May Mini-Review - What Walks These Walls

Another day, another mini-review and this book is one I did a blog tour for! Yes, I finally read a book that I did a blog tour for! WHO WOULD HAVE KNOWN I CAN ACTUALLY DO THIS!?

Title and Author: What Walks These Halls by Amy Clarkin

Publisher: The O'Brien Press

Bought, Borrowed or Gifted: Gifted by the publisher in exchange for an honest review/reaction and to partake in online blog tour

Buy from (Affiliate): Bookshop.org 

Hyacinth House is the most haunted house in Ireland. So haunted in fact, that it's not reported about at all. Raven doesn't remember what happened in Hyacinth House five years ago. Her father died in that house during a paranormal investigation and, though everyone says it was a terrible accident, Rave is certain that it was her fault.

So when her younger brother, Arthur, decides to start up the family business of paranormal investigating and he's asked to investigate Hyacinth House for a house sale, he can't resist even though Raven is horrified by the idea...

Éabha can see and hear things no one else can. She's not sure if it's emotions from the past, ghosts or something else, but she decides that she has to find out. When she crosses paths with Arthur and his ragtag team of paranormal hunters, she thinks it's a great place to start.

But everyone has a secret or two to hide. And Hyacinth House has its own as well...

Extract Of The Suburbs

I have an extract for you all today. And yes, it's a not fantasy or crime. I have checked and yes, I am feeling well. Honest. 

This extract is part of the Tales of the Suburbs by Justin David. Prequel novella of Kissing the Lizard and The Pharmacist and part one of the Welston World Saga, we follow Jamie who dreams of escaping his small town to be with the those strange yet beautiful creatures he sees in Smash Hits magazine. 

But being in a small town under the reign of Margaret Thatcher and trying to discover who you are isn't exactly easy. Over the course of Jamie's teen years where he survives secondary school, teen problems and art college where he follows in love with Billy. But then what? Does he escape to London or return to the safety of West Midlands...?

I am thrilled to be sharing an extract with you guys (this is from chapter two) and, before I share with you all, I just want to say a quick thank you to Petronella at Inkandescent for emailing me and asking if I wanted to be involved). And if you want to say to the author, Justin David, you can hi to him on Twitter at @Justin_Writer &, if you want more info on the book, you can check out either Inkandscape's website at inkandescent.co.uk or (if you want to use an affiliate link) uk.bookshop.org!

Now, ONTO THE EXTRACT!!!

eProof Mini-Review - Green for Danger

I want to write a short, quick mini-review for this and one other books as I am still in the depth of Amazon doing something weird/strange to my account and me trying to figure out what is going on and trying to fix it. Because of that, I wanted to write something short of both of these reviews so you are up-to-date with all my reading. Maybe I should give myself some time off blogging, but I want to do that more over the summer/October... 

Anyway, here is the first mini-review for May. Will it be the last?

Title and Author: Green for Danger by Christianna Brand

Publisher: British Library Crime Classic

Bought, Borrowed or Gifted: Gifted by US publisher, Poisoned Pen Press, via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review/reaction

Buy From (Affiliate): Bookshop.org

Set in a military hospital during World War Two, a patient dies on the operating table. It's believed by the doctors and nurses that it was a reaction to the anesthia, but when one of the nurses is found stabbed, it's becomes clear that both these cases are murder and are connected.

Audiobook April - The Murders at Fleat House

As many of you know Lucinda Riley sadly passed away in June 2021 due to cancer and was the best-selling author of the The Seven Sisters (the surprise eighth and final book in the series, Atlas: the Story of Pa Salt was started before her death and her son, Harry Whittaker, finished). But Lucinda touched into different genres and The Murders at Fleat House has an interesting history. 

Lucinda wrote this murder mystery back in 2006. Once written, she put it to one side and it's believed she would return to this once she had finished the Seven Sisters series. After her death, her family discovered the manuscript and, with the lightest of touches, edited and allowed to be published. 

I have never read a Lucinda Riley novel (I do own the first book in the series on my Audible and I would like to listen to it once Amazon figure out what the hell they did to my account!), but I have always wanted to read The Murders At Fleat House, but was saving it. And then, out of nowhere last month, my brain went "Now! I want to listen to this NOW!"

Title and Author: The Murders at Fleat House by Lucinda Riley

Publisher: PanMacmillan

Bought, Gifted or Borrowed: Audiobook Bought and Borrowed via library's audiobook app

Buy from (Affiliate): Bookshop.org

The death of a student at a small private boarding school of St Stephen's sends shockwaves within the school and the head teacher is desperate for it to be a tragic accident. But why would the boy take aspirin when he was deathly allergic to them?

The boy's father demands the Police to look into it and the case prompts the return of Detective Inspector Jasmine 'Jazz' Hunter to the force. Jazz has her reasons for leaving the Met and the Police as a whole but, as a favour for her old boss, she decides to look into the death. 

As she enters the closed world of the boarding school and the boarding house of Fleat House, she discovers that the student was a bully and not well liked. Plus, with it being common knowledge that the student was allergic to aspirin and took drugs to control his epilepsy, it would have been easy to swap his medication. 

But when one of the teachers kills himself and another student vanishes, it looks like Fleat House has a dark secrets and history and Jazz needs to figure out what is going on. And fast.

