Delighted to be able to share with you this afternoon the wonderful cover of Angela King’s novel, The Blood of Kings which is out on the 1st of September 2017. Don’t know about you but doesn’t it look intriguing? You can find out more about the book and the author below. 

Book Description:

1559. A girl arrives in London to search for her brother. Aalia, an awkward, arrogant teenager plans to bring William to his senses, until she discovers that both their lives are based on a lie. Aalia must unravel a web of secrets but has the weight of her past to contend with. Courageous and undisciplined, Aalia gradually comes to terms with the truth that William, her brother, has royal blood. Deciding to undermine the men who want to use him as a pawn, Aalia must negotiate a world where secrecy arms the powerful. But unwilling to ask for anyone’s help she is forced into making a fateful decision. Who can she trust when everyone around her is plotting? Is the truth really something worth dying for?

This epic story of secrets and betrayal paints a vivid picture of Elizabethan England and asks questions that span beyond the test of time.

Author Bio:

I’ve always loved words, those little black squiggles dancing around the page lead inside a secret world – the world of imagination.

I’ve always loved writing – diaries, stories, letters – I’m a compulsive writer. My favourite task is pinning the imagined world into words – it’s also the most exciting but I’d rarely let anyone read my work.

I was born in Wimbledon but my first memories are of Clapham Common, where I lived until I was six years old. Next I moved to Kent, to an ancient village on the fringes of the Thames Estuary. I loved books and dreamed of becoming a writer – my English teacher was really encouraging – but I come from a long line of practical dreamers who need first to earn a living.

After school I went to Medway College of Art in Rochester, to study design. The course was meant to teach design techniques that could be ‘geared’ to any medium but it failed, most students dropped out before the first term ended. I ‘geared’ towards costume and embroidery and during college holidays worked at ‘Bermans and Nathans’, a company who provided costumes for film, television and theatre.

My first ‘proper’ job was working as assistant designer to the most amazing man, Bruno Stern (there’s a book waiting to be written). The company was based in Dover Street and made beautiful clothes for the rich and famous. It was a surreal place to work but after problems getting home during a year of unplanned rail strikes, I decided to find employment nearer home.

By this time I’d married – Michael King. He was working as a goldsmith in Essex and we were living in the village of Paglesham when I got a job with a local theatrical costume company. I loved my job and started writing children’s books with an illustrator friend. Together we produced two little books – ‘Olly the Octopus’ and ‘The Squeaky Knight’. In 1980 I began working on my first novel when we had a season of disasters – Michael was involved in a terrible car crash, the company where he worked went bankrupt, my old dog died and our beautiful, grade 2 listed cottage, burned down. Feeling it was time for change we moved to Cumbria.

We started our own jewellery company in 1984, working from home. We had two small children and no income. Michael manufactured while I went out selling his work at craft fairs. We struggled at first – finding customers, building a reputation. We moved to bigger premises in 2002 and now employ four jewellers and two design consultants.

While my children were growing up I studied with the Open University. I also worked for a small company which made docu-history films for museums and wrote articles for magazines and specialist publications. Then, in 2008, two very close friends died, kicking me into action – if I didn’t write my novel soon it might never be written. I joined a couple of local creative writing groups and finally allowed my imagination to run free.

In 2016 I had short stories published in three different anthologies: Dark Minds (Bloodhound Books), Happily Never After (C & P Writers) and Dot, Dot, Dot, (Wiza Words).

My first novel – The Blood of Kings – is due to be published by Bombshell Books later this year.

Links:

Blog: https://anna.king969.wordpress.com

Twitter: A.S.King@angelaS969

Email: anna.king969@hotmail.co.uk

Book Description:

They thought they were safe. They were wrong.

The murder of a young prostitute and a baby found abandoned on the same winter night signals the start of a disturbing investigation for Detective Kim Stone – one which brings her face to face with someone from her own horrific childhood.

As three more sex workers are murdered in quick succession, each death more violent than the last, Kim and her team realise that the initial killing was no one-off frenzied attack, but a twisted serial killer preying on the vulnerable.

At the same time, the search begins for the desperate woman who left her newborn baby at the station – but what looks like a tragic abandonment turns even more sinister when a case of modern slavery is uncovered.

The two investigations bring the team into a terrifying world of human exploitation and cruelty – and a showdown that puts Kim’s life at risk as shocking secrets from her own past come to light.

A gripping new crime thriller from the Number One bestseller – you will be hooked until the final jaw-dropping twist.

Out on the 3rd of November but available to pre order now!

UK: http://amzn.to/2wwkvci

US: http://amzn.to/2vDLPsP

Author Bio:

Angela Marsons is the author of the Amazon Bestselling DI Kim Stone series – Silent Scream, Evil Games, Lost Girls, Play Dead, Blood Lines, Dead Souls and now Broken Bones. Her books have sold more than 2 million in 2 years.

She lives in the Black Country with her partner, their cheeky Golden Retriever and a swearing parrot.

She first discovered her love of writing at Junior School when actual lessons came second to watching other people and quietly making up her own stories about them. Her report card invariably read “Angela would do well if she minded her own business as well as she minds other people’s”.

After years of writing relationship based stories (The Forgotten Woman and Dear Mother) Angela turned to Crime, fictionally speaking of course, and developed a character that refused to go away.

