#Review By Lou of The Cleaner By Mary Watson #MaryWatson @BantamPress @PenguinUKBooks #PsychologicalThriller

The Cleaner
By Mary Watson

Perhaps don’t underestimate The Cleaner in your life, if you have one or know one in this tightly written, page-turning psychological thriller.
Give a cleaner a key to turn to enter your home and give your life…
The Cleaner is a worldwide debut which is perfect for psychological thriller fans and fans of Lisa Jewell and Harriet Tyce.
Discover more as you sweep through this blog post to the blurb and my full review below, then find out a bit more about the author.

Blurb

It’s not dust she’s looking for.
It’s dirt.

Esmie is supposed to be invisible. Just a cleaner with a foreign accent that no one quite has time to place. Her uniform of leggings and a duster allows her to explore the homes of the wealthy, unseen; an outsider creeping around the edges of privilege.

But as she sweeps through the exclusive Woodlands gated neighbourhood, cleaning is the last thing on her mind. Treading silently over the polished wooden floorboards and cloud-soft carpets, Esmie gathers up the mess of broken marriages, quiet deceptions and careless failures. She tucks away their fragments, keeping them safe. For now.

Because one of the residents took from her the person she loves most. She’s not here to clean; she’s here for revenge – and she’ll get it using the weapons her employers unwittingly handed her along with the keys to their homes: their own secrets…

This beautifully sinister, propulsive page-turner that explores themes of identity and privilege is perfect for fans of Harriet Tyce and Lisa Jewell.

Review

A key to someone’s house is like gold. All you have to do is turn the key and you can uncover all sorts of things about a person, including their secrets…
Give a cleaner a key and they are legitimately in your home, but how much can one like Esmie be trusted?

The Cleaner tells the story of Esmie, she’s just another ordinary, rather invisible cleaner, or is she? A crime is committed, but is she innocent or guilty?

If you have a cleaner for whatever reason or are thinking of getting one, this book may make you see this job in a different light. They see and hear everything as they go about their daily business of entering people’s homes to clean them for their clients. There’s no hiding place as secrets are discovered by their all seeing eyes. Esmie is certainly a cleaner who doesn’t just have the task of cleaning focused in her mind, she wants to know so much more by snooping around.
You’ll have to read the book to find out what she does with the valuable information she collects about her clients.

The tension that builds creates a sinister feeling that grows as the plot goes on. It pulsates, getting heavier and heavier in atmosphere, propelling the storyline increasingly onwards into what is a compelling page-turner.

About Mary Watson

Mary Watson is from South Africa and now lives on the west coast of Ireland.

She has a PhD from the University of Cape Town, where she taught for many years.

She won the Caine Prize for African Writing for her adult publishing in South Africa, and in 2014 was named on the Africa39 list of writers under 40 with the potential to define trends in African literature.

Her YA novels have been nominated for the Irish Book Awards and the Carnegie medal.

The Cleaner is her worldwide adult debut.

#Review by Lou of An Almost A Perfect Summer By Jill Mansell @JillMansell @headlinepg @RandomTTours #AnAlmostPerfectSummer #BookRecommendation

An Almost A Perfect Summer
By Jill Mansell

Jill Mansell’s books create the right atmosphere, warmth and some great humour. Almost A Perfect Summer is her latest stand-alone book. Find out more in the blurb and what I thought about it in my review below:

The heartwarming, brand-new novel from Sunday Times bestselling author Jill Mansell*

Nick is the most intriguing man Nella has met in a while. He’s a 9 in the looks department (no one gets a 10), he makes her laugh, and he keeps her company when she ends up in A&E. But they live hundreds of miles apart.

Then Nella loses her job. There’s a perfect role on offer at a Cotswolds holiday retreat. The catch is that her boss would be Nick. And that makes Nick the one man she can’t risk falling in love with.

