Book Description:

A Time to Change: A heart-wrenching love story

“I would rather love passionately for an hour than benignly for a lifetime.”

In a house full of history and secrets, the past will not stay where it belongs…

Lou has always loved Hill House, the derelict manor on the abandoned land near her home. As a child, the tragic history of its owners, the Mandevilles, inspired her dream to become a history teacher. But in her late twenties, and working in a shop to pay off student debts, life is passing her by. 

That changes when a family disaster sends Lou’s life into a downward spiral and she seeks comfort in the ruined corridors of Hill House. The house transforms around her and Lou is transported back to Christmas 1913. Convinced she has been in an accident and is in a coma, Lou immerses herself in her Edwardian dream. With the Mandevilles oblivious to her true identity, Lou becomes their houseguest and befriends the eldest son, Captain Thomas Mandeville, a man she knows is destined to die in the First World War. 

Lou feels more at home in the past than the present and when she realises the experience is real she sets out to do everything in her power to save her new friends.

Lou passes between 1913 and 2013, unearthing plots of murder and blackmail, which she must stop no matter the cost.

On her quest to save the Mandevilles by saving Thomas, Lou will face the hardest decision of her life. She will learn that love cannot be separated by a century.

My Thoughts:

I don’t think there was anything I didn’t enjoy about this book. Apart from the odd unsavoury character, I wholly devoured and loved every bit of it.

The reader is instantly drawn to Lou. I liked her straight from the off. Due to a tragic accident, her whole world is turned upside down and she is doing her best to keep everything together for the sake of her two brothers. It certainly seems at times like she is losing the battle.

Hill House through the fabulous descriptions, instantly came alive in my head. From present day in ruins, to when it all comes to life when Lou is transported back in time, it all soaked right into me and I felt like I was transported back also.

I have to say the parts in the past at Hill House, I just couldn’t get enough of it. If anything I really didn’t want this story to end. I was so wrapped up in it and what was going on with Lou that I was so saddened the nearer I got to the end. Definitely the sign of a good book!

The Mandeville family fascinated me, especially Thomas. It was heart breaking in a way, as Lou knows what the future holds for this family and I had no idea if or how much of it she was going to be able to change.

A Time To Change was such an endearing read. An emotional roller coaster of a read, of which, I didn’t want to come off. Right from the start the author captivated me heart and soul and I loved everything about it. An absolute must read!

My thanks to Bombshell Books for an advanced readers copy of this book. All opinions are my own and not biased in anyway.

Goodreads rating 5/5 stars.

A Time To Change is available to purchase from Amazon.

Author Bio:

Callie was born and brought up in Berkshire. After a brief teenage spell in the depths of Lancashire, she moved back to London.

Having left school at 16, she studied drama before embarking on a career in marketing. This saw her work in music marketing in the heady days of Britpop in the nineties. She unleashed her creativity in the design of window displays and marketing campaigns for the leading music retailer. More recently she has followed her passion for social history and currently works in marketing for a national historical institution, promoting projects and running events.

On hitting her thirtieth birthday, she decided finally to take her A levels and gained A’s in English Literature and Language, and Film Studies – not bad when working full time! – and this spurred her on to take the first of many creative writing course. A few years later and she has had a number of short stories published and plays performed at theatres and venues across London.

Callie lives in London with her long-term partner and an ever-growing collection of antique curiosities.

Twitter: @CLangridgeWrite

Facebook: Callie Langridge  https://www.facebook.com/people/Callie-Langridge/100017408860162

Book Description:

Can you really tell the difference between madness and sanity?

Mark Randall goes to great lengths to get himself admitted to an acute psychiatric ward and, despite being mute, convinces professionals that he is psychotic. But who is he and why is he so keen to spend time in a psychiatric hospital?

When Mark is admitted, silent and naked, the staff are suspicious about his motives.

Dealing with this, as well as the patients on the ward, Mark’s troubles really begin once he is Sectioned under the Mental Health Act. When decisions about his future are handed to Consultant Psychiatrist, Dr Giles Sharman, Mark’s life is about to go from bad to worse.

