Goddess of the North Review

Detective Inspector Sara Nayar is a goddess. Literally. A Hindu goddess accidentally brought to England during Queen Victoria’s reign. Working now as a police detective, Sara survives on humanity’s innate faith in law and order.

Sheffield is a city of many gods, however, and when Sara witnesses a murder, she knows the perpetrator is divine. As a goddess of order, she must solve the crime before the god can kill again, but thousands of years living as a human has left her spiritually weak.

Vulnerable in ways she hasn’t felt since leaving India, Sara fights to balance her mortal and immortal lives as the murders around her escalate. And with tensions amongst her fellow divinity on the rise, Sara is running out of time. If she can’t restore order, find balance in the chaos, the city itself might pay the price.

This is a novel that is really about two stories. On the one hand, it’s a police procedural taking place in the British city of Sheffield, with murder, suspects, and investigations worthy of some of the best tv detectives. On the other hand, it’s about gods living among humans, and one of them, just happens to be a crime busting superstar.

This was an enjoyable read and as a lover of crime fiction and fantasy it had everything I want and more. As well as having a great plot and great characters I learnt a lot about Sheffield and Hinduism too which was another aspect that I loved. 5 stars. 

21 Truths About Love Review

Bookshop owner Dan is in financial trouble, regrets leaving teaching & is trying not to get wife Jill pregnant.  

I love a list and, apparently after finishing this book, I also quite enjoy reading about lists! This book is entirely told in lists, which sounds weird, but also quite ingenious and oddly satisfying. Dan writes a kind of diary, all in list format, where he details his life, problems and regrets that he has. He lists books of the month, days since he did stuff and income/expenditure, basically all the usual stuff people make lists about. Sounds a bit mundane and repetitive but it wasn’t. Mainly because it was all delivered with some great humour and emotion. It catalogues the big and little things as well as the funny and the tragic. His relationship with his wife, his bookshop, and his new and ongoing bingo obsession.

What I find so brilliant about this book is that even though it’s all lists, the author still managed to tell a beautiful story about Dan’s life as he builds up to becoming a father for the first time and dealing with his own father leaving him as a child.

This was a brilliant 4 star read.

Unspoken Review

The Unspoken One has been banished for many years, his very existence erased. Ameera must find his true name and summon him if she has any hope of saving her kingdom from war, and herself from marriage to a ruthless king.

The Kingdom of Nur has been suffering for years under Ameera’s father’s rule. She’s bid her time, carefully keeping her secret hidden and waiting to become queen so she can repair what her father has broken. Then an unwanted marriage to the brutal king of Nur’s enemy threatens everything she’s worked towards.

With her wedding drawing near and the future of her kingdom in peril, she finds the forbidden name. She knows The Unspoken One is her last chance to save Nur, but she risks much in summoning him. His magic is not understood, the crime he was banished for is unknown, and speaking his name carries an unbearable punishment.

For Nur, for herself, she must risk it all. Or lose everything she holds dear. She speaks the name too many have paid a painful price for uttering. Nothing, not the kingdom, their lives, or her heart, will ever be the same.

Everything in this stunning YA Fantasy Romance came together perfectly from the setting to the one of the strongest female leads I have ever encountered as a reader. This incredible story is unpredictable from page one and I fell instantly in love with every aspect of it and finished it super quickly.

I do not want to spoil anything for anyone all I can say is you will miss out if you do not read this book.  I wish I could give it more than 5 stars

The Final Chapter Review

David, Samuel, and Julie were childhood friends in the Summer of 1986. Until she disappeared.

Thirty years later, David is a famous author and Samuel is his Publisher. Each receives a Manila envelope with the first chapter of what will be twelve, of a manuscript exposing the TRUTH about what happened that Summer.

There will also be a third recipient.

Each is receiving the document because of his or own failure in the Past.

One failed to listen.

One failed to report what he saw.

One should have spoken out.

And, the sender wants the truth to finally be exposed. But who knows all of their secrets?

I was grabbed from the very start by this book due to the idea of a story within a story and it totally worked for me, I was hooked from the beginning. The narrative is carried out perfectly and the characters are relatable, likeable and well written with the use of childhood memories along with present day really allowing readers to get to know the characters as they develop through the story.

The plot is complexly created through the use of flashbacks and discussions intertwined with the three manuscripts, all of which are identical except for the last chapter which holds the clues to solving the mystery. I found this style unusual and really enjoyable.

The best part that was the ending was unpredictable right up to the last which is a rarity in crime fiction.  I cannot wait to read more of Jerome Loubry’s work. A solid 4 star novel.

