eProof Review - The Mystery Guest

Oh boy, where do I start with The Mystery Guest? I liked the first outing with Molly, The Maid, but when I discovered that there was going to be a sequel, I was very hesitant over the announcement. To me, The Maid felt really good and fairly solid as a stand-alone and, because of this, I couldn’t see how the sequel would work.

Title and Author: The Mystery Guest by Nita Prose

Publisher: HarperCollins

Bought, Borrowed or Gifted: Gifted by UK publisher via NetGalley in exchange for honest review/reaction

Buy From (Affiliate): uk.bookshop.org

Set around four years after the events of The Maid, Molly is now Head Maid at the Regency Hotel and the hotel is about to open its new Tearoom with a reclusive author doing a press conference. But when the author falls dead before he could announce his news, Molly finds her trying to figure out what is happening at the hotel.

Audiobook Review - Mother Daughter Murder Night

Let’s start the blogging new year with one of the rare audiobooks I listened to over the December period (I would have listened to more, but I was made redundant and it effected my reading and audiobooking more than I realised). Now, this one I bought and I started this, thinking it would be one thing but it turned into another. 

Title and Author: Mother Daughter Murder Night by Nina Simon

Publisher: HarperCollins

Bought, Borrowed or Gifted: Audiobook Purchased

Buy From (Affiliate): uk.bookshop.org

Lana Rubicon is a high-powered businesswoman with lots of be proud of. But when she faints one morning and discovers that she has cancer, Lana is forced to live her with estranged daughter, Beth, and her granddaughter, Jack. 

When Beth discovers a body while kayaking one morning, one of the male lead detectives believes she is a prime suspect, much to Lana’s furious. While Beth wants Lana to recover and stay out of it, Lana can’t. She doesn’t trust the Police, even though the female lead detective seems to have a good head on her shoulders. Lana decides to look into the case herself and prove Jack’s innocence - even if that means putting on a wig and leaving the house for the the first time in months. 

Soon, all three Rubicon women are looking into the murder. Butt can a murder really bring these three very different women together? And will they catch the killer?

Audiobook April - Mini-Reviews

Another day, another mini-review write-up on two audiobooks: one I got for review (in exchange for an honest review/reaction, of course) and the other from my local library (because why not!) 

We have (for review) One of Our Ministers Is Missing by Alan Johnson and the other (from library's audiobook app) Miss Marple's Final Cases by Agatha Christie!

Audiobook Mini-Review - River of Silver

I can already see you looking at this and going "err... Andrew... you do realise that this is a collection of short stories/extracts that are HUGELY spoilery for the Daevabad Trilogy, right?". And yes, I knew that going in, but there is a logic to my madness. 

I have always been curious over this series. You guys rave about this series and I feel that this would be completely up my street. But, I've been a little chicken to try it in case the series didn't live up to the hype so, when I saw the audiobook on NetGalley, I knew I had to try it out and maybe, this would be my In for the series and would help me decided whether I should give this series a try and, if so, whether to read this series or to audiobook it... 

Title and Author: The River of Silver: Tales from the Daevabad Trilogy by S. A. Chakraborty

Publisher: HarperVoyager

Bought, Borrowed or Gifted: Gifted by UK publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review/reaction. 

This is a collection of short stories taken before, during and after the events of the trilogy, giving voice to characters fans love, hate and some that never got the chance to talk...

NetGalley Review - Whisper Island

Title And Author: Whisper Island by Carissa Ann Lynch

Publisher: HarperCollins/One More Chapter

Bought, Borrowed or Gifted: eProof gifted by UK publisher in exchange for honest review/reaction while Audiobook’s borrowed from local library via BorrowBox app. 

We all know the plot. I mean, Agatha Christie was the first to do it with And Then There Were None, but we’ve seen this done in murder mystery and thrillers since then. Four US college art students – Riley, Mia, Sammy and Scarlett – decide to go to an island in Alaska to work on their art and their friendship. But when they arrive on Whisper Island, they realise that something is very wrong. The island is nothing like the photos Sammy’s brother sent. Then Sammy’s brother, Rob, and his new girlfriend, Opal, arrive unexpectedly, throwing the group through a loop as Rob is Mia’s ex, and Scarlett and Rob seem to have a sudden connection. Then the murders starts...

