Blog Tour: Come and Find Me by Sarah Hilary

Today, I’m super pleased to be closing the blog tour for Sarah Hilary’s new novel Come and Find Me, published by Headline.

Blurb:

On the surface, Lara Chorley and Ruth Hull have nothing in common, other than their infatuation with Michael Vokey. Each is writing to a sadistic inmate, sharing her secrets, whispering her worst fears, craving his attention.

DI Marnie Rome understands obsession. She’s finding it hard to give up her own addiction to a dangerous man: her foster brother, Stephen Keele. She wasn’t able to save her parents from Stephen. She lives with that guilt every day.

As the hunt for Vokey gathers pace, Marnie fears one of the women may have found him – and is about to pay the ultimate price.

 

What I Say:

This is the fifth novel in the DI Marnie Rome series which sees Marnie Rome and Noah Jake faced with a new evil. A new evil which seems to come from an escaped prisoner, Michael Vokey, who’s sadistic infatuations is just the tip of the iceberg.

The novel opens with such a vivid description it had me gripped – I couldn’t put it down until I had finished this novel.

Again, we see DI Marnie Rome trying to understand and increasingly becoming more and more entangled in the web which is her foster brother’s sick mind, as she grapples with her parents murder. Whereas her partner, DS Noah Jake is also dealing with his own guilt regarding his brother which he just can’t shake.

I really don’t want to give too much away as it will reveal too much of the twisty plot but what I can say is – it is yet another cracking read. I have always enjoyed this series with it’s strong characterisation, social commentary and compelling but twisty plots – and this one was no different. The author’s storytelling and descriptions of London really brings this novel and series to life, to the point you feel you are there right in the action. I also adore the characters of Marnie Rome and Noah Jake and their strong friendship which is at the heart of these books.

This novel doesn’t shy away from hard hitting themes regarding over crowded prisons and the problems which the inmates are facing on a daily basis as well as the psychological aspects of crimes. This makes the social commentary, and the plot even more realistic.

If you haven’t read any of Sarah Hilary’s books I would recommend starting from the very beginning. If you haven’t yet read this novel in the series – where have you been? I would highly recommend!

About the Author:

Sarah Hilary’s debut, Someone Else’s Skin, won the Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year 2015 and was a World Book Night selection for 2016. The Observer’s Book of the Month (‘superbly disturbing’) and a Richard & Judy Book Club bestseller, it has been published worldwide. No Other Darkness, the second in the series was shortlisted for a Barry Award in the US. Her DI Marnie Rome series continued with Tastes Like Fear, and Quieter Than Killing.

To find out more about Sarah Hilary follow her on Twitter @sarah_hilary.

Come and Find Me is out now and can be purchased via Amazon here or Waterstones here.

A massive thanks to Anne Cater and Headline for allowing me to be a part of this tour.

Blog Tour: The Night She Died by Jenny Blackhurst

Today, I’m super excited to be on the next stop for Jenny Blackhurst, The Night She Died blog tour, published by Headline.

Blurb:

On her own wedding night, beautiful and complicated Evie White leaps off a cliff to her death.

What drove her to commit this terrible act? It’s left to her best friend and her husband to unravel the sinister mystery.

Following a twisted trail of clues leading to Evie’s darkest secrets, they begin to realize they never knew the real Evie at all…

What I Say:

I must admit I haven’t quite finished this novel but what I have read has been cracking! I literally can’t put this down.

The opening is one of the best I have ever read and my god it hasn’t let up! The prologue starts with Evie standing on a clifftop thinking about what she will do….

”As the woman lets go of her veil and watches it flutter towards the cliff edge she steps forward and hurls herself into the darkness. A few moments ago they were just lovers, now they are witnesses”.

This image has really stuck with me and now I am just dying to know why. What also has really gripped my attention is the introduction of Rebecca, Evie’s best friend, who although seems very upset and claims to have no idea what happened, knows exactly why she had jumped.

So far, this is a tightly plotted, gripping story and I can’t wait to find out more!

About the Author:

Jenny lives in Shropshire where she grew up dreaming that one day she would get paid for making up stories. She is an avid reader and can mostly be found with her head in a book or hunting Pokemon with her son, otherwise you can get her on Twitter @JennyBlackhurst or Facebook. Her favourite film is Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, but if her children ask it’s definitely Moana.