While Nella struggles with her feelings, a Hollywood star has found a haven at the retreat. Lizzie’s sworn off people – especially men – until her friendly new neighbours entice her out of her shell. Maybe she needs a flirtation – with gorgeous Nick, perhaps? Not with taciturn local Matthew, though, who definitely isn’t a member of her fan club.

Then an astonishing secret revealed changes everything . . .
The scene is set for a fabulous new novel full of friendship, warmth and romance.

Review

First page read and hooked in! Nella has a rather unfortunate time of things. She is in the Cotswolds and lands herself in hospital, where she meets Nick. Things look up, he’s quite the caring type as he ensures she makes it safely back to Manchester, but she receives the bad news that she’s lost her job. Things then look up when Nick takes real interest and gives her a concierge job within his luxury holiday home complex.
Nella’s life is a bit like the game unfortunately/fortunately playing out in someone’s life and it’s written brilliantly. She’s easy to be captivated by and want something fabulous to happen for her.

Lizzie is another main character in the plot who crosses paths with Nick. She’s sworn off men and is needing somewhere to write a book. She’s an intriguing character.
A few others enter the scene who it’s also fascinating to find out how their lives develop. There’s so much to discover.

An Almost A Perfect Summer is full of friendship, romance and intrigue that captivates until the end.

An Almost A Perfect Summer is beautifully written with each page drawing you in deeper into the zen of reading.

Buy Links:

Waterstones WH Smith

#BookExtract of The Watchers of Pancarrack Moor @TerriNixon @PiatkusBooks @RandomTTours #HistoricalFiction

Today I am on the blog tour for the book, Watchers of Pancarrack Moor. Thanks to the author Terri Nixon I can share a short extract of the book to whet your appetite. First, check out the blurb and then onto the exciting part of a sneak peak of the book.

Blurb

1931, Cornwall.

Gwenna Rosdew had no choice but to step up as head of the family after her father was arrested for his role in a smuggling scandal. As his release date nears, she must start planning her own future – but when her journey of self-discovery leads her down an unexpected path, Gwenna must decide just how much danger she is willing to endure.

Meanwhile, a menacing discontent grows within Dartmoor Prison, and a young convict must quickly find his feet after making powerful enemies on both sides of the wall. As the rumblings threaten to erupt into a full-scale riot, Daniel must put his faith in an unlikely ally, or risk not making it out of the prison alive.

When explosive events cause their two worlds to collide, the lines between right and wrong begin to blur, and both Gwenna and Daniel must decide which side of that line they are prepared to stand on . . .

Extract

Geordie walked slowly back towards the village, his mind moving ahead to next Thursday and the visit to his daughter. He tried to suppress his uncharitable thoughts towards Roderick Lawton; the man had actually seemed pretty decent, and he was only trying to make the best of a difficult situation. But the thought of Tilly calling him ‘Daddy’ cut deeper than Geordie had expected it to, although he himself had to accept the blame – so much damage had been done by the way he’d left his family behind, and it was time to put things right. If it wasn’t too late.

The road was deserted as he passed the church, so when he heard the slam and bounce of a wooden gate behind him he turned in surprise. He flashed his torch into the bearded face of someone he didn’t recognise, an instant before the man barrelled into him and sent him staggering into the school fence. The torch flew from his hand and went out, but another light bobbed into view, and a shout from the churchyard galvanised him.

‘Don’t just stand there, get him!’

Geordie followed the wavering light that picked out the shape of the man, who had now scrambled over the locked school gate next door, and into the playground. The shouter was still struggling with the church gate, so Geordie snatched up his own torch and took off, still not knowing whether he ought to be helping the hunter or the prey. He vaulted the school gate, and in the yard he found the runner eyeing up his chances of escaping over the bicycle shed; his hands were already on top of the half-wall, ready to boost himself up.

‘Get him, Geordie!’ The shouter was scaling the school gate as well now, and his use of Geordie’s name made the decision easier.