Blog Tour Review - Mirrorland

Am always a tad iff-y on doing reviews for blog tours as what if I don’t like the book? Where do I go from there? I don’t want to ask to be removed if I dislike/DNF a book. So, when WriteReads messaged and went “You like thrillers, right?”, I was intrigued, and when I read the blurbs for Mirrorland, I was very much on the fence (it was the US blurb that swung it for me. The UK made me very curious – like with different cover art for different countries, blurbs are different as well to entice and intrigue the reader to picking up the book and reading it).

It’s been twelve years since Cat saw her identical twin sister, El. Twelve years since Cat ran away from Scotland to LA. Twelve years of no contact. But now, news of El’s disappearance has forced Cat to come back. Come back to the family home where El and her husband, Ross, live.

But being back at 36 Westery Road is not the welcome Cat wants. When the girls were growing up, they created a dark imaginary world – Mirrorland – full of pirates, clowns, witches. Cat hasn’t thought of this world in twelve years, but the world is creeping back into Cat’s mind. Every dark corner hides a secret or a long-buried ghost. What’s worse is that someone has left Cat clues in nearly every room. A treasure hunt that leads straight into the dark heart of Mirrorland, the truth of El’s disappearance and the heart of Mirrorland’s creation.

3 Christies, 3ish Weeks... What Was I Thinking?!

While in the mist of my Easter Break, I went down a bit of rabbit hole with audiobooks and going "Sod it! Let me do my weird thing" and Audible decide to do a huge sale on all their audiobooks (I become a member again. No idea why. Oh yes, the offer of three months for 99p per month.) And, like the basic so&so, I love a good sale. And, finally, I decide to get those Agatha Christie's I've had my eye on: Cards on the Table. And then, a few days later, The Hollow and after a day of listening to The Hollow, Five Little Pigs. 

This is the order I bought them and listened to them, but if you are a Christie fan, all of these are Poirot investigations. Cards on the Table is his 15th outing, Five Little Pigs (or Murder is Retrospect, depending where you live in the world) is Poirot's 25th and The Hollow (or Murder After Hours, again depending where you live in the world) is the 26th instalment. 

So, yes, am listening to them in the wrong order and yes, I got a little sick of Christie last year so had to quit her for a while. I had plan to read other crime authors from the Golden Age of Crime (Dorothy L Sayers's Whose Body, Joesphine Tey's Daughter of Time and Ngaio Marsh's A Man Lay Dead to name a few) and some newer authors (PD James and Ruth Rendell among others), but Christie is the Queen of Crime and when these title are under a fiver, how was I to refuse?

Ok, going to be keep of each of these and I don't want this post to be too long. 

Cards on the Table is a locked-room mystery: four guests at a party play the card game Bridge while the host is in chair by the fire. No one enters or leave the room, but by the end of the night, the host has been stabbed and one of the four did it. The host, before he was murdered, believed these four had killed once before and got away with it. But who among the four has just killed again, and will they get away with it? 

The Hollow is a different animal. Poirot is invited to lunch with his holiday home neighbours in the country. When he turns up, he discovers a man dying by the side of the pool, his wife standing over him. He was shot and the wife is holding the gun. The wife claims she picked the gun ups without thinking when she discovered her dying husband. Is she telling the truth or did she pull the trigger? 

And Five Little Pigs is, again, completely different. Poirot is visited in his London flat by a young woman. She is going to be married soon, but she wants Poirot is look into her past. Sixteen years ago, when she was a child, her father was poisoned and her mother was arrested and sent to jail for it. But the now grown-up daughter isn't so such. She believes her mother is innocent and asked Poirot to investigate. If it wasn't her mother who killed her father, one of their five house guest poisoned him and let an innocent woman go to jail...

Audiobook Review - Starfell: Willow Moss and the Lost Day

• Title And Author: Starfell: Willow Moss and the Lost Day by Dominique Valente
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Physical, eBook or Audiobook: Audiobook & eBook
• Bought, Borrowed or Gifted: eProof Gifted by publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review and Audiobook borrowed from local library via BorrowBox
• Length: 288 Pages or 5 Hours 19 Minutes

I’m not exactly sure how this fell onto my radar, but I’ve known about this title since last year. It came out round the same time as the second book in the Nevermoor series (Another middle-grade series I really need to read as I’ve heard nothing but wonderful things about it!) by Jessica Townsend came out and people were mentioning the two quite closely, though Starfell feels more suited to younger readers compared to Nevermoor. 