To find out more about Jenny Blackhurst follow her on Twitter @JennyBlackhurst

Sound intrigued? I would urge you to start reading asap!

The Night She Died is out in Ebook on 6th September and in Paperback on 1st November, and can be ordered from Amazon here.

As always don’t forget to check out all the other fab stops on this blog tour!

Blog Tour: The Perfect Girlfriend by Karen Hamilton

Today, I’m super excited to be kicking off the blog tour for The Perfect Girlfriend by Karen Hamilton, published by Wildfire, part of Headline Publishing.

First up the Blurb:

Meet Juliette. She’s intelligent, driven, committed – and in love.

Juliette loves Nate.

She will follow him anywhere. She’s even become a flight attendant for his airline, so she can keep a closer eye on him.

They are meant to be.

The fact that Nate broke up with her six months ago means nothing. Because Juliette has a plan to win him back.

She is the perfect girlfriend.

And she’ll make sure no one stops her from getting exactly what she wants.

True love hurts, but Juliette knows it’s worth all the pain….

What I say:

There is not one word I can choose to sum up this novel and do it justice.

Juliette is a girl out to win her ex-boyfriend, Nate. She wants to be the perfect girlfriend to him and knows he is the one for her. So deciding to give Nate his space, she watches him from a close distance as she slowly manipulates and transforms herself into the perfect person she thinks he would fall in love with. Because Juliette is a woman scored and will show him what exactly he is missing. Nate shouldn’t have let her go, surely?

The novel is told from the perspective of Juliette, as she goes to great lengths to win Nate back. As the novel progresses, she slowly  adapts her plans to win back the love of her life, while showing us snippets of her childhood giving the reader a glimpse into what makes her tick.

I loved Juliette, even though she came across a psychotic and even catatonic at times her seemingly erratic behaviour made for breath-taking reading. I kept thinking surely this is it, she would get caught – I even read with my hand over my mouth at one point. Weirdly I rooted for her throughout the story, even after all the things she did. I could really empathise with her character, especially when her true motives are revealed (which quite frankly spun the whole story on it’s head). But I will say no more….

One of the stand out things for me is the setting of this novel, which was quite unusual having quite a bit of the action set on an airline and just showed the skill of the author who gave us a flavour of each different country Juliette visited, drawing me deeper into the story.

I mean this book was just hypnotic and actually really disturbing. The lengths Juliette would go kind of freaked me out as it felt very realistic, especially as I was reading this at night so I probably only had myself to blame.

This novel is packed full of pace, tension, disturbing characters filled with passion and psychotic love. What’s not to love? This was a stand out psychological thriller and would urge you to read. I am very much looking forward to seeing what else Karen Hamilton publishes in the future.

About the author:

Karen Hamilton spent her childhood in Angola, Zimbabwe, Belgium and Italy, and developed a love of travel through moving around so much. This led her to a career as a flight attendant, and it was in the air that she thought of the idea for her debut thirller THE PERFECT GIRLFRIEND, which aims to explore not only obsession, but also the true faces behind those who go to work in uniform.

Karen is a recent graduate of the Faber Academy, and has now put down roots in Hampshire to raise her young family with her husband.

To find out more about Karen Hamilton, follow her on twitter @KJHAuthor.

The Perfect Girlfriend is out now on Ebook or released on 22nd March in hardcopy and can be preordered from Amazon here or from Waterstones here.

Big thanks to Anne Cater and Becky Hunter for allowing me to be a part of this tour.

Don’t forget to fly over to the other stops on this blog tour!

Blog Tour Q&A: The Feed by Nick Clark Windo

Today, I’m psyched to be on the next stop on the blog tour for The Feed by Nick Clark Windo, published by Headline. For my stop, I have a Q&A with the author, Nick, to find out a little more about his new novel, his writing process and his favourite thing since being published.

Blurb:

Tom and Kate’s daughter turns six tomorrow, and they have to tell her about sleep.
If you sleep unwatched, you could be Taken. If you are Taken, then watching won’t save you. Nothing saves you.  

Your knowledge. Your memories. Your dreams.
If all you are is on the Feed, what will you become when the Feed goes down?

