Calling all Jack Jordan Fans, Here is the #CoverReveal of Deception @JackJordan_author @simonschusterUK #Thriller #Deception #JackJordan #CompulsiveReaders #BlogTour

Cover Reveal of
Deception
By Jack Jordan

Jack Jordan’s books are well-written page-turners that pose a moral dilemma. Deception will materialise as his latest thriller. It is described as being The Chain meets Squid Game meets Emily the Criminal. Check out the cover and blurb below…

A deadly game. The ultimate price. The Chain meets Squid Game meets Emily the Criminal in this pulse-pounding new thriller from the master of the moral dilemma, Jack Jordan.

‘No one crafts a dilemma quite like Jack Jordan’ Janice Hallett
‘Jack Jordan goes from strength to strength’ L. V. Matthews

Emma and Miles are targeted by a mysterious syndicate called The Levels, who offer them the chance to complete a series of tasks in order to earn money to afford their son’s life-saving treatment.

The catch? Each task is a crime, and as they escalate in intensity so will the payout.

As the levels get darker, they must ask themselves how far they’ll go and how much they’ll risk to save their child.

Follow the author

IG: Jackjordan_author Publication Date: 4 June 2026

IG: likely_suspects Print length: 416 pages.

IG: thebookdealer Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK

#Review by Lou of The Lady in the Park by David Reynolds @davidreynoldswriter @muswellpress @RandomTTours #Debut #NewBook #Thriller #CrimeFiction #TheLadyInThePark

The Lady in the Park
By David Reynolds

The Lady in the Park is a strong debut thriller with some topical subjects like people trafficking, drugs and there is a murder. Something quite different makes this debut rather striking. Find out more in the blurb and my full review below on this blog tour. It’s a book that makes you realise that debuts are not to be sniffled at, but instead given a chance on…

Blurb

Introducing a unique and unorthodox crime solving duo –

meet ex Met DI Jim Domino, and his inquisitive six-year-old grandson, Danny…

When a woman is found unconscious on a ping-pong table in Warwick Gardens in Peckham, South East London, it looks like a case of mistaken identity. Why would anyone want to injure this popular local mum of six? But Jim Domino, ex-CID detective turned private eye, keeps asking questions. As the crime escalates to murder, Domino finds himself collaborating with his old colleagues in the Met. And, assisted by sharp observations from his six-year-old grandson, Danny, he finds that important clues can come from unexpected sources.

The first in an exciting new crime fiction series, The Lady in the Park weaves a rich tapestry of characters together with a twisty immersive plot that will leave readers craving for more investigations featuring the inimitable Jim Domino and his young sidekick, Danny.

Review

What is striking is the crime-busting duo. A grandad who has all the experience in crime-solving from his time in the Met and his 6 year old grandson. Admittedly, it is a strange combo, one which could have proven frustrating. It wasn’t at all. It was intriguing and observational in how the experience and connections to the Met that ex-DI Domino has and the sharpness of the eye of his grandson, Danny can compliment each other. Despite the unlikelihood of this actually happening, these characters, like the others are written in a believable manner, making them investable in as a reader. Danny has 6 year old traits and behaviours, which keeps him realistic and a pleasure to read about. There’s warmth and humour in this interesting family relationship. It’s also interesting to see how Jim Domino’s former Met colleagues also connect.

What is embarked on becomes more complex than how it starts with the murder of a lady in the park. There’s much to uncover to keep readers guessing where it will take them next.

The writing of the characterisation and plot of the crimes with their hard-hitting themes are engaging, with the situations of suburban London moving to the Thames creating an immersion and further understanding of the feel of the urgency of the story that’s within the mysterious pages.

It’s a great opener debut to a whole new series to adorn bookshelves and feast the eyes and mind.

About the Author

David Reynolds was one of the founders of Bloomsbury Publishing and is now a director of Old Street Publishing. Based in London, he is the author of Swan River: A Memoir of a Family Mystery, which was published by Picador to great critical acclaim and shortlisted forthe PEN/Acklerley Prize. Greystone Books published Slow Road to Brownsville which was reviewed in The Times, The Telegraph, The Financial Times and The Observer and praised by Robert Elms and the Reverend Richard Coles. His most recent book was Slow Road to San Francisco. This is his debut novel.

He has three adult children, six grandchildren and lives with his wife Penny in South West London. but still spends a lot of time with his grandchildren in Peckham!

