My Latest Book Haul. #BookBloggers #BookBlogger #Books #Blogger #Bloggers

These are the latest books that I have received.

As always, my thanks to the publishers and publicists for the books. I am always grateful for each and every book I receive and always slightly baffled too that people choose to send me books!

Books received for review consideration:

Brightfall by Jamie Lee Moyer.

Published by Jo Fletcher Books on September 5th, 2019.

A stunning cover and the book sounds really interesting too. 

Someone is murdering the Merry Men . . .

It’s been a mostly quiet life since Robin Hood put aside his pregnant wife Marian, turned his back on his Merry Men and his former life and retreated to a monastery to repent his sins . . . although no one knows what was so heinous he would leave behind Sherwood Forest and those he loved most.

But when friends from their outlaw days start dying, Father Tuck, now the Abbott of St Mary’s, suspects a curse and begs Marian to use her magic to break it. A grieving Marian must bargain for protection for her children before she sets out with a soldier who’s lost his faith, a trickster Fey lord, and a sullen Robin Hood, angry at being drawn back into the real world.

It’s not long before Marian finds herself enmeshed in a maze of secrets and betrayals, tangled relationships and a vicious struggle for the Fey throne.

And if she can’t find and stop the spell-caster, no protection in Sherwood Forest will be enough to save her children.

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The Tower of Living and Dying (Empires of Dust #2) by Anna Smith Spark.

Published by Harper Voyager on March 7th, 2019.

I really liked the first book in the Empires of Dust trilogy, A Court of Broken Knives and I’m eager to get around to reading this, the sequel. It is a signed paperback copy too which is always sweet. 🙂

I’m reading this at the moment and it is bloody brilliant, nearly finished and I love it.

KING OF RUIN. KING OF DUST AND SHADOWS. KING OF DEATH. HE WILL RULE ALL. THE KING IS COMING.

Marith Altrersyr – father-killer, dragonlord, leader of the blood-soaked Amrath Army – is keeping his promises. He is determined to become King of all Irlast and take back the seat of his ancestors.

Only Thalia, once high priestess of the Lord of Living and Dying, the holiest woman in the Empire, might stop Marith and his army’s deadly march. But she is torn between two destinies – and if she was to return home, what would she fi nd there? A city on the brink of ruin: diseased, despairing, dying?

Crawling through a tunnel deep under the ruins of her city, Landra Relast vows vengeance. Her family has been burned, her home destroyed, and now Marith – once her betrothed – must die.

But as Landra cuts through the wasteland left in the wake of Marith’s army, she finds that she is not the only one who wishes him ill…

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A Memory Called Empire (Teixcalaan #1) by Arkady Martine.

Published by Tor on April 4th, 2019.

Sounds intriguing though SFF is a very hit or miss genre with me and I have to be in the right mood to read it.

In a war of lies she seeks the truth . . .

Ambassador Mahit Dzmare travels to the Teixcalaanli Empire’s interstellar capital, eager to take up her new post. Yet when she arrives, she discovers her predecessor was murdered. But no one will admit his death wasn’t accidental – and she might be next.

Now Mahit must navigate the capital’s enticing yet deadly halls of power, to discover dangerous truths. And while she hunts for the killer, Mahit must somehow prevent the rapacious Empire from annexing her home: a small, fiercely independent mining station.

As she sinks deeper into an alien culture that is all too seductive, Mahit engages in intrigues of her own. For she’s hiding an extraordinary technological secret, one which might destroy her station and its way of life. Or it might save them from annihilation.

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Call Me Star Girl by Louise Beech.

Published by Orenda Books on April 18th, 2019. 

Orenda Books usually kill it and I have seen nothing but praise for Louise Beech as an author so I can’t wait to read this.

Stirring up secrets can be deadly … especially if they’re yours…

Pregnant Victoria Valbon was brutally murdered in an alley three weeks ago – and her killer hasn’t been caught.

Tonight is Stella McKeever’s final radio show. The theme is secrets. You tell her yours, and she’ll share some of hers.

Stella might tell you about Tom, a boyfriend who likes to play games, about the mother who abandoned her, now back after fourteen years. She might tell you about the perfume bottle with the star-shaped stopper, or about her father …

What Stella really wants to know is more about the mysterious man calling the station … who says he knows who killed Victoria, and has proof.
Tonight is the night for secrets, and Stella wants to know everything…

With echoes of the Play Misty for Me, Call Me Star Girl is a taut, emotive and all-consuming psychological thriller that plays on our deepest fears, providing a stark reminder that stirring up dark secrets from the past can be deadly…

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Breakers by Doug Johnstone.

Published by Orenda Books on May 16th, 2019.