She is signed to Bookouture.com for a total of 16 books in the Kim Stone series and her books have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Her last two books – Blood Lines and Dead Souls – reached the #1 spot on Amazon on pre-orders alone.

https://www.facebook.com/AngelaMarsonsAuthor/

@WriteAngie  https://twitter.com/WriteAngie

http://angelamarsons-books.com/

Prologue:

Black Country

Christmas Day

    Elaine Goddard sat on the roof of the thirteen storey block of flats.  The winter sun shone a grid on to her bare feet dangling over the edge.  

    The protective grate had been erected some years ago after a father of seven had thrown himself over.

    By the time she was eleven she had stolen a pair of wire cutters and fashioned herself an access point to the narrow ledge that was her place of reflection.

    From this vantage point she could look to the beauty of the Clent Hills in the distance, block out the dank, grubby reality of below.

    Hollytree was the place you were sent if Hell was having a spring clean.

    Problem families from the entire West Midlands were evicted from other estates and placed in Hollytree.  It was displacement capital.  Communities around the borough breathed sighs of relief as families were evicted.  No-one cared where they went.  It was enough that they were gone and one more ingredient was added to the melting pot.

    There was a clear perimeter around the estate over which the police rarely crossed.  It was a place where the rapists, child molesters, thieves and ASBO families were put together in one major arena.  And then guarded by police from the outside.

    But today a peace settled around the estate giving the illusion that the normal activities of robbing, raping and molesting were on pause because it was Christmas Day.  That was bollocks.  It was all still going on but to the backdrop of the Queens speech.

    Her mother was still slurring her way around the cheerless flat with a bottle of Gin in her hand.

    But at least Elaine had this.  Her one piece of heaven.  Always her safe place.  Her escape.

    She had disappeared unnoticed up here when she was seven years old and her mother had been falling all over the flat pissed as a fart.  

    How lucky was she to have been the only one of the four kids her mother had been allowed to keep?

    She had escaped up here when her mother’s drinking partner, Roddy, had started pawing at her groin and slobbering into her hair.  Her mother had pulled him off, angrily, shouting something about ruining her retirement plan.  She hadn’t understood it when she was nine years old but she had come to understand it now.

    She had cried up here on her sixteenth birthday when her mother had introduced her to the family business and to their pimp, Kai Lord.

    She’d been up here two months earlier when he had finally found her.

    And she’d been up here when she’d told him to fuck right off.

    She didn’t want to be saved.  It was too late.

    Sixteen years of age and already it was too damn late.

    Many times she had fantasised about how it would feel to lurch forward onto the wind.  She had envisioned herself floating to and fro gently making the journey like a stray pigeon feather all the way to the ground.  Had imagined the feeling of weightlessness of both her body and her mind.  

    Elaine took a deep breath and exhaled.  

    In just a few minutes it would be time to go to work.  Heavy rain, sleet, snow, Christmas – nothing kept the punters away.  Trade might be slow but it would still be there.  It always was.

    She didn’t hear the roof door open or the footsteps that slowly strode towards her.

    She didn’t see the hand that pushed her forward.

    She only saw the ground as it hurtled towards her.

ABOUT THE BOOK – MURDER GAME

To catch a killer, you must first think like one …

A killer is playing a twisted game of life or death with his victims. After he captures them, a countdown begins. He marks the time by sending clues to the whereabouts of the women he has taken in three disturbing images: alive, tortured, dead.    

In a race against the clock, East London Detective Ruby Preston must play the killer’s terrifying murder game and decipher the clues before more women die.

But this isn’t the first time the police have seen such a sickening crime. The notorious Lonely Hearts Killer, Mason Gatley, was put behind bars ten years ago for murdering six women in exactly the same chilling way. Desperate for more information, Ruby asks her gangster boyfriend, Nathan Crosby, to set up a dangerous meeting to allow her to see into the twisted mind of a murderer.

But the closer Ruby grows to the dark and charming Mason Gatley, the more worried her team becomes. Is he really helping her catch the killer? Or is he lining her up to be his next victim?

Fans of Angela Marsons, Rachel Abbott and Peter James will be hooked by this dark and utterly disturbing thriller, packed with twists until the final page.

UK: http://amzn.to/2v1l8v5

US: http://amzn.to/2umrDqp

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

USA Today Bestselling Thriller Author.

Originally from Ireland, Caroline lives with her family, parrot and two dogs in a pretty village on the coast of Essex. A former police detective, Caroline has worked in CID and specialised in roles dealing with vulnerable victims, high-risk victims of domestic abuse, and serious sexual offences. Published by Bookouture and Thomas & Mercer, she now writes full time and all her books have become number 1 best sellers in their categories.

Her fast-paced DC Jennifer Knight thrillers carry a hint of the supernatural and are weaved from Caroline’s personal experiences in the police and paranormal.

Set in Shoreditch, London, her DS Ruby Preston series is described as “terrifying, addictive serial killer thrillers”. 

Caroline also writes psychological thrillers, the most recent, Witness, has been described as “thrilling, tense, exciting, dark and twisted in the best possible way”.

Sign up to join her Reader’s club for access to news, updates and exclusive competitions and giveaways. http://eepurl.com/IxsTj

Connect with Caroline:

www.caroline-writes.com

https://plus.google.com/+CarolineMitchell/posts

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3076677.Caroline_Mitchell

Twitter: @Caroline_writes

www.pinterest.com/Writeparanormal