The Big Chill by Doug Johnstone @doug_johnstone @OrendaBooks @RandomTTours #TheSkelfs #BlogTour #Review #NewBook #Thriller

The Big Chill
By Doug Johnstone
Rated: 5 stars *****

I hadn’t read any of Doug Johnstone’s books before, but I am very glad I have had the opportunity to read and review now. It turns out he’s very good in what he writes and I can see why he’s so critically accalimed. The Big Chill is a very good thriller that has depth of character and plot to it.
Discover more about this Edinburgh based author, the blurb and my review.
I also thank Orenda Books for supplying me with a book and Anne for inviting me on the blog tour.

About the Author

McIlvanney-shortlisted Doug Johnstone’s follow-up to his critically acclaimed A Dark Matter, which introduced three generations of women from the Skelf family, who run both a funeral home and a private investigation business.
Doug Johnstone is the author of more ten novels, most recently Breakers (2019), which has been shortlisted for the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Novel of the Year and A Dark Matter (2020), which launched the Skelfs series. Several of his books have been bestsellers and award winners, and his work has been praised by the likes of Val McDermid, Irvine Welsh and Ian Rankin. He’s taught creative writing and been writer in residence at various institutions – including a funeral home, which he drew on to write A Dark Matter – and has been an arts journalist for twenty years. Doug is a songwriter and musician with five albums and three EPs released, and he plays drums for the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers, a band of crime writers. He’s also player-manager of the Scotland Writers Football Club. He lives in Edinburgh.

Blurb

Haunted by their past, the Skelf women are hoping for a quieter life. But running both a funeral directors’ and a private investigation business means trouble is never far away, and when a car crashes into the open grave at a funeral Dorothy is conducting, she can’t help looking into the dead driver ’s shadowy life.

While Dorothy uncovers a dark truth at the heart of Edinburgh society, her daughter Jenny and granddaughter Hannah have their own struggles. Jenny’s ex-husband Craig is making plans that could shatter the Skelf women’s lives, and the increasingly obsessive Hannah has formed a friendship with an elderly professor that is fast turning deadly.
But something even more sinister emerges when a drumming student of Dorothy’s disappears, and suspicion falls on her parents. The Skelf women find themselves immersed in an unbearable darkness – but could the real threat be to themselves?

Fast-paced, darkly funny, yet touching and tender, the Skelf family series is a welcome reboot to the classic PI novel, whilst also asking deeper questions about family, society and grief.

Review

Meet Dorothy, Jenny and Hannah. They each have a chapter that rotates as the story goes along.

Set in Edinburgh, Scotland, the writing is well-plotted and enthralling, throughout. The Big Chill is interesting, intriguing and tightly written. I like the chapters alternating between each of the people mentioned above. Their parts that create the bigger picture of the story, are all interwoven well.
There are some cleverly placed film references in the book, which is enjoyable and quite different.

Dorothy and Jenny like being surrounded by dead people. Work takes them between the funeral parlour and being a Private Investagator.
Jenny is hired to find evidence of Orla, Liam’s wife, having an affair with the gardener.

Hannah on the other-hand is getting therapy because of something that happened to her dad.

There’s a fabulous energy through the main characters, fuelled by their anger of what happened to Hannah’s dad. It’s just very realistically written and allows readers to feel their anger and feel compassion for them.

It’s an interesting subject to write about – death in the way this book is written. There’s death, but there’s also a person with a psychological condition that is under control, but has made him believe he was dead.

The story looks a bit into what goes on in a funeral parlour, which is fairly different and how different people have died, which is fascinatingly written into this fictional book.

There’s deaths, including a murder, a case to be solved once as there is a suspect and at the heart of it all is Dorothy, Jenny and Hannah. I enjoyed both the thriller element and how their lives are revealed.

I also like the tones within it and that whole pussy-footing around trying not to say the word “dead” to Hannah and her saying that it is okay to say “dead” to her is so realistically done. There is also the sadness, but also the compelling nature of this thriller, with a little bit of humour mixed in, that makes each page so enticing to read.

Write Up by Lou of Q&A with Cecelia Ahern @Cecelia_Ahern @BeccaKBryant @LizDawsonPR #Postscript

Q&A with Cecelia Ahern
Ahead of the paperback publication of Postscript
the sequel to PS. I Love You!

I have been given a great honour of joining a small group of book bloggers to collaboratively interview PS. I Love You author Cecelia Ahern. She has now published the sequel – Postscript, in which the hardback is available now. The paperback is available 1st October 2020.

First – the blurb of Postscript and a short review, with a more full on review to follow at a later date. Do follow the blurb, the short review and then onto the Q&A where you can find out some really exciting information about Postscript, what she is writing next and much more…

The PS, I Love You Club.

These are the six words written on a card handed to Holly Kennedy. They’re words that are engraved on her heart – because PS, I Love You is how her husband, Gerry, signed his last letters to her, letters that mark a year she will never forget.

