Blog Tour: Copycat by Alex Lake

COPYCAT - ALEX LAKE, 7TH SEPTEMBER

The gripping new psychological thriller from the bestselling author of After Anna and Killing Kate.

When an old friend gets in touch, Sarah Havenant discovers that there are two Facebook profiles in her name. One is hers. The other, she has never seen.

But everything in it is accurate. Photos of her friends, her husband, her kids. Photos from the day before. Photos of her new kitchen. Photos taken inside her house.

And this is just the beginning. Because whoever has set up the second profile has been waiting for Sarah to find it. And now that she has, her life will no longer be her own…

Review: True Love at the Lonely Hearts Book Shop by Annie Darling

It's a truth universally acknowledged that a single woman in possession of a good job, four bossy sisters and a needy cat must also have want of her one true love. Or is it?

Another delightful novel from the author of The Little Bookshop of Lonely Hearts. Perfect for fans of Lucy Diamond and Jenny Colgan

Verity Love – Jane Austen fangirl, manager of London’s first romance-only bookshop Happy Ever, and an introvert in a world of extroverts – is perfectly happy on her own (thank you very much), and quite happy hiding in the office and lying to her friends about her fictional boyfriend Peter, whose presence is very useful for getting her out of social events.

But when a case of mistaken identity forces her to introduce a perfect stranger as her boyfriend, Verity’s life suddenly becomes much more complicated.

Because ‘Peter’ is actually Johnny, and he too could use a fictional girlfriend. So against her better judgement and because she can't stand sitting on the sad singles table, Verity and Johnny decide to partner up for a summer season of weddings, big number birthdays and garden parties, culminating in her sister’s Big Fat Wedding.

And by the end of the summer, there’s a bad case of heartache that even Verity’s beloved Pride And Prejudice might not be able to cure…

Review: I Know my Name by CJ Cooke

…But what if that’s the only thing you can remember?

Komméno Island, Greece: I don't know where I am, who I am. Help me.

A woman is washed up on a remote Greek island with no recollection of who she is or how she got there.

Potter’s Lane, Twickenham, London: Eloïse Shelley is officially missing.

Lochlan’s wife has vanished into thin air, leaving their toddler and twelve-week-old baby alone. Her money, car and passport are all in the house, with no signs of foul play. Every clue the police turn up means someone has told a lie…

Does a husband ever truly know his wife? Or a wife know her husband? Why is Eloïse missing? Why did she forget?

The truth is found in these pages…

Review: Last Seen by Lucy Clarke

In a small seaside community, there’s always somebody watching…

Twisty, pacy, and superbly plotted, Last Seen is the perfect psychological page-turner for fans of Clare Mackintosh and Sabine Durrant.

Seven years ago, two boys went missing at sea – and only one was brought to shore. The Sandbank, a remote stretch of coast dotted with beach huts, was scarred forever.

Sarah’s son survived, but on the anniversary of the accident, he disappears without trace. As new secrets begin to surface, The Sandbank hums with tension and unanswered questions. Sarah’s search grows more desperate and she starts to mistrust everyone she knows – and she’s right to.

Someone saw everything on that fateful day seven years ago. And they’ll do anything to keep the truth buried.

Review: Behind her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough

Don’t trust this book. Don’t trust this story. Don’t trust yourself.

David and Adele seem like the ideal pair. He's a successful psychiatrist, she is his picture-perfect wife who adores him. But why is he so controlling? And why is she keeping things hidden?

As Louise, David's new secretary, is drawn into their world, she uncovers more puzzling questions than answers. The only thing that is crystal clear is that something in this marriage is very, very wrong. But Louise can't guess how wrong – and how far someone might go to protect their marriage's secrets.

Blog Tour: The Affair by Amanda Brooke

A shocking story about a fifteen-year-old girl and the man who took advantage of her.

“You might as well know from the start, I’m not going to tell on him and I don’t care how much trouble I get in. It’s not like it could get any worse than it already is.
I can’t. Don’t ask me why, I just can’t.”

When Nina finds out that her fifteen-year-old daughter, Scarlett, is pregnant, her world falls apart.
Because Scarlet won’t tell anyone who the father is. And Nina is scared that the answer will destroy everything.
As the suspects mount – from Scarlett’s teacher to Nina’s new husband of less than a year – Nina searches for the truth: no matter what the cost. 