In Starfell, magic is slowly coming and Willow Moss, youngest in the Moss family of witches, has the least powerful gift of finding lost things. Like keys, glasses or wooden teeth. Useful, but not exactly exciting compared to her mother and her two older sisters… 

So when the most powerful witch, Moreg Vaine, comes to Willow and ask for her help, Willow can’t say no. For you see, last Tuesday has gone missing. Not from Moreg’s memory but from everyone’s. Last Tuesday has gone and, without it, the universe could unravel.

Audiobook Review - Murder At The Vicarage

• Title And Author: The Murder At The Vicarage by Agatha Christie
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Physical, eBook or Audiobook: Audiobook
• Bought, Borrowed or Gifted: Bought
• Length: 304 Pages or 8 Hours 12 Minutes

My first Agatha Christie of the Year. And I am planning to read a lot more (I have … hang on, let me check my Goodreads To Be Read list … six.) Hopefully, I will try and read them all this year. I want to read more crime/mystery books this years as well as a few other genres. But getting away from the point, my first Agatha Christie of 2020 and my first, real Miss Marple novel. 

And while I do have one Miss Marple on my kindle - Sleeping Murder - and I do keep wondering about two or three other titles, I keep hearing this is a good place to start with Marple. So, when I saw just before Christmas that this was on a One Day Deal on Audible for 99p, I jumped at it, only to hesitant a little. 

Why, I hear you ask? Because I have tried to read a sampler of the book on my kindle multiply times and I can never seem to get past the first few pages. I just don’t click with it. But I hoped, when I decided to press play, that I would just go with it and hopefully, I would get it as I went. 

“Anyone who murdered Colonel Protheroe would be doing the world at large a service!” Careless remark from the parson to his wife, only his words come back to haunt him when he discovered the Colonel, shot in the head, in the vicarage’s study. The people of St Mary Mead are shocked: who could have done such a thing? The wife? Her lover? The Colonel’s daughter? The newcomer whose past is a mystery? The doctor? The parson himself? 

But living in this picturesque English village lives one Miss Jane Marple, and she has her own thoughts on the murder…

Book Review - The Witch's Blood

• Title And Author: The Witch’s Blood by Elizabeth and Katharine Corr
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Physical, eBook or Audiobook: Physical 
• Bought, Borrowed or Gifted: Gifted by publisher & authors in exchange for an honest reaction/review
• Length: 416 Pages

I’ve been holding off reading this for a while. After finding myself blitzing the second book in the series, Witch’s Tears, I’ve been a little hesitant to go back and finish this series off. I knew I would, but I never felt ready, if that makes sense. Plus, if you guys have follow the blog or any of my social medias, you know I have a tendency to start a series but NEVER EVER FINISH THEM! 

So, imagine my surprise when I was chatting to the authors on social media one day at work and went “Oh hell, I’m ready!”. And because of Murder Month round the corner, I had to slip it in somewhere. And when I did, I found time and hammered it out over a week (or, if we are being super picky, four sittings). 

After the devastating events of Witch’s Tears, Merry will stop at nothing to save her brother Leo. Even if that means ignoring her coven’s orders to do so. But doing so has unforeseen consequences for the teenage witch. As she and Leo are forced to confront evil from past and present and her powers growing, how far are they will to go to save the people close to them? 

So… where do we begin?

Favourite Black Character In Fiction

I am thrilled to be involved in this as, recently, it was report that one percent of children's book have BAME (Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic) main characters in British children's book. ONLY ONE PERCENT! So, when I heard of Black Enough, I jumped at the chance to be involved!

Black Enough is a collection of stories, written by some of most acclaimed black American authors writing for teens, talking about what it means to be young and black in America.

Edited by Ibi Zoboi and with an introduction from the kickass June Sarpong, this collection includes authors such as Dhonielle Clayton, Nic Stone, Jason Reynolds and others. And now more than even, we need these types of stories to be told.

And as a gay white man, I think I need to educate myself better with the world around me. Hence why I wanted to be involved in this tour.

Plus, hearing what these authors said was too delicious not to past up!

Now, I have put the video of Favourite Black Character via Blogger and YouTube for your viewing pleasure. I also popped up the trailer for the book & one other video which I hope fits. And before I hand you over to these videos, I want to thank HarperCollins for asking me to be involved and sorry for me screaming via email going "YES!!!" and being quite impatient over it. Thank you/sorry.

Now, over to the cool authors!