Now, the mysterious club wants something from her. And if Holly can find the courage meet them, she’ll learn what it really means to live life to the full.

Because every love story has one last thing to say…

Short review

Postscript is just amazing as it tackles so many themes from health issues to grieving. It’s a beautifully written book that has so much emotion within it. The health issues have clearly been researched, but don’t dominate. There is plenty of positivity in this book. It is, even after all these years, is at least as good as PS I Love You, if not a bit better in how it is written. Nothing is lost and there’s everything to gain when reading this, including feeling that it is a really emotional journey, but one taken with passion and feels heartfelt. It’s a great book to get reacquainted with Holly and other characters and meet some new ones too.

Q&A

How did you spend Lockdown?

Building Hogwarts Lego. That took about 4 weeks and worked on it for about an hour every evening.
She danced and cooked and walked a lot and got excited when the Irish government also increased the distance of travel from 2km to 5km and could go to a coffee shop to buy a coffee.

Cecelia also has 3 children of the ages of a nearly 1 year old, an 8 and a 10 year old. She hopes never to do homeschooling again.

Do you think as a writer lockdown suited you well?

She reckoned it doesn’t suit everybody, perhaps not extroverts who get their energy from being around other people. She is comfortable about not socialising all the time. She did however miss her family.
She was on maternity leave until May. She then started to edit her new novel (more about that later).#

What sort of research she went into for health issues within the book, such as Cancer and MS?

She wanted to not get into Hollie’s appointments too much to get a balance. There were many drafts and some were more involved than others. There were 4 people who were ill. She wanted more of an introduction to each illness. MS she was fairly familiar with beacause she takes part in the MS Readathon in every year in Ireland.
She wanted to introduce a brain tumour so Hollie was watching a young man going through the same thing.
She thoughtfully pointed out that everyone doesn’t experience the same thing in every illness. She didn’t want to be vague or wishy-washy, but also not too caught up in it. She wanted to concentrate on some of the hope.
She also talked candidly about emphasemia, which is in the book too, as her grandmother had it and had smoked all her life. She talked how there was still humour, even though she was going round with an oxygen tank near the end of her life and wanted some of the humour to come through, which she does well.

From Writing PS I Love You and so many years later, Postcript. How was it for you to write the sequel?

She was never going to write Postcript as she was perfectly happy with how it ended and PS. I Love You was a huge success. PS. I Love You made her and she didn’t want a sequel to break her. She also likes writing different books year on year.
In 2012 she thought about the things that you do for people you’re going to leave behind, so got inspired to write a story from the opposite perspective of PS. I Love You and also then from the perspective of people about to say goodbye and the preparations. She really wanted to put Hollie in it and look at it from Gerry’s perspective. She then had to find the seeds she planted in PS I Love You, like sunflower seeds within that book.
She talked about how it was really challenging to write. In Postcript she has to look at the letters again and looking at the positives and not so and wanted to address how there was conflict between them.
She started to write before she told her publishers to see if she could and felt emotional enough about it, which she did.

Who did you write the book for?

She wrote it for her and those who really love PS I Love You and had it in mind that so many people loved that book. She also looked at the tone of the book and also show the writer she was then and the writer she is now, but without taking too many wild leaps, like in her short story collection, and went back to the humour and sweet tone of PS I Love You.

How did you feel when Postcript went out to readers?

She said that a lot of people have read it before-hand and tries not to get hung up on that, but hopes it is better than the first novel.

The members of the PS I Love You Club. How did you decide which problems to bring into the club and are there any you thought of and discounted?

I wanted to have different illnesses. She knew from the beginning she wanted a mother and the Will idea. Geneka is her favourite. She wanted a mother and a Will and having her want to learn to write letters for her child.

Film

Postcript will be made into a film. Hillary Swank emailed Cecelia wanting to read Postcript. She will be in the film because she said of all the films she has made, PS I Love You is mentioned the most and everyone involved in that film say the same thing. The same production team and writer will be involved again in the film. She has a lot to juggle from the book and the PS. I Love You film.

What author inpires you in your work most of all?

She reads fiction and loves crime fiction, especially Karen Slaughter and Lee Child and Jane Casey. She loves One World Publications because they publish and translate from all over the world. She also loves poetry, such as those from Sarah Cross. She also reads YA novels.
If she ever wrote a crime novel, she would write golden-age crime novel, not the forensic side.

Her next novel is called Freckles, due in autumn 2021. It’s works around the theme that comes from a phrase “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”
It’s about a character who is very logical and straightforward parking-warden. She hears this expression and starts to look at the people around her and wonders if she wants to be the average of those five people and if she could curate her life in who she wants to be. So, she reaches out to certain people to see if she can be the average of those.
There is also a lot going on in her life that makes her want to do this.’