The runner had climbed onto the low wall, and was reaching up to grab the edge of the tin roof when Geordie reached him and seized one leg. The limb jerked violently under his hand, but Geordie hung on, and then wrapped his arms around both legs as they left the top of the wall. He pulled hard, and his captive let out a yell; both men fell backwards, and Geordie let go and managed to twist away in time to avoid the full weight of the escapee landing on him. The man grunted and lurched to his feet, but before he could take his first step, Geordie lunged after him and snagged his trouser leg again, pulling hard and spilling the man to the ground once more.

‘Good job!’

Torchlight played over the felled runner, and the newcomer straddled him, pulling a set of handcuffs from his coat pocket. When he’d secured the escapee’s hands, he stood up and turned, and Geordie was startled to recognise Bobby Gale. Of all the people he’d have expected to be on the right side of the law, Bobby was the last. And he hadn’t joined the police, as far as anyone knew, so where had he got the handcuffs?

Bobby swiped a hand irritably through his wild mat of dark hair, and flashed his torch into his quarry’s eyes. ‘Lie still, Stibby, you moron. It’s finished.’

Geordie had a hundred questions, but couldn’t decide which one to ask, so he just accepted Bobby’s thanks, and helped him pull the fugitive to his feet. ‘Want any help getting him . . . wherever he’s meant to be?’

‘Wouldn’t say no,’ Bobby admitted. ‘Mr Stibson here needs to go back to the police house down in Caernoweth.’

‘Why were you chasing him?’

‘He tried to break into the Tinner’s Arms. And Brewer thinks he’s the one been smashing the office windows over at the clay pit.’ Stibson twisted, with a strong word of protest, but Bobby cuffed him lightly on the side of the head. ‘Shut up, we’re not interested.’

Geordie shook his head. ‘No, I mean why were you chasing him?’

‘Oh. I was just passing the police house after he got away from Brewer,’ Bobby said. ‘Brewer asked me for help, that’s all. Quite a run across the moor, this one’s led me, too. Now, you goin’ to help, or what?’

Geordie studied him for a moment, still unsure, then nodded. ‘Let’s get him up to my place, we can take my van back to town.’

Half an hour later Nigel Stibson was back in custody at the Caernoweth police house, awaiting transport to the Truro station. Geordie heard Sergeant Brewer reading him the riot act, before he came back into the office and offered Geordie a cup of tea by way of thanks. Geordie declined, and, with his thoughts turning to supper he opened the door to leave, but there seemed to be a silent conversation going on between him and Bobby. Geordie watched the raised eyebrows, shrugs and nods for a moment, before losing patience and stepping out into the hall.

‘Goodbye, gents.’

‘Wait,’ Sergeant Brewer said, and Geordie turned back, his own eyebrows exaggeratedly raised, in mockery of their theatrics.

Brewer, to his credit, gave a brief grin of acknowledgement. ‘Sorry. Look, Sargent, come in for a minute. Get off home, Bobby, you’ve got an early start if you’re on the boats.’

Bobby clapped Geordie on the arm as he passed him. ‘Thanks again. I’d have lost him if you hadn’t got stuck in.’

Geordie closed the main door behind him, and came back into the office. Patrick Brewer, who’d been Caernoweth’s principle police officer for only a little over a year and was apparently a huge improvement on the previous incumbent, sat behind his desk and eyed Geordie with an unsettlingly direct gaze.

About the Terri Nixon

Terri was born in Plymouth in 1965. At the age of 9 she moved with her family to North Hill, Cornwall, a small village on the edge of Bodmin Moor, where she discovered a love of writing that has stayed with her ever since. She also discovered apple-scrumping, and how to jump out of a hayloft without breaking any bones, but no-one’s ever offered to pay her for doing those.

Terri also writes crime as R.D. Nixon, and is the author of the Clifford-Mackenzie Crime series, set in a small community in the Scottish Highlands. She now lives in Plymouth again, and works in the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business at Plymouth University.