The Little Bookshop of Lonely Hearts by Annie Darling

Where happy ever after is only a page away…
A delightful new series set in a quaint old bookshop, for fans of Lucy Diamond and Jenny Colgan
Once upon a time in a crumbling London bookshop, Posy Morland spent her life lost in the pages of her favourite romantic novels.
So when Bookend’s eccentric owner, Lavinia, dies and leaves the shop to Posy, she must put down her books and join the real world. Because Posy hasn’t just inherited an ailing business, but also the unwelcome attentions of Lavinia’s grandson, Sebastian, AKA The Rudest Man In London™.
Posy has a cunning plan and six months to transform Bookends into the bookshop of her dreams – if only Sebastian would leave her alone to get on with it. As Posy and her friends fight to save their beloved bookshop, Posy’s drawn into a battle of wills with Sebastian, about whom she’s started to have some rather feverish fantasies…
Like her favourite romantic heroines, will she get her happy ever after too?

Review: The Little Bookshop of Lonely Hearts by Annie Darling

Where happy ever after is only a page away…
A delightful new series set in a quaint old bookshop, for fans of Lucy Diamond and Jenny Colgan
Once upon a time in a crumbling London bookshop, Posy Morland spent her life lost in the pages of her favourite romantic novels.
So when Bookend’s eccentric owner, Lavinia, dies and leaves the shop to Posy, she must put down her books and join the real world. Because Posy hasn’t just inherited an ailing business, but also the unwelcome attentions of Lavinia’s grandson, Sebastian, AKA The Rudest Man In London™.
Posy has a cunning plan and six months to transform Bookends into the bookshop of her dreams – if only Sebastian would leave her alone to get on with it. As Posy and her friends fight to save their beloved bookshop, Posy’s drawn into a battle of wills with Sebastian, about whom she’s started to have some rather feverish fantasies…
Like her favourite romantic heroines, will she get her happy ever after too?

Review: Who's That Girl? by Mhairi McFarlane

What’s the one thing you do at a wedding? Kiss your groom. What’s the one thing you DON’T do at a wedding? Kiss someone else’s groom.
When Edie is caught in a compromising position at her colleagues’ wedding, all the blame falls on her – turns out that personal popularity in the office is not that different from your schooldays, and if the groom is the head boy, Edie is closer to the geek with NHS glasses and purple braces. Ostracised by her colleagues, her boss suggests an extended sabbatical and has the perfect project to fill it – ghostwriting an autobiography for hot new talent, Elliot Owen. All she has to do is keep her head down, get on with the star and not snog him. Easy, right?
Wrong. Banished back to her home town of Nottingham, Edie is not only dealing with a megabrat of epic proportions but also facing the ghosts of her past as she moves back in with her widowed father and layabout sister. As she questions the woman she has become, Edie realises that turning to look at her past is not just painful – it could potentially change her future.

An achingly funny story from the author of the bestselling YOU HAD ME AT HELLO

Review: The Bad Things by Mary-Jane Riley

Alex Devlin’s life changed forever fifteen years ago when her sister Sasha's two small children were snatched in broad daylight. Little Harry’s body was found a few days later, but Millie’s remains were never discovered.
Now Jackie Wood, jailed as an accessory to the twins’ murder, has been released, her conviction quashed by the Appeal Court. Convinced Jackie can reveal where Millie is buried, Alex goes to meet her.
But the unexpected information Wood reveals shocks Alex to the core and threatens to uncover the dark secret she has managed to keep under wraps for the past fifteen years. Because in the end, can we ever really know what is in the hearts of those closest to us?

Review: After Anna by Alex Lake

The real nightmare starts when her daughter is returned…
A bone-chilling psychological thriller that will suit fans of Daughter, by Jane Shemilt, and The Girl on the Train, by Paula Hawkins.
A girl is missing. Five years old, taken from outside her school. She has vanished, traceless.
The police are at a loss; her parents are beyond grief. Their daughter is lost forever, perhaps dead, perhaps enslaved.
But the biggest mystery is yet to come: one week after she was abducted, their daughter is returned.
She has no memory of where she has been. And this, for her mother, is just the beginning of the nightmare.

Another way to Fall ARC review

Another Way to Fall by Amanda Brooke

Publication Date UK: 22nd August 2013

Praise for Amanda Brooke

"A haunting and heartbreaking story that stayed with me long after I'd finished" Fern Britton

"Magical and unputdownable" Katie Fforde

Book Synopsis

29-year-old Emma has been battling a brain tumour for the last five years, putting on hold a promising career in London to move home and get better. When she receives the bad news that the tumour is back, more aggressive than ever and this time, terminal, her life comes crashing down about her as it seems the last five years of fighting have been in vain.

With her time left measured in months rather than years and realising she wont now have time to achieve the things she dreamed of, Emma decides to write her perfect life in a story. She writes about her dream career, her perfect husband and the family they would have raised together. As she writes she starts to feel the lines between what is real and what is fiction blurring, and begins to notice that some of the dreams seem to be coming true.

With a new love in her life Emma begins to feel hope for her future again, and as she writes her life-long love story she dares to believe that anything is possible and dreams can come true, but can she change her fate?