Postcript is published in paperback on 1st October 2020.

#Review of A Beginner’s Guide To Ruling The Galaxy By David Solomons #DavidSolomons @NosyCrow #MiddleGrade #ChildrensBook #Humour #Sci-Fi #ABeginnersGuideToRulingTheGalaxy #BookRecommendation

A Beginner’s Guide To Ruling The Galaxy
By David Solomons

A Beginner’s Guide To Ruling The Galaxy is a humorous Middle Grade book for ages 9 plus and already a hit with some “reading teachers” in schools for reading for pleasure times. David Solomons has also won the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize.
Thanks firstly to Nosy Crow for accepting my request to review.

A brilliantly funny story for 9+ readers about what happens when a galactic princess moves in next door and almost brings about the end of the world, from the bestselling, award-winning author of My Brother is a Superhero.

Gavin’s got a new neighbour and she’s really annoying. Niki follows him everywhere, bosses him about, and doesn’t care that her parents will obliterate Earth with their galactic warships if she doesn’t stop running away from them.

Can Niki and Gavin sort out the alien despots (aka Mum and Dad) and save the planet? Possibly.

Will they become friends along the way? Doubtful…

A hilarious new story from the author of My Brother Is a Superhero, winner of the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize and the British Book Industry Awards Children’s Book of the Year. Perfect for fans of David Baddiel and David Walliams.

Review

A Beginner’s Guide To Ruling The Galaxy is humorous with much hi-jinx in a fast-paced sci-fi adventure.
Children will find it fun finding out about Gavin, who is generally quite a private person and his strange new neighbour, Niki. The quirks and adventure is the type of fun that children can really get stuck into. There is a lot to like in this packed-full book. It’s a book that is great for reading for pleasure alone and with an adult together as there are certain quips that adults would appreciate but children would see very differently, much like in family films, there’s something for everyone.

The book makes me remember tv drama My Parents Are Aliens and Third Rock From the Sun but with the quick humour of the likes of David Walliams. That aside, the book has its own originality too with its own blend of relatable characters, who are interesting to discover more about, throughout its themes of family, friendship and kinship.
The premise of aliens walking among us is always going to be fun, but with the way this is written, the author has nailed it!

#BookReview By Lou of Bodies In The Water By AJ Aberford @AJAberford @HobeckBooks #PoliticalThriller #CrimeFiction #Thriller #IndyPublisher

Bodies In The Water
By AJ Aberford

Bodies In The Water is murky, intriguing, gripping and time will pass you by without you even realising. If you liked tvs Homeland, you’ll like this.

Blurb

An unwilling hero

Inspector George Zammit, of the Maltese Pulizija likes a quiet life, keeping his head down and avoiding trouble. But when he investigates a body floating in the waters of Valletta’s Grand Harbour, he soon finds himself entangled in an international criminal plot which leads him on a perilous adventure.

A powerful crime family

Natasha Bonnici is part of a sophisticated Italian crime family whose attentions turn to the oil riches beneath the Libyan desert, where they encounter Abdullah Belkacem, a Libyan militia leader with big ambitions. Nick Walker sells his Maltese online gaming company to a shady purchaser and finds himself at the centre of Europe’s biggest money laundering operation.

Troubled waters

Set against a backdrop of the world of oil smuggling, the turmoil of North Africa and the seemingly unchecked corruption in the Southern Mediterranean, their paths all collide, with disastrous results.

Review

The Bodies In The Water is highly emotive! Readers will get to know a bit about the Maltese population and the Grand Harbour. It sounds idyillc, but there are dark, murky corners.
This is a story that takes readers into the world of modern-day people trafficking; which happens in many countries and to many people regardless of race, creed, culture; and no longer is it a particular race etc doing the trafficking, people trafficking is done by so many races, cultures etc.

Meet Mobo and Abeao. They are characters who get under your skin and it’s interesting with the story being seen through their eyes in the prologue. There is also a really shady character – Abdullah, who has some rather illicit plans to cease opportunities to make money.

There is a really strong character in Natasha Bonnici, whose early life has been tough, but is also part of a powerful criminal family.

Business and agendas soon show themselves in the fore in the shady characters who are involved in criminality.

Gerald Camilleri of Assistant Commissioner of Organised Crime and Anti-Money Laundering Command is on the case as there are also shady dealings with a gaming company. There is also Inspector George Zammit, whom readers see some of his family life and also meet his daughter – Marianna, which picks up on a different theme – schooling. His life isn’t so quiet as he ends up be on treacherous adventures and investigations.

The style of writing is strong, the themes are hard-hitting and important ones at that and this author knows his stuff and has turned it all into a page-turner of a tightly written plot.