people on Zoom to interview her in a Q&A set up by her publisher, all of which you can find in the links below in this short article. I was fortunate enough to attend an in-person talk at Good HouseKeeping magazine a couple of years later where she talked warmly and intelligently about The Good Servant as well as candidly about her life, including gardening. She also gave people opportunity to have a signed book and to meet her, which was fortunate for me as her kindness has been beyond and I like to thank people in person. I highly recommended her books, tv programmes and her talks.

Fern Britton’s tv programmes are inspiring, interesting and warm. Anything she touches, her passion and genuine curiosity oozes, pulling in her audience. It’s a great skill and no mean feat, considering the amount of programmes made on many channels.
Her books are excellent for curling up with for all year round reading with your favourite snack and drink, whatever the weather. They are evocative and compelling, whether it is romantic fiction, such as A Seaside Affair or historical such as The Good Servant. She has the mystique in her writing to enthral and enchant as she envelopes the reader in the scenery and gives them a clear window into many characters lives. She also has the ability to use facts as a base and fictionalise a story just enough to steer away from it becoming non-fiction as she has in Daughters of Cornwall and The Good Servant.

Daughters of Cornwall is fiction, but was inspired by her own family. It’s a fascinating story across the generations, taking in 1918, 1939 and 2020. It truly is a compelling read with bloodlines and secrets from start to finish.

Within the link for the blurb and full review, you will also find a write-up of the Q&A and about the online book launch. Daughters of Cornwall

The Good Servant is a fictional story based on fact about Marion Crawford (Crawfie) is a young Scottish woman who becomes a governess to two princesses – Princess Margaret and the princess who became our queen – Queen Elizabeth II. It is a thoughtful, interesting book that now holds a deeper poignancy than ever before.
There are twists and motives uncovered and a sense of duty revealed in this engaging read.

Find out more about the fascinating, well researched book in the blurb and review within the link. The Good Servant

#BookReview By Lou of – Traitor In The House By Caz Finlay @0neMoreChapter_ @HarperCollinsUK #CrimeFiction #TraitorInTheHouse #GanglandFiction #QuickReview

Traitor In The House
By Caz Finlay

Today I have a quick review about gritty gangland crime fiction book – Traitor In The House. Thanks to One More Chapter / Harper Collins for gifting me an e-book copy.

Blurb

The brand new unmissable Liverpool gangland crime drama.

OLD GAME

When several young prostitutes are found murdered in Liverpool, DI Leigh Moss knows there is only one person she can turn to for help with the case. Gangland queen, Grace Carter, knows the streets of Liverpool better than anyone and can ask questions Leigh can’t…but will Grace help?

NEW RULES

Grace doesn’t trust easily, but when she discovers that her family might be linked with the gruesome murders, she decides to give Leigh a chance. But helping Leigh is risky and as Grace is dragged deeper into the murky world of vice, her own life is put in danger.

Can these two sworn enemies work together? Or is that a line they will never cross?

Readers have been GRIPPED by this brand new drama…

Review

Dark, twisty and gripping, especially with their not being a trace of DNA and a family – The Carter Family being strong in the gangland world. The only clue? The victims were all residents at Sunnymeade Childrens Home.

It is a huge, gruesome case which D.I Leigh Moss is intent on solving. The past comes hurtling into the present and old tensions arise to the surface as an increase in danger emerges, especially as the only help may well be Grace, part of the gangland family.

The book delves into the different relationships of the characters and into the murky gangland world of Liverpool. It’s atmospheric and gritty, especially the deeper you go into this world. It’s quite the page-turner as the dangers ramp up and there-in lies secrets and betrayals.

#BookReview by Lou of Fireborn @flowler_aisling @HarperCollins @The_WriteReadsTours #UltimateBlogTour #Fantasy #Adventure #ChildrensBook #MiddleGrade 8-12years #ReadingForPleasure #PrimarySchoolReading

Fireborn
By Aisling Fowler

Fireborn is an immersive and exciting adventure into a fantasy world for 8-12 year olds. Go on an adventure down to the blurb and the rest of my review to find out more. Thanks to The Write Reads Tours for inviting me and to this group and Harper Collins for gifting me a book.

Blurb

Set in the snowy northern forests of an imagined prehistoric world, Fireborn is the middle-grade debut of the decade. At turns exciting, funny and heart wrenchingly sad, it marks the introduction of an unstoppable new voice in children’s storytelling.

Twelve has spoken the Pledge and now she is a Huntling. She has given up her name to train in the art of fighting monsters and keeping the peace, and she won’t get to choose a new one until she has earned it.

But when the Lodge’s walls are breached for the first time, and a little girl is taken, Twelve is the only one interested in going after a child . . .

Teaming up with Dog, the Stone Guardian of the Lodge, Twelve ends up on an epic adventure that will change her life, her name – and her entire world.