Drugged, abused and in danger, Mark looks for a way out of this nightmare. But he’s about to learn, proving that you are sane might not be easy as it seems…

My Thoughts:

i absolutely loved the description for this book and couldn’t wait to get round to actually reading it. I have to admit I’m not quite sure what I was expecting from the description but what I read was very different to what I had envisioned but believe me this was no bad thing.

Its hard to say to much about this story without giving the storyline away which I think will ruin it for others so I’m not going to go into it to much.

The reason why Mark is in there is something that won’t disappoint believe me. I have to admit it took me by surprise when I realised where the story was going and I enjoyed the journey the author took me on and the extremely satisfying ending that she delivers to us.

A Justifiable Madness is a book that will take readers by surprise and keep them hooked until the very last page. Very different from other books in its genre of which will make it stand out from the crowd. Highly recommended.

My thanks to Bloodhound Books for an advanced readers copy of this book. All opinions are my own and not biased in anyway.

Goodreads rating 4/5 stars.

A Justifiable Madness is available to purchase from Amazon.

Author Bio: A B Morgan: (The tartan is Welsh: Morgan)

 

Married to an overgrown child with a beard and too many motorbikes, Alison Morgan lives in a corner of a field in North Bedfordshire and is making the most of a mid-life crisis. The Morgans are determined not to grow old gracefully or to be seen wearing beige and can be found exploring life through a love of live music, anything with an engine, the sea, mountains, rugby, proper pubs and fascinating people.

Alison has worked for the NHS for nearly thirty years, twenty of those within mental health services, at the front line, where she eventually became the manager of a countywide community service for people experiencing their first episode of psychosis. Much to her frustration, her heart decided to develop an electrical fault, which forced her to sit down for more than five minutes, and her career temporarily juddered to a halt. Not one for thumb twiddling, she took up position in front of a computer with a plan to write a set of clinical guidelines for assessment of psychosis, but instead a story, which had been lurking in her mind for several years, came tumbling out.

With her health steadily improving thanks to the staff at Papworth Hospital, Alison hopes to return to nursing part-time, but is determined to keep writing fiction. Her debut novel A Justifiable Madness is inspired by her life and career as a psychiatric nurse, and her fascination with the extremes of human behaviour. Her second novel, Divine Poison, also published by Bloodhound books is due for release in January 2018.

Links:

@ABMorganwriter   Facebook

www.abmorgan.co.uk

email: alison@abmorgan.co.uk

@AliMorgan2304 Twitter

I am delighted today to be able to share with you an exclusive cover reveal for the fabulous Innocent Blood by Linda S. Prather. This is the second book in the Redmond Private Investigations series featuring Loki Redmond and Jake Savior. The first book The Forgotten is a fabulous read and available from Amazon. Innocent Blood will be published on the 12th of October 2017 and I for one can not wait!

Anyway, I won’t keep you waiting any longer as I know you are all dying to see it. So with out further ado here it is! Isn’t it brilliant?

Book Description:

Loki Redmond swore she’d never return to the reservation, but two missing hunters and the ancient Choctaw myth of Nalusa Falaya take her and her brother, Dadron, on a dangerous trek through the wilderness.

Meanwhile, her partner Jake Savior, heads to Tunica, Mississippi, to investigate the second mass killing by a Choctaw police officer. 

Are the cases connected?

The only thing they know for sure is innocent blood has been shed, and unless they can find the source more are going to die.