Shona's review 5 of 5 stars

How am I supposed to sum up this book in a spoiler free review? I don't even know where to start.

When I received the email from Harper Collins asking if I would be interested in this book I cried at the synopsis. I figured if the book could draw that kind of emotion from me with just the synopsis then I had to read the whole book. When the book arrived I quickly rushed through the book I had been reading so that I could get to this one. It's taken me 3 days to read this, well not quite, it's been 3 reading sessions. The longest session being last night, where I read until 1 am and I only put the book down because my face was so wet from the tears that had fallen. I finished reading the last 100 pages this morning whilst my children played, but clearly I should have waited until they were in bed because the whole time I was met by concerned looks and hugs to make me feel better as once again the tears flowed freely.

One of the hardest parts of this book was reading the story that Emma was writing. The life she would have lived if her diagnosis had been different. In some ways this was more heart wrenching than her real life, probably because she knew she would never have the chance to do the things she had written about.

Brooke has written an amazingly poignant book. One that grabs the reader and pulls them into Emma's world. One that I can see myself reading again. I'll just need to remember the tissues next time.

Claire's review 5 of 5 stars

I'm not really sure where to start this review. This book has left me very lost for words, it brings out so many emotions when you are reading.
Amanda's writing style is amazing and keeps you wanting to read more. Like Shona, I read this book in a very short time frame as I couldn't put it down!
I will definitely be recommending this book to friends, I haven't read a book that draws out such vast emotions in a long time and I really am stuck for words right now. I think I can only sum this book up by saying go and buy it and try it for yourself! I promise you won't be disappointed. Amanda has definitely gained herself a big fan :)

Amanda Brooke is a single mum in her forties who lives in Liverpool with her teenage daughter jessica. It was only when her young son was diagnosed with Cancer that Amanda began to develop her writing, recording her family's journey in a journal and through poetry. When Nathan died in 2006 at just three years old, Amanda was determined that his legacy would be one of inspiration not devastation. Her debut novel Yesterday's Sun was inspired by her experiences of motherhood and her understanding of how much a mother would be willing to sacrifice for the life of her child.

The Arrivals review

The Arrivals by Melissa Marr,

The second adult novel from NEW YORK TIMES bestseller Melissa Marr.

Book Synopsis

Chloe knew she shouldn't have gone into the bar last night. Now, in addition to a pounding headache and weak limbs, she's got the guilt of five years of sobriety down the drain.

When she wakes, she's not in the world she knows. She's in the Wasteland, a world populated by monsters and  unfamiliar landscapes, in the company of people just like her, pulled to the Wasteland out of time and place, for reason no one knows or understands. Once there, though, their mission is clear: keep the peace, protect each other, and try not to die, because sometimes, after six days of death, you might not wake up.

But things are changing in the Wasteland. And for Jack and Kitty, brother and sister from a Wild West frontier town; Edgar, a prohibition rumrunner and Kitty's former lover; Francis, a former hippie and general peacemaker; Melody, a mentally unbalanced 50s housewife; and Hector, a former carnival artist, the careful balance they've been keeping for years; why have they been brought to the Wasteland in the first place? And will it be possible for them to get home?

Shona's review 4 of 5 stars

A quick read of the blurb had me jumping at the chance to get a copy of this. The first few chapters where interesting enough but for some reason I didn't feel that pull that makes me want to carry on reading. I'm not sure but I think it's because I was expecting Chloe, after all I had already identified with her a little from the blurb and for her not to be there threw me off a bit. It didn't stop me from reading on though, like I said the whole idea of the book had me intrigued and I
wanted needed to know the why's of it all.

You soon realise that the first few chapters are giving you just enough back story and information to give you glimpses of the lives The Arrivals lead and that is what draws you in. The ever-changing dynamics of the group, the uncertainties; both in life and deaths, the deceptions. It's all very exciting. Although not set in the Wild West the Wastelands has that feel to it, we have a whole bunch of  people who have been taken from their own time (between the 1800's and 2013) in our world and been transported to the Wasteland. This is a great mix of science fiction and western. Cowboys have never been so hot ;-)

The back of the book says "A thoroughly original and wildly imagined tale.." and I honestly can't think of anything more appropriate to say about this book. It is well written and definitely has  the 'hooks' to catch the reader. The only reason I haven't given this 5 stars is because the first few chapters didn't immediately grab me. But what it lacked in pulling power in the first few chapters it soon makes up for in the rest of the book.

Melissa Marr was voted in high school the "most likely to end up in jail". Instead, she went to graduate school, worked in a bar, became a teacher and did a lot of writing. Her first adult novel, Graveminder, is  now in development for a television series with producer/director Ken Olin (The West Wing, Brothers & Sisters, Alias, Thirty-something). She is the author of the Wicked Lovely series.