For Tom and Kate, in the six years since the world collapsed, every day has been a fight for survival. And when their daughter, Bea, goes missing, they will question whether they can even trust each other anymore.

The threat is closer than they realise…

Now over to Nick to find out some more about The Feed…

Welcome to the CKT blog, Nick

Thank you, Rachel, it’s lovely to be here!

To start off with, could you tell us about your new novel, The Feed?

With pleasure. It’s a dystopian thriller with two parents, Tom and Kate, at its heart. The Feed is an implant in the brain, which allows infinite information and immediate communication all at the speed of thought. It’s an amazing tool – until it goes down. At this point when things start to collapse rapidly, and it’s in that post-Collapse world that Kate and Tom’s daughter is abducted. Think you’d be in trouble if you lost your phone? Try doing anything without the Feed, let alone trying to find your abducted child!

The Feed has such an interesting concept, how did you come up with the idea for this?

Thank you, I’m really glad it’s resonating with people. It’s an idea that built up over time. Writers tend to observe the world quite closely, I think, and then imagine potential dramatic consequences. For me our relationship with technology feels ubiquitous these days: we use it without thinking about it any more, and it’s actually changing the physical make-up of our brains. I thought that was an interesting world to explore and quite a terrifying one. But of course a concept isn’t a story. You need humans there, with things happening to them as a consequence of the concept. And quite a lot happens to Tom and Kate.

Did you find it a challenge creating the world in which The Feed exists in? Or did you find it liberating to write about a post-apocalyptic future?

I found it very liberating. If you write a historical novel there’s some obligation to be true to what actually happened. Here it was a world that existed purely in my brain, so I could make my own rules. Obviously you need to have those rules when creating a world, otherwise the whole thing becomes a mess, but I really enjoyed that logical exercise – I read widely and borrowed/stole ideas from articles and magazines about how the future might look and set about building what I hope feels like a credible world. It’s not a world that I hope happens, of course, but one that I think is unfortunately credible at the moment. I don’t want to tub-thumb about anything, but there’s a lot of stuff investigated in The Feed that scares me.

Can you tell us a little bit about your writing process, do you plot your story out first or dive right in and see where it takes you? Or a mixture of both?

It’s different for the novels I’m writing currently – I’m plotting those quite heavily. For The Feed it was a mixture. I knew certain plot points and what used to be the last line of the book early on. Those moments acted like magnets in a way: I knew where the characters had to end up, and how they’d feel about it…then it was a trial and error process of taking them on that physical and emotional journey. Trial and error meant that there were over twenty drafts, but the plot is quite complex so that was entirely necessary…but that’s why I’m plotting the next books quite heavily now!

What books would you recommend for the devoted crime reader?

The book I’ve returned to recently is The Jigsaw Man. It’s not fiction, it’s written by a criminal psychologist about real criminals he’s tried to get into the minds of. It’s chilling and absolutely fascinating.

As a debut author, what has been your favourite thing about being published, so far?

Being published! My gosh, it’s very exciting. But the book deal was just the beginning. I’ve recently been so thrilled to become part of this huge, interconnected blogging world. Now, I’m not just saying this because I’m here: it really is an absolute delight to be welcomed into this world. There is so much love for books and support for authors. And for me that’s especially welcome because…well, have you read The Feed? It doesn’t portray social media in the most positive of lights, so it’s wonderful to have that balanced out by reality!

And finally, are you working on anything at the moment, if so could you tell us a little bit about it without giving too much away?

I am and…not yet! Oh go on, then. I’m working on a few things. One is set in a world very different from The Feed – actually, it’s the real world. But there are a lot of flavours that readers will recognise. Then there’s an idea for another dystopian thriller (different type of apocalypse though). And there might be something else cooking Feed-wise…

Thank you so much, Nick for taking the time to answer my questions.

An absolute pleasure, Rachel, thank you for having me.

About the Author:

Nick Clark Windo studied English Literature at Cambridge University and acting at RADA. As well as writing, he works as a film producer and communications coach. He lives in London with his wife and daughter. The Feed is his first novel.

To find out more about Nick Clark Windo follow him on twitter @nickhdclark.

The Feed is out on 25th January and can be ordered from Amazon here or from Waterstones here.

As always don’t forget to check out all the other fab stops on this tour!