Missing, Presumed – Susie Steiner – Blog Tour.

 

Back of the book : 

A young woman vanishes.

A smear of blood in the kitchen of the house she shares with her boyfriend suggests a struggle.

As soon as Detective Sergeant Manon Bradshaw sees the photograph of missing Edith Hind – a beautiful Cambridge post-grad from  well connected family – she knows the case will be big. And she’s right : pressure soon mounts from the media and on high.

Can Manon see clearly enough to solve the mystery of Edith’s disappearance  ?

Can she withstand intimidation from Sir Ian Hind, Edith’s father, who has friends in high places ?

And when a body is found, will it mean the end or the beginning ?

 

What I think : 

Edith is missing, Will, her boyfriend came home to find her gone, she hadn’t taken her coat, keys, car or phone. There was a small amount of blood on the floor. What can have happened to her ? She was last seen by her friend who dropped her home after a night out together.

D.S Manon Bradshaw is looking for love but failing awfully. She goes on nights out with men she meets on on-line dating sites, however they are either not her type or just plain weird. Its after one of these dates that she is laying in bed listening to the police radio when she hears a call out about a missing woman. Manon responds to this call, not knowing until she gets there how big this one is going to be. It turns out that the person missing just so happens to be Sir Ian and Lady Miriam Hinds Daughter. Everyone knows that the first seventy two hours in cases like this are the most critical, so Manon is under lots of pressure from all sides.

Will Manon be able to put her personal baggage aside to concentrate on this case or will she fail under pressure ?

I really did quite like this book, as it’s set in and around Huntington, where my husbands family come from and still live, I really did feel like I was there as all the places they visited seemed very familiar to me. Each chapter is from each of the main characters point of view which are inter-woven together to make up the book.

Its very tense and quite cryptic right from the start. I needed to carry on reading it just to know how it all ends and what exactly did happen to poor Edith. Its such a well researched book, I really did feel like I’d stepped into a real life missing persons case. With its many twists and turns as new evidence is brought to life it all goes to make up a real missing person case.

I give this fascinating crime novel 8/10.

A very big Thank you to Hayley Camis at Harper Collins for the review copy of the book

published by Borough Press on 25/02/16.

 

 

The Stylist – Rosie Nixon – Blog Tour.

 

Back of the book : 

When exclusive London boutique assistant Amber Green is mistakenly offered  job working with infamous, Jet-setting ‘stylist to the stars’ Mona Armstrong, she hits the ground running, helping to style some of Hollywoods hottest (and craziest) stars during award season.

 

What I think : 

Amber is working as a window dresser in a Upmarket Clothing boutique in London when one day  “famous Stylist to the Stars” Mona Armstrong breezes into the shop. She is filming her T.V show, “The Stylist” there. Amber is absolutely overjoyed as Mona is Amber’s style icon. Whilst Mona is at the shop, she notices a window display that Amber had started to dress but forgot to finish in the rush to get everything finished before Mona arrived. However not knowing any of this, Mona thinks it’s brilliant.

Earlier that day Mona’s assistant had handed in her notice and Mona has been left in a bit of a pickle, what with the “Golden Globes” in L.A coming up. So she offers Amber the temp assistant job. Little does Mona know though that Amber knows nothing about being an assistant !!

So begins a fortnight of mayhem and mishaps in the run up to the “Golden Globes” !!

Can Amber pull it out of the bag or will Mona be able to see straight though her ??

Wow !! I really love this first novel from the lovely Rosie Nixon. It has lots of wonderful laugh out loud moments as well as some serious moments too.

I absolutely love Ambers character, with her really funny observations on the world, and her not really knowing whats she’s doing but muddling through anyway. And are there really people out there like Mona ? A lot of the time, whilst I was reading this book , I wondering if she was actually living in the same world as us !!

This is really a wonderfully comic insight of the world of showbiz and the people that live in it !!

I give this brilliant debut 9/10.

Published by Midas (Harlequin, a division of Harper Collins) on 11/02/16.

A very big Thank you to Sophie Randsom at Midas PR for sending me the review copy of the book.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Glittering Art of Falling Apart – Ilana Fox

 

Back of the book :

Cassie has long been fascinated by Beaufont Hall, the house her family lived in but no longer speak about. When the chance comes to explore the beautiful but crumbling mansion. Cassie jumps at the opportunity – little realising she’s about to shine a light on a long -buried family secret.

For Eliza, decades before, the heady pull of Soho at it’s most electric is a difficult thing to ignore, full of glamour, parties and indulgence. With the world at her feet, Eliza finds everything comes at a price.

 

What I think : 

Cassie is just a normal girl working in a antique book shop in London. However, she is fascinated by her old family home “Beaufont Hall”. It has been in her mother’s family for years and actually belongs to her mother, Rebecca. Cassie and her family have never lived there though, and her mother won’t tell her why or anything about her past. When a old relative that was living at the old hall dies, Someone needs to go and clean it to get it ready to be sold. Cassie is upset that her mother wants to finally sell it and offers to go and clean it just so she can say ‘Goodbye’ to the old place. Whilst she is cleaning in the vast library she finds some hand written diaries dated from the 1970’s belonging to a lost relative. Its between the pages of the old books that she finds out something about her past and some long lost secrets too …

Eliza hates living in Tottenham, its the 1970’s and she wants so much more from life, she 17 and ready to leave home. When she meets Alison her life goes from boring to fun. She moves out of her parents, Lillie and Berties house and into squat in Soho, there she meets some fabulous people with exotic names, goes to back street clubs and gets a job in a seedy pub. But she soon discovers that sometimes you have to be careful what you wish for …

what a fabulous read, the story had me hooked right from the moment I picked up the book, when I wasn’t reading it, I was wondering what was going to happen next. The characters are expertly written.  I really felt that I was actually in the seedy Soho nightclubs of the 70’s with the smell of beer and sweat up my nose and in the cold, damp bedrooms of the huge mansion.