I’ve already read and reviewed the book, I loved it and found it to be a deep and profoundly human story. You can find my review !!HERE!!

A toxic family … a fight for survival…

Seventeen-year-old Tyler lives in one of Edinburgh’s most deprived areas. Coerced into robbing rich people’s homes by his bullying older siblings, he’s also trying to care for his little sister and his drug-addict mum.
 
On a job, his brother Barry stabs a homeowner and leaves her for dead, but that’s just the beginning of their nightmare, because the woman is the wife of Edinburgh’s biggest crime lord, Deke Holt.
 
With the police and the Holts closing in, and his shattered family in devastating danger, Tyler meets posh girl Flick in another stranger’s house, and he thinks she may just be his salvation … unless he drags her down too.

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The Closer I Get by Paul Burston.

Published by Orenda Books on July 11th, 2019.

Sounds nice and dark.

Tom is a successful author, but he’s struggling to finish his novel. His main distraction is an online admirer, Evie, who simply won’t leave him alone.

Evie is smart, well read and unstable; she lives with her father and her social-media friendships are not only her escape, but everything she has.
 
When she’s hit with a restraining order, her world is turned upside down, and Tom is free to live his life again, to concentrate on writing.
 
But things aren’t really adding up. For Tom is distracted but also addicted to his online relationships, and when they take a darker, more menacing turn, he feels powerless to change things. Because maybe he needs Evie more than he’s letting on.
 
A compulsive, disturbingly relevant, twisty and powerful psychological thriller, The Closer I Get is also a searing commentary on the fragility and insincerity of online relationships, and the danger that can lurk just one ‘like’ away…

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From the Wreck by Jane Rawson.

Published by Picador on April 18th, 2019.

It sounds like a really interesting read.

When George Hills was pulled from the wreck of the steamship Admella, he carried with him memories of a disaster that claimed the lives of almost every other soul on board. Almost every other soul.

Because as he clung onto the wreck, George wasn’t alone: someone else – or something else – kept George warm and bound him to life. Why didn’t he die, as so many others did, half-submerged in the freezing Southern Ocean? And what happened to his fellow survivor, the woman who seemed to vanish into thin air?

George will live out the rest of his life obsessed with finding the answers to these questions. He will marry, father children, but never quite let go of the feeling that something else came out of the ocean that day, something that has been watching him ever since. The question of what this creature might want from him – his life? His first-born? To simply return home? – will pursue him, and call him back to the ocean again.

Blending genres, perspectives and worlds, Jane Rawson’s From the Wreck – winner of the Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction Novel- is a chilling and tender story about how fiercely we cling to life, and how no-one can survive on their own.

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A Book of Bones (A Charlie Parker Thriller #17) by John Connolly.

Published by Hodder & Stoughton on April 18th, 2019.

I was late to this series, very late but I loved the previous book, knew that it was a series that I needed to continue and yes, I am one lucky fucker to get an ARC of this. 🙂 

He is our best hope.

He is our last hope.

On a lonely moor in the northeast of England, the body of a young woman is discovered near the site of a vanished church. In the south, a girl lies buried beneath a Saxon mound. To the southeast, the ruins of a priory hide a human skull.

Each is a sacrifice, a summons.

And something in the shadows has heard the call.

But another is coming: Parker the hunter, the avenger. Parker’s mission takes him from Maine to the deserts of the Mexican border; from the canals of Amsterdam to the streets of London – he will track those who would cast this world into darkness.

Parker fears no evil.

But evil fears him . . .

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Purchased Books:

You Were Gone (David Raker Missing Persons #9) by Tim Weaver.

Published by Penguin on February 21st, 2019.

I didn’t realise that this was the ninth book in a series, d’oh! Reviews say that it can easily be read as a standalone though so it is all good. 🙂

I buried you.

I mourned you . . .

But now you’re back.

A woman walks into a police station.

She has no phone and no ID, just a piece of paper that reads ‘David Raker’.

She says she’s his wife.

She looks just like her.

She knows everything about him.

But David buried his wife eight years ago. 

Is this really the woman he loved?

Did he really say goodbye?

Or is he losing his mind?

Raker needs to find out the truth before it’s too late, because he is now the prime suspect in her disappearance . . . 

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Twisted by Steve Cavanagh.

Published by Orion on April 4th, 2019.

I loved Thirteen by Steve Cavanagh when I read it last year so I’m eagerly looking forward to delving into this standalone read of his.

BEFORE YOU READ THIS BOOK
I WANT YOU TO KNOW THREE THINGS:

1. The police are looking to charge me with murder.
2. No one knows who I am. Or how I did it.
3. If you think you’ve found me. I’m coming for you next.

After you’ve read this book, you’ll know: the truth is far more twisted…

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