Author Bio:

Linda S. Prather is the NY Times and USA Today Bestselling author of 8 novels including two legal thrillers, a paranormal FBI series, one romance, and her current series involving Loki Redmond, a Choctaw private investigator and Jake Savior, a former police officer. Linda lives in Lexington, Kentucky with her husband and grandchild, along with the “king” of the house, a Shitzu name Popcorn. Her latest release, Innocent Blood is her second in the Loki Redmond/Jake Savior series. In Linda’s own words: “This book is my favorite so far. My grandfather was a full-blooded Native American, and my mother half Native American. Prior to my marriage and children I studied Shamanism and developed a true love for nature. Studying the Choctaw history, customs, myths and religions was fascinating. Taking the facts I learned and weaving them into Loki’s story and her investigation into the disappearance of two hunters on the reservation was an emotional roller coaster for me. I found myself crying quite often.”

Links:

Website: linda@lindasprather.com – where you can join Linda’s email list and never miss a new release

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/linda.prather2
Twitter: @jacodypress

Blog: jacodypress.blogspot.com

Make sure to follow the Blog Blitz starting the 12th of October also.

Delighted to be closing off the blog tour for Her Dark Path by Ken Ogilvie today. For my stop I have the pleasure of sharing an interesting guest post from the author, but first here’s a bit more about the book.

Book Description:

 

16 years ago Rebecca Bradley’s mother was murdered. Rebecca was only eight years old. The killer has never been caught. Growing up, Rebecca vowed that one day she would track him down and make him pay.

 

Now Rebecca is a young police woman in Ontario. She wants to become a homicide detective. Her first investigation is the cold case of a woman who vanished for 16 days and then was found dead in her own home. The brutal crime shocks the small Canadian town of Conroy.

 

The puzzling case has uncanny similarities to the murder of Rebecca’s mother. Both victims were found strangled in their own kitchens.

 

Can Rebecca keep her emotions together as she closes in on a killer with connections to her family and tragic past? And will she finally get justice for her mother?

 

Discover a new crime writer who will have you gripped till the pulsating end.

OUT NOW AND AVAILABLE TO PURCHASE FROM AMAZON

Guest Post:

Some Things About Me:

 

I began my fiction writing as a novice, but I had extensive writing experience in technical and policy areas, and I was a ferocious editor of staff reports at Pollution Probe. Novel writing would come naturally to me, or so I thought (incorrectly). I wrote half of a really crappy science-fiction book, and then struggled over whether to continue. But I’m not a quitter, so I shelved that book for the time being, took a deep breath, and hit the reset button. I started working on a mystery. My parents grew up near the south shore of Georgian Bay, Ontario, so I set my book close to there, just off the eastern side of that massive bay (which is about 80% of the size of Lake Ontario, one of the five Great Lakes). I grew up in small towns in southern Ontario, until high school, so I decided to create my own small town, which I named Conroy. I made it a dying town and not very picturesque, like Louise Penny’s Three Pines, although it’s surrounded by the stunningly gorgeous landscapes of Georgian Bay (rocky, wind-swept shorelines that inspired The Group of Seven artists) and the tens of thousands of sparkling lakes dotting the Canadian Shield in the Muskoka area are not far north of where I set poor little boring Conroy (on the surface). I moved against the heavy flow of mystery novels that feature older, heavy-drinking detectives having marital and other family problems, and made my protagonist young (Constable Rebecca Bradley, 24 years old). The plot of Her Dark Path is fairly intricate and ended up with a story arc that will continue into future books. I hadn’t initially set out to write a series, although the first book contains a complete story in itself. But enough on that subject – for more, you’ll have to read the book!

 

I’m currently an independent environmental policy consultant, working from home in Toronto, Canada, although I’m on the road a lot. I still mostly write fiction in the early morning, and edit it later in the day. Recent consulting contracts of mine include preparing a case study designed to be used by the Said Business School, University of Oxford, on the province of Alberta’s recent transition towards being a climate policy leader in Canada, and I’ve done research and ran workshops on the creation of a new Canadian Energy Information Organization. I serve on the Boards of Directors for two leading environmental and energy organizations – the Pembina Institute for Appropriate Development, and Quality Urban Energy Systems of Tomorrow (QUEST). And when spare time and suitable opponents permit, I play the odd game of chess, which was a passion of mine in younger days.