What I also liked was the fact that you don’t find out quite how Eliza fits into the puzzle until quite a way into the book and when you do find out its makes you think ‘of course !’

The book is written in present time, now, which is Cassie’s story and also in the 1970’s with Eliza’s.

There are many twists and turns and ‘oh’ moments in this book, and also plenty of secrets.

I give this one 10/10.

Published by Orion books on 11/02/16

The Secrets of Happiness – Lucy Diamond.

 

Back 0f the Book : 

Rachel and Becca aren’t real sisters or so they say. They are stepsisters, living apart. with nothing in common. Rachel is the successful one : happily married with three children and a big house, plus an impressive career.

Artistic Becca, meanwhile, lurches from one dead-end job to another, shares a titchy flat and has given up on love.

The two of them have lost touch, but when Rachel doesn’t come home one night, Becca is called in to help. Once there, she quickly realises that her stepsister’s life isn’t so perfect after all : Rachel’s handsome husband has moved out, her children are rebelling, and her glamorous career has taken a nosedive. Worst of all, nobody seems to have a clue where she might be.

As Becca begins to untangle Rachel’s secrets, she is forced to confront some uncomfortable truths about her own life.

 

What I think : 

Rachel and Becca are Sisters, well, they’re actually ‘step’ sisters. Becca’s mum married Rachel’s dad when the girls were young, Becca was tiny and Rachel was about nine. Rachel never really seemed to like Becca very much, she was a bit jealous about Becca ‘taking’ her dad. So they never really got on very well. They haven’t seen each other for over a year since their dad died.

Rachel has the big house, the three lovely kids and the very handsome hubby and all Becca has is a part time job in the local pub and a flat over the bookies and she can’t even remember when she last when out on a date.

One night just as Becca was going to work in the pub, chopping up veg, she gets a phone call from one of Rachel’s neighbours, telling her that Rachel seems to have disappeared. She dropped her kids off to school got on a train and hasn’t been seen again. So Becca has to ring in sick, and in the event actually loses her job, however she then drives over to Rachel’s house to look after her sisters kids. when she gets there she discovers that Rachel’s life isn’t what it seems, her husband has left her and her top job is no more. Nothing is what it seems.

As Becca gets into the swing of her sister’s family life, she discovers a few things about herself, But Just what has happened to Rachel and where was she going when she got on the train ?

A fabulous book with a fabulous cast of characters. About family relationships and how its never too late to make things work. Becca is just like the girl next door and Rachel is a really strong character too. They both seem to be looking for something but never quite finding it.

This is only the second of Lucy’s books that I’ve read, however I think i’ll be going out and buying the rest pretty soon. Her books are really lovely, very down earth and unputdownable.

I give this book 9/10.

Published by Pan Macmillan on 28/01/16.

I purchased my copy from Tesco £8.00.

You and Me, Always – Jill Mansell.

Back of the book : 

On the morning of Lily’s twenty-fifth birthday, it’s time to open the very last letter written to her by her beloved mother, who died when she was eight.

Learning more about the first and only real love of her mum’s life is a revelation. On the same day, Lily also meets Eddie Tessler, a man fleeing fame who just might have the ability to change her world in unimaginable ways. But her childhood friend Dan has his own reasons for Lilly not getting too carried away by Eddie’s attentions.

Before long, secrets begin to emerge and Lily’s friends and family become involved. In the beautiful cotswold village of Stanton Langley, Nothing will ever be the same again.

 

What I think : 

Lily lost her mum, Jo, to cancer when she was nine years old. Her mum’s best friends Coral and the Late Nick took her in and looked after her. She never knew her father, Keir as he wasn’t interested in knowing her when she was born, so Jo brought her up alone. Every year on her birthday she has received a letter from her mum that she wrote before she died. This year, on her twenty-fifth birthday, Lily receives the last letter that mum wrote. In the letter there was a gift, a bangle that was given to Jo by the ‘love of her life’ Declan. She only knew him for a year, but he stayed with her forever.

Lily tracks down Declan and they start a lovely friendship, however its not only lily who takes an interest in Declan ….

Lily’s best friend Patsy, used to babysit for Lily when she was little, so Lily and Patsy’s brother Dan grew up together and have become best friends. But for Dan could it be more … ?

When Lily Meets Eddie, a huge film star with a bad reputation, by accident on her birthday she is smitten, but is she just trying to take her mind off someone else … ?

This is a fabulously warm book that is really unputdownable. It has lots of lovely and likeable characters that you wish were your friends. Jill has got this wonderful knack of being able to write about normal everyday things and making them seem really exciting and far from normal !

With a few Secrets and lies thrown in for good measure it all adds up to being a really good tale.

I really love Jill’s books. She is one of the very few authors who’s books I buy without looking at the back of the book. I buy it because it was written by Jill so i know its going to be good.

I give this beautiful book 10/10.

A huge Thank you to Lizzie Masters at Headline for the review copy of the book.

Published 28/01/16 by Headline Review.