Stolen Truth Review

Bree Michaelson wakes up one day feeling drugged and confused, to find her boyfriend, Todd Armstrong, and her infant son, Noah, missing. But why does no one believe her? Lacking witnesses to her pregnancy, a birth certificate to prove a child was born, or a marriage license to prove her invisible husband ever existed, Bree will find it impossible to get the help she so desperately needs to find her baby.

Nevertheless, despite suspicious friends, family, and authorities, Bree sets out to find Todd and Noah. Only when her sister commits her to a hospital psych ward that Bree begins to doubt her own story. In the past, she suffered from a false pregnancy. Is this an imagined recurrence? She must fight to find the truth of what has happened to her-or admit that is all in her own mind.

Stolen Truth is an irresistible psychological thriller that fans of Gone Girl and Girl on a Train will fall completely in love with. It is hard enough to pen a thriller that grabs you from the start and compels you to get on the journey with the protagonist. It is much harder when she is an “unreliable narrator,” one whose perceptions you doubt—just as do all the people she’s trying to convince that she’s been married, pregnant, and had a baby who has disappeared along with his father. However, Henya Drescher has managed this and then some.

This is a compelling and suspenseful story that had me on the edge of my seat and mad me question everything and everyone and the ending was totally believable and mind-blowing. I cannot recommend this book enough I will definitely be reading it again and looking for more work from this author. 5 stars.

Past Grief Review

Kim Brady, third generation NYPD, returns to the job after her father’s recent suicide and catches a career-making case—a mass shooting in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District. There is one eyewitness, Leanne, but she can’t come forward because she’s transgender and she fears coming out. Kim resists her lieutenant’s demands to force Leanne’s cooperation for personal reasons. She’s also being undermined by someone inside the department who is tampering with evidence, threatening the other witness, stalking Leanne.

Kim’s father died under a cloud and her feelings for him are complicated. And as Kim realizes that someone in the department is behind the shooting, her personal feelings clash with her professional mission. That tension stretches her relationship with her fiancé to its breaking point. The mastermind behind the attack presses Kim’s soft spots to gaslight her. Unravelling the elaborate criminal conspiracy forces her to apply the lessons from her father’s experiences.

I found this to be a fast-paced police procedure storyline with short engaging chapters and an action-packed plot that moved quickly and efficiently showcasing the police officers, the good, the bad and sometimes the evil. Every crooked cop makes it harder for good ones to do their jobs. No one hates a crooked crop more than good cops and the determination shown by the good cops in the story to uncover and weed out the bad ones is totally on point.

My only negative is that I found the threat aspect a little unrealistic as Kim had spent her whole career playing by the book and then someone starts threatening her and that changes.  However that didn’t take away from the storyline at all and I am awarding Past Grief 4 stars.

I Thought You Said This Would Work Review

A road trip can drive anyone over the edge—especially two former best friends—in bestselling author Ann Garvin’s funny and poignant novel about broken bonds, messy histories, and the power of forgiveness.

Widowed Samantha Arias hasn’t spoken to Holly Dunfee in forever. It’s for the best. Samantha prefers to avoid conflict. The blisteringly honest Holly craves it. What they still have in common puts them both back on speed dial: a mutual love for Katie, their best friend of twenty-five years, now hospitalized with cancer and needing one little errand from her old college roomies.

It’s simple: travel cross-country together, steal her loathsome ex-husband’s VW camper, find Katie’s diabetic Great Pyrenees at a Utah rescue, and drive him back home to Wisconsin. If it’ll make Katie happy, no favour is too big (one hundred pounds), too daunting (two thousand miles), or too illegal (ish), even when a boho D-list celebrity hitches a ride and drives the road trip in fresh directions.

Samantha and Holly are following every new turn—toward second chances, unexpected romance, and self-discovery—and finally blowing the dust off the secret that broke their friendship. On the open road, they’ll try to put it back together—for themselves, and especially for the love of Katie.

This is a great book, I laughed out loud, I cried, and I beamed whiled reading it. It was entertaining, enthralling, witty and moving. The book is filled to the brim with adventures, worries, courage, forgiveness, discomfort and so much else. I don’t want to give anything away but Ann Garvin has delivered an absolute gem that I cannot recommended enough. A 5 star read.

Under Another Sun Review

A crack in time saves 99

But what do those ominous words mean?

Ray is about to find out, whether he’s ready or not. His ‘deceased’ twin sister, Ravynn, is warning him of impending disaster, but Ray can’t seem to convince himself, or his wife, that he’s not crazy.