#Review By Lou of The Torments By Michael J. Malone @michaeljmalone1 @OrendaBooks #AnnieJacksonMysteries #Gothic @RandomTTours #BlogTour

The Torments
By Michael J. Malone

For a sinisterly creepy thriller, The Torments is the place to go… if you dare! I’m bravely on the Orenda Books/Random T. Tours blog tour for the new book by Michael J. Malone. Check out the blurb and my review below.

Blurb

Annie surged forward, but she was too slow, too late.
A hand came over and down, and she felt a sharp pain at the back of her neck.
Then all became smoke, and silence.

Hiding from the world in her little white cottage on the shores of a loch, Annie Jackson is fighting to come to terms with the world of the murmurs, a curse that has haunted female members of her family for centuries.

While she is within the ancient, heavy stone of the old dwelling, the voices merely buzz, but the moment she steps outside the door they clamour to torment her all over again, bringing with them shocking visions of imminent deaths.

Into this oasis comes her adoptive mother, Mandy McEvoy, begging for Annie’s help. Mandy’s nephew Damien has gone missing, after dropping off his four-year old son at his mother’s home.

Unable to refuse, but terrified to leave her sanctuary, Annie, with the help of her brother Lewis, is drawn in to a secretive, seductive world that will have her question everything she holds dear, while Lewis’ life may be changed forever…

The second book in the critically acclaimed Annie Jackson Mysteries series, The Torments is both a contemporary gothic thriller and a spellbinding mystery that deeps deep into a past that should, perhaps, remain undisturbed…

Review

The Torments is hauntingly good. Beware, it might keep you awake at night with its compelling, sinister nature that locks your spine in place, save for a tingling chill and fixes your eyes on the pages.

Loch’s, they sit in the scenic landscape of Scotland. You could even say, they sit somewhere between nature’s beauty and the sinister. This one is closer to the sinister, alongside a lone white cottage. Lingers, is a world of curses and murmurs and a feeling of being trapped. What seems on the surface of it, like a sanctuary from the rest of the world, proves to be anything but this.

Annie is an interesting character. She can see when someone is going to die. All she can do is try to warn people of certain aspects that will undoubtedly lead to death, but it doesn’t necessarily work like that.

Lewis and Annie do end up travelling back to the dark streets of Glasgow, which have, perhaps a slightly less sinister feel, but have something dark in the atmosphere of some of them non-the-less. Mandy’s nephew has gone mysteriously missing, so in the process, Annie also tries to quieten the haunting murmurs so she can help search for him.

The chapters alternate between Lewis and Annie, which throws up another thread with the characters Ben and Sylvia from when they were at a rather creepy boarding school. This then intertwines with the mystery of finding Damien.

With Scottish folklore, some supernatural activity and a mystery to solve, it’s got a bit of everything in it that would suit the reading appetites of many.

#Review By Lou of Living is a Problem by Doug Johnstone @OrendaBooks @RandomTTours #TheSkelfs #SkelfSummer #LivingIsAProblem #CrimeFiction

Living is a Problem
By Doug Johnstone

Review By Louise

The Skelfs series has been SHORTLISTED for the McIlvanney Prize for Best Scottish Crime Book of the Year
(three times), the Capital Crime Best Independent Voice, and Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year (twice).
Living is a Problem is the latest book in the series, of which I am on the blog tour for with a reivew, first, onto the blurb.

Blurb

The Skelf women are back on an even keel after everything they’ve been through. But when a funeral they’re conducting is attacked by a drone, Jenny fears they’re in the middle of an Edinburgh gangland vendetta.
At the same time, Yana, a Ukrainian member of the refugee choir that plays with Dorothy’s band, has gone missing. Searching for her leads Dorothy into strange and ominous territory.
And Brodie, the newest member of the extended Skelf family, comes to Hannah with a case: Something or someone has been disturbing the grave of his stillborn son.
Everything is changing for the Skelfs … Dorothy’s boyfriend Thomas is suffering PTSD after previous violent trauma, Jenny and Archie are becoming close, and Hannah’s case leads her to consider the curious concept of panpsychism, which brings new danger, while ghosts from the family’s past return to threaten their
very lives…

Review

The Skelf’s are back!!! This time the women try to bring the undertakers business into the 21st century, whatever it takes to drag it there. It is as far as you can get from a normal family-run undertaker business. It isn’t everyday that funerals become under siege by a drone attack.