Review

Fireborn is an epic adventure for 8-12 year olds. It has twists and turns and great characterisation, but with a difference. The characters are known by numbers, it sort of works to bring about something different to fiction, but once into the story, it isn’t the names that matter quite so much as the world of Ember takes over as do the characters lives. I think children will get into it though because above the giving up of names is a world for adventurous middle-grade readers can step into. For a debut novel, this is an author children would want more of, after reading this one. It has humour and breathtaking excitement as well as some of the saddest storylines. All this in one book makes it totally full on and the deeper you read, the deeper children will want to go into Ember, a fantastical world that builds on the page in wide ranging, indepth descriptions. It means readers can be totally immersed in Ember whilst reading it.

There are heroes and villains. The heroes are characters who have given up their names. They are known as Five, Six, Seven and Twelve. The villains are an array of monsters. There is the lodge where the young trainee Hunters go to hone their skills. These trainees land themselves a mission which takes them on a trail to The Fozen Forest. There are clans, who the Hunters have to act as protectors of, but it isn’t an easy task.

Twelve is the most promising Hunter but has issues and is far from friendly or a team-player as a result of making more enemies. The others also have their own issues. The book, in a way, shows that even heroes are not perfect and are not infalliable. This, even in such an all encompassing fantasy tale, this brings a bit of realism to it as the characters all find out a bit more about themselves in many ways, sometimes positive, other times negative and in some ways, in being resilient in times of trouble. It brings added interest to the otherwise, adventureous book, with a bit of magic within it. There’s a lot for children to dip their toe in and to be entertained.

#BookReview by Lou – Meet Me In Another Life by Catriona Silvey @silveycat @HarperVoyagerUK @fictionpubteam #Fiction

Meet Me In Another Life
By Catriona Silvey

Meet Me In Another Life is compelling. It is so inventive and very different in concept. It will keep you guessing to the end. Thanks to Harper Voyager for allowing me to post about the cover reveal some months back and for gifting me the book in-exchange for an honest review.

Blurb

’Beautifully explored and deeply complex’ Gal Gadot

Joyful, devastating, and profound, Meet Me in Another Life is a story of love and connection in every possible form that will captivate fans of Stuart Turton, Claire North, and Audrey Niffenegger.

Thora and Santi have met before…

Under the clocktower in central Cologne, with nothing but the stars above and their futures ahead.

They will meet again…

They don’t know it yet, but they’ll meet again: in numerous lives they will become friends, colleagues, lovers, enemies – meeting over and over for the first time, every time; each coming to know every version of the other.

Only they can make sure it’s not for the last time.

But as they’re endlessly drawn together and the lines between their different lives begin to blur, they are faced with one question: why?

They must discover the truth of their strange attachment before this, and all their lives, are lost forever.

Review

It starts with Thora, who is a bit lost in life and wishes she could start over again, but then she meets Santi. This book is partly about having an event occurring that means relations with another person is disconnected and at different points in their lives, they are repeatedly brought together, but it’s more like they meet for the first time, over and over again. A bit like Groundhog Day, except it is so much more than that as they live so many different lives and are in a different one, each time they meet. It’s done in quite a unique way and just as you think it may head in one direction, it takes you in another as they come back in different relationships, and not how you would think at all. It’s different relationships to each other, like student and teacher and so many more… The book keeps you guessing about what is actually going on and what life they’re going to live next and when they’ll meet again… For that first time. It keeps you guessing how it could possibly all end.

The characters and the concept is absolutely enthralling and it all just pulls you into one part of life to another. It’s sweet, imaginative, entertaining, profound and emotional.

#BookReview by Lou – Good Company by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney @CynthiaDSweeney @Harper360 @RandomTTours #Fiction #GoodCompany

Good Company
By Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney

Today I am excited to bring to you a synposis and review of Good Company by critically acclaimed and bestselling novelist of The Nest. Good Company has a focus on relationships, forgiveness, redemption, theatre, Hollywood and so much more, with lots of intrigue that is so compelling. Discover the Synopsis and Review below as well as a bit about the author and who else is on this blog tour…
Thanks to Random Things Tours for inviting me to review and to Harper Collins for gifting me with a beautiful book, that has not your average pages at the edges.

Synopsis

Flora Mancini has been happily married for more than twenty years. But everything she thought she knew about herself, her marriage, and her best friend Margot, is upended when she stumbles upon an envelope containing her husband’s wedding ring—the one he claimed he lost one summer long ago.

Flora and Julian struggled for years, scraping together just enough acting work to raise their daughter in Manhattan and keep Julian’s small theatre company—Good Company—afloat. A move to Los Angeles brought their first real career successes, a chance to breathe easier, and a reunion with Margot, now a bona fide television star. But has their new life been built on lies? What happened that summer all those years ago? And most importantly, what happens now?

GOOD COMPANY follows two couples entering the midpoint of their lives, against the backdrop of the New York theatre scene and Hollywood. It tells a story of what it means to, as the author says, “truly love but never truly know another person”.

Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney’s debut novel, The Nest, was a smash success, receiving widespread critical acclaim and named a Best Book of 2016 by many, including The Washington Post. Much of what made The Nest beloved is back in play with GOOD COMPANY, including Sweeney’s distinctive wit and her incisive examination of the way people, and their relationships—with others and themselves—evolve over decades.

Review

Instantly drawing you in, it is easy to become interested in Flora looking for a photo of Ruby from 13 years ago and doing the clear out that people do, with humour and reminiscing.

The title – Good Company is the name of a theatre company founded by Ben and Julian, based in Manhattan, so it is very apt indeed! This is a book where theatre, film and relationships collide and are so well weaved together, with references to some plays, but not all is well in the characters lives.

This is a great for if you’re missing theatre and have a penchant for Hollywood and people’s lives!

There’s a sweeping look at journalistic interview conducted as Mia has been researching Margot, an actress. It’s within this interview, where readers find out more about Margot. She shows an overbearing trait, to quite a point of it feeling sinister, especially when it comes to Flora and the doubts about her impending marriage to Julian. This is a very compelling book, to say the least, with secrets and more…

The characters make this book especially immersive. It becomes clear that the character’s lives are even more complicated and entangled and Good Company has its own complexities, including betrayal, which strikes hard, making summer not how it was supposed to be. It all creates a deeper intensity and uncomfortbleness in atmosphere, which in turn, makes you want to stay to see how it all ends.

About the Author

Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney is the author of the instant New York Times bestseller The Nest. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and children.

#BookReview by Lou – The Lost Hours @susanlewisbooks @fictionpubteam @LizDawsonPR @HarperCollinsUK #TheLostHours #Thriller

The Lost Hours
By Susan Lewis

Immersive and page-turning, The Lost Hours, with its fabulous cover is such a page-turner and quite unputdownable as a family goes through such a hard ordeal. It is a brilliant plot in the way it is written, that grips all the way through…

I thank Anne at Random Things Tours for inviting me onto the blog tour and for her and Elizabeth Dawson for gifting me a book.

Follow down for the blurb and my review and to find out a bit more about the author.

Blurb

A perfect marriage…

Golden couple Annie and David Crayce have it all. A loving marriage, three beautiful children and a thriving family business. Life couldn’t be better. Until the unthinkable happens…

A perfect crime?

A piece of damning DNA evidence has arisen, placing David as the prime suspect of a murder committed twenty-years ago. Annie is sure her David is innocent. But if he isn’t guilty, then either his father or brother must be.

As the police investigate the cold case, so does Annie. Trawling through her old diaries, she begins desperately looking for answers. But it all comes down to a few lost hours she can’t solve.

And Annie begins to doubt the one person she thought she knew best… Her husband.

Review

Lots of us I am sure have blown a dandilion clock to “tell the time” or play a game that shows the “hours pass-by” and watched each fragment, artistically blow away in the wind. The cover is evocative in the way it shows time passing by.

Annie and David Crayce have 3 children, a thriving business, a loving marriage. It is the absolute perfect life. In 1999, however, the book begins with a short-sharp jolt from this knowledge, with a body being found and a thought of Karen Lomax being missing, DCI Underwood was the investigating officer and Timbo Jaks was a suspect, but nothing more and the case remained unsolved.
Fast-forwarding to 2019 and DCI Gould and DS. Natalie Rundle is on the case as she starts out her new posting in Dean Valley Force in the CID Department in Kesterly, when readers really get to know more about what happened and things really get interesting with familial DNA…

There are secrets abound and all isn’t all it seems in this supposedly almost perfect family. The family are faced with so much turmoil when the investigation is re-opened. As time moves on, there are doubts and aspertions cast upon the family. Things hot up and suspense heightens with the familial DNA discovery. The “perfect” family face not just the nightmare of the disappearance of Karen, but then face the scruitny into their lives, especially that of David’s, including his mental health and how he can be, since leaving the army, and harks back occassionally in his nightmarish flashbacks to what happened during his time of service.

It’s an involving, provocative book that has plenty of suspense and keeps you suspicious about who committed the crime all those years ago…

About the Author

Author Susan Lewis at her Bagington home. Friday 5th of December 2014 — Author Susan Lewis at her Bagington home

Susan Lewis is the internationally bestselling author of over forty books across the genres of family drama, thriller, suspense and crime, including One Minute Later, My Lies, Your Lies and Forgive Me. Susan’s novels have sold nearly three million copies in the UK alone. She is also the author of Just One More Day and One Day at a Time, the moving memoirs of her childhood in Bristol during the 1960s.

Susan has previously worked as a secretary in news and current affairs before training as a production assistant working on light entertainment and drama. She’s lived in Hollywood and the South of France, but now resides in Gloucestershire with husband James, two stepsons and dogs.