But Ray isn’t the only one communicating with his sister. Ravynn’s surviving daughter, Amelia, seems to know things that defy reason, in a time when reason is slowly slipping away.

When Ray’s brother-in-law offers evidence of something terrible coming in the form of prophetic journals Ravynn wrote before her death, Ray can’t doubt the truth any longer. The world is falling down.

The family struggles to hold themselves together as the world they once knew and understood begins to collapse all around them, leading up to a cataclysmic end.

Can Ray save his family in time?

This is a multi-faceted dark and gothic novel that strips down and bares the layers of the human condition and examines human’s ability to decipher logic behind trauma. Ravynn is such a dynamic character and I particularly enjoyed the incorporation of her journal that not only allowed her story to be heard and a sense of foretelling but also allowed her to be ever present.

I also loved the two-timeline element of the story as well. There are so many layers and elements intertwined within the story that I simply could not put it down and I don’t want to give away any of the plot as I want readers to experience in the same vein that I did and so all I will say is I highly recommend it.  I wish I could give it a higher score than 5 stars.

Leaving Me Behind Review

Fed up with her comfortable and dull-to-boredom life, Liv takes the bravest leap, leaving it all behind. Unfortunately, the crux of her issues – her entrenched, well-kept emotional guard – tags along for the ride.

With the spirit of change burning from every pore and a determined plan to break free from her self-oppressed lifestyle to enjoy life’s simplest pleasures, she moves half way across the globe to a peaceful Spanish coastal town.

With an aim to feel whole again, liberated and happy by herself, Liv begins her journey while maintaining weekly-cyber therapy sessions with her long time, questionable shrink.

As Liv finally begins to enjoy her new life and experience the varied goods the exotic country has to offer, a sudden major turn leads Liv to be swept into the most tantalizing roller coaster of her life.

A turn that leaves her questioning everything she thought was right.

The story follows Liv who quits her boring life and makes the conscious decision to escape the norm and push to follow through. She decides to travel to Spain and live there for a while in order to free herself from the daily grind, to leave it all behind and feel more alive and inspired, and start her life anew. She rents a lovely small apartment and makes new friends, but it is her encounter with Sebastian is what really shakes up her boring old patterns. After an amazing and unforgettable one night stand, Liv and Sebastian realize that together they are a perfect match.

Immersing herself fully into a different culture, speaking a different language, and dating a Spanish man was all she needed for her abroad experience to be complete. Falling in love happened when she least expected it and she was not searching for it. They both surrender to passion and don’t worry about love changing their plans.

At the start of the novel, I found it very slow paced and quite hard to get into, but I was determined to stick with. After the initial few chapters, it had captured me and I was along for the steamy ride. Leaving Me Behind is essentially a story about hopes/dreams and finding love in an unexpected place, along with some very steamy scenes filled with desire, love and angst, with a very uplifting ending.

This is a definite 4 stars from me.

The Gilded Cage On the Bosphorus: The Ottomans Review

TWO SULTANS. ONE THRONE.

Liberalism and freedom wilt in the clutches of autocracy. Anarchy and unrest threaten the old order. And powerful enemies plot the fall of the once mighty Ottoman Empire. These are dangerous times…

Istanbul, 1903.

Sultan Murad V has been imprisoned for almost thirty years ever since his younger brother, the autocratic ruler Sultan Abdülhamid II, usurped the Ottoman throne. Murad now languishes behind the high walls and heavily-guarded gates of his ‘gilded cage on the Bosphorus’. But the waters of the Bosphorus run deep: assassins lurk in shadows, intrigue abounds, and scandal in the family threatens to bring destruction of all that he holds dear…

For over six hundred years the history of the Turks and their vast and powerful Empire has been inextricably linked to the Ottoman dynasty. To one family. Can they, and the Empire they built, survive into the new century?

The Gilded Cage on the Bosphorus is the sweeping first book in ‘The Ottomans: The Story of a Family’ historical fiction series. A beguiling and mesmerising tale of love, duty and power set against the opulent backdrop of Imperial Istanbul.

The book follows the lives of the people – fathers, mothers, sons and daughters – who made up this branch of the Ottoman Imperial family in the waning years of the dynasty. It brings to life their joys and tragedies and so opens a window into a part of history that’s is little known- if at all- in the West.

The way in which the book is written was very reminiscent of Hilary Mantel and other great historical fiction writers, the author has a genuine gift of making social history immensely fascinating, informative and enjoyable all-in equal measure.

It is a superbly researched, beautifully detailed and heart-wrenching account that I could not put down and I didn’t want it to end. I smiled, I cried and I hoped and for that reason it is a 5 star read.