AUTHOR BIO:

I began my fiction writing as a novice, but I had extensive writing experience in technical and policy areas, and I was a ferocious editor of staff reports at Pollution Probe. Novel writing would come naturally to me, or so I thought (incorrectly). I wrote half of a really crappy science-fiction book, and then struggled over whether to continue. But I’m not a quitter, so I shelved that book for the time being, took a deep breath, and hit the reset button.

 

I’m currently an independent environmental policy consultant, working from home in Toronto, Canada, although I’m on the road a lot. Recent consulting contracts of mine include preparing a case study designed to be used by the Said Business School, University of Oxford, on the province of Alberta’s recent transition towards being a climate policy leader in Canada, and I’ve done research and ran workshops on the creation of a new Canadian Energy Information Organization. I serve on the Boards of Directors for two leading environmental and energy organizations – the Pembina Institute for Appropriate Development, and Quality Urban Energy Systems of Tomorrow (QUEST). And when spare time and suitable opponents permit, I play the odd game of chess, which was a passion of mine in younger days.

Book Description:
She fell in love with a killer, now she’s one too.

The suitcase was badly rusted, and took Erika several attempts, but it yielded and sagged open as she unzipped it. Nothing could prepare her for what she would find inside…

When a battered suitcase containing the dismembered body of a young man washes up on the shore of the river Thames, Detective Erika Foster is shocked. She’s worked on some terrifying cases but never seen anything like this before.

As Erika and her team set to work, she makes the link with another victim – the body of a young woman dumped in an identical suitcase two weeks ago.

Erika quickly realises she’s on the trail of a serial killer who’s already made their next move. Yet just as Erika starts to make headway with the investigation, she is the victim of a brutal attack.

But nothing will stop Erika. As the body count rises, the twin daughters of her colleague Commander Marsh are abducted, and the stakes are higher than ever before. Can Erika save the lives of two innocent children before it’s too late? She’s running out of time and about to make a disturbing discovery…there’s more than one killer.

Brilliantly gripping, Cold Blood will have you hooked from the first page and holding your breath to the heart-stopping and shocking ending.

My Thoughts:

Cold Blood is the fifth book in the Erika Foster series but works easily as a stand alone as the author ensures he gives the reader enough information to make sure they don’t feel like they are missing out on anything.

As always the author had me from the gripping and intriguing start and didn’t let me go until the emotional ending.

It seems to never rain but pours for Erika. Nothing in her work or personal life is ever straight forward. Something that really stood out to me in this story though is how through her work, to a certain extent it hasn’t hardened her. She still has compassion for some of the criminals she deals with. This is why I love her character so much. Even after all that she has been through, she can still reason why some people do what they do, where as for a lot of us it is easy to distance ourselves from it and have no compassion for these people.

Nina was a character that really grabbed me. She could be any of us. Through Nina I found myself getting more attached to the whole story and I just couldn’t tear myself away. The author has created a story line that will have the readers having a love/hate relationship with the baddies.

Cold Blood is without a doubt my new favourite book in the Erika Foster series. Dark, gritty, hard hitting and emotional, this is a crime read that would be truly criminal to miss. Another epic read in this sensational crime series.

My thanks to Bookouture for an advanced readers copy of this book. All opinions are my own and not biased in anyway.

Goodreads rating 5/5 stars.

Cold Blood is available to purchase from Amazon.

Author Bio:

Robert Bryndza is the author of the international #1 bestseller The Girl in the Ice. The Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller is the first book in the Detective Erika Foster series. 

The Night Stalker, Dark Water and Last Breath are the second, third, and fourth books in the series, and the fifth book, Cold Blood is now available to pre-order.

Robert’s books have sold over 2 million copies, and have been translated into 27 languages.

In addition to writing crime fiction, Robert has published a bestselling series of romantic comedy novels. He is British and lives in Slovakia.

 

 

Author Social Media Links:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bryndzarobert/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/RobertBryndza

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/robertbryndza/

Website: http://www.robertbryndza.com