There’s an overarching sinister feel to this book from someone or something disturbing the grave of a stillborn to panpsychism.

This was the first time I had heard of panpsychism and apparently it’s from way back in history but every so often makes a resurgence. To put in brief and from what I looked up, panpsychism is “a philosophical theory asserting that a plurality of separate and distinct psychic beings or minds constitute reality”. “It can be found in environmentalism,” which is one of the themes of the book. Panpsychism in Living Is A Problem becomes very dangerous indeed.

The human psyche is often fascinating, so to add this and Thomas’s PTSD from a traumatic experience really gets into the depth of the characteristics of the characters.

The Skelf’s series is one I recommend. I’ve read and reviewed most of them and the story development becomes increasingly compelling as does seeing what happens next in the Skelf’s lives and of course there’s always a mystery to be solved. With all that happens to the characters in this latest in the series, no wonder Living Is A Problem.

#Review By Lou of The Opposite of Lonely By Doug Johnstone @doug_johnstone @OrendaBooks #TheSkelfs @RandomTTours #BlogTour #TheSkelfs #Skelfaholics #TheOppositeOfLonely

The Opposite of Lonely
By Doug Johnstone

By Louise Cannon

The Skelf’s are back with unusual cases in this 5th instalment, which can also be read as a stand-alone. Discover more in the blurb and then my review below.

Blurb

Even death needs company…

The Skelf women are recovering from the cataclysmic events that nearly claimed their lives. Their funeral-director and private-investigation businesses are back on track, and their cases are as perplexing as ever.

Matriarch Dorothy looks into a suspicious fire at an illegal campsite and takes a grieving, homeless man under her wing. Daughter Jenny is searching for her missing sister-in-law, who disappeared in tragic circumstances, while grand-daughter Hannah is asked to investigate increasingly dangerous conspiracy theorists, who are targeting a retired female astronaut … putting her own life at risk.

With a body lost at sea, funerals for those with no one to mourn them, reports of strange happenings in outer space, a funeral crasher with a painful secret, and a violent attack on one of the family, The Skelfs face their most personal – and perilous – cases yet. Doing things their way may cost them everything…

Tense, unnerving and warmly funny, The Opposite of Lonely is the hugely anticipated fifth instalment in the unforgettable Skelfs series, and this time, danger comes from everywhere…

Review

Secrets, arson, assault, death in Edinburgh means the Skelfs are back!
If you’ve not met the Skelfs yet, they are a family who own and work in a funeral parlour and as private investigators.

Dorothy, the matriarch of the family is tasked to do a funeral at an illegal campsite, when she also meets a homeless man. Things are far from straight-forward with crime hot on the tail and getting worse and darker as time goes on.

Jenny is tasked with finding the body of her ex-husband, stolen by her unhinged sister in law.

Hannah is asked to investigate conspiracy theorists targeting a once prominent, now retired female astronaut, whom she is initially starstruck by.

The book brings up thought-provoking topics such as dying alone. which brings emotion with it. The odd thing is, there is a funeral crasher. A person, with issues of his own, just turns up to funerals, those that are not attended by anyone, so, therefore “the opposite of lonely” comes into it.

There is a lot of compassion from the funeral directors/private investigators, which counteracts the grievous crimes, giving it some warmth and heart, also some humour pricks in a bit.

The chapters are short, making for brisk reading and with all the mysterious deaths and the warmth of characters, the strong scenery, this is another great read.