What Extract Walks These Halls

I have a spooOOOOOOooookkky extract for you guys for this blog tour. It was touch and go for a moment due to the saga happening with my Amazon and my kindle at the moment (see previous post for more details on that battle at the moment), but I have an extract and I didn't have to do some late night internet doom scrolling for creepy-yet-cool Irish ghost stories to get you excited for What Walks These Halls by Amy Clarkin. 

Hyacinth House is the most haunted house in Ireland. So haunted in fact, that it's not reported about at all. Raven doesn't remember what happened in Hyacinth House five years ago. Her father died in that house during a paranormal investigation and, though everyone says it was a terrible accident, Rave is certain that it was her fault. 

So when her younger brother, Arthur, decides to start up the family business of paranormal investigating and he's asked to investigate Hyacinth House for a house sale, he can't resist even though Raven is horrified by the idea... 

Éabha can see and hear things no one else can. She's not sure if it's emotions from the past, ghosts or something else, but she decides that she has to find out. When she crosses paths with Arthur and his ragtag team of paranormal hunters, she thinks it's a great place to start. 

But everyone has a secret or two to hide. And Hyacinth House has its own as well... 

Now, I am not the biggest ghost/horror reader, but I couldn't resist reading this (which is what I am doing now. At the time of writing this, I am on page 101), and when asked if I wanted to be involved in this tour, I couldn't say no! 

Now, before I share the extract for you (which is the start of chapter eight), I just want to say a quick thank you to Chloe at the O'Brien Press for asking if I wanted to be involved in this tour. And if you want to know more info about the book, you can check out obrien.ie or (for an affiliate link) uk.bookshop.org. Plus, if you want to say hi to Amy, you can via Twitter at @AmyClarkin or Instagram at @amyclarkinwrites.

Now, are we sitting comfortable? Good. Then let us begin...

Why Do I Bother With Themed Months?

Well, this themed month of mine has been a bit of a train-crash, hasn't it?

I mean, I was hoping to have more listened to more audiobooks or, if not that, then have a few short stories or novels that I can reveal. But, alas, my oh-so-clever plans went out of the window over the Easter weekend.
 
Allow me to explain as three things happened in quick succession and, because of that, my plans are shot (though I am determined to keep April very audiobook-driven – though I might pop a podcast or two).
 
First, it took me far longer to finish Green for Danger by Christianna Brand that I was expecting. I thought I would whizz through the book as it’s a Golden Age Murder Mystery and I really enjoyed the writing. But, for some reason, I couldn’t warm to the characters and I tend to read historical fiction a little slower than when I read fantasy or crime in general. So, though I enjoyed it, I read this in a more leisurely way, which knocked one of my reading plans but not badly.
 
The second (and this one did affect my reading/audiobook plans A LOT) was that I was ill over the Easter weekend. I wasn't feeling great beforehand but I was stubborn and, on Good Friday, I was ill in bed and had the attention span of a cockroach. If I did listen to podcasts or audiobooks, it would be in very short 5-10 minutes sprints and then, I wouldn't go near it again for a good chuck of the weekend. Podcasts became my friends that weekend as I mainly stuck to short, 30 minutes or less episodes that I can tune in and out off (such as The News Agents, My Favourite Murder [the mini-sodes] and a few others that I will need to relisten to as they touch on subjects that am curious over). I have no idea what it was (there's a bug going round that's very cold/flu like so I suppose that) but I was ill for the whole weekend so that ruined my reading/audiobooking (and Easter family meet -ups!). 

The third is one I am still in, which is my Amazon kindle/audible has gone strange. No idea what has happened but let's say I am chatting to Amazon to see if I can fix it. Which means I can't read anything on my kindle at the moment and I have no idea how this will effect the eProofs I need to read for NetGalley (I bet my rating on that is going to go down VERY quickly if I don't figure something out. Or maybe this is a sign to quit book-blogging while I am ahead)... 

Anyway, just wanted to keep you in the loop with my blogging as it's not going to plan. But ha-ho, life happens and not much can be done about it. Hopefully, I will keep my eye on having some fun and, like I said, I am now feeling better so my reading and my audiobook listening is slowly going back on track... 

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 April - Into Shadow Mini-Reviews

HAPPY EASTER MONDAY TO YOU ALL! And here we go with my first Audiobook April.

Welcome to my (hopefully not a complete car-crash of a themed month) Audiobook April. Like I said last month before I took a small, Easter blog holiday, this month is me trying to showcase some lovely audiobooks (and to get my audiobook TBR list down a little). Also, to have a little fun (fun is the name of the game this blogging/reading year)!

So, let’s start with something light, something easy, right? Nope. I listened to something short (my podcast backlog is getting quite long so, hopefully, will be able to have a listen to a few of them this/next month).

What I listened to is two short stories from the Into Shadows collection, a collection of short stories from Amazon. Amazon do a few collections of Amazon Original Stories, all short stories or novellas that, they hope, you will be able to read or listen to in one sitting. Very similar to Quick Reads.

The two am going to chat briefly about are The Six Deaths of the Saint by Alix E. Harrow (narrated by Saskia Maarleveld) and What the Dead Know by Nghi Vo (narrated by Natalie Naudus).

In The Six Deaths of the Saint, the Saint of War comes to an ill servant girl so she can fulfil her destiny to come the kingdom’s greatest warrior. But will it be worth it?

In What The Dead Know, a woman posing as a medium finds herself trapped in a school due to a blizzard starts to hear something. A voice in the dark that wants to be heard…