#BookBlitz #RABTBookTours @RABTBookTours / #PromoPost : The Eagle & the Lynx #TheEagleandtheLynx – Michele James #MicheleJames @michelejamesau1 #BookBuzz @BookBuzznet #Historical #Fantasy #Romance

– ‘The Magic of Wor(l)ds’ blog is a hobby, reviews and other bookish stuff on this site are done for free. –

Today I’m on the ‘The Eagle & the Lynx’ blogtour, organized by RABT Book Tours.
To promote this book I have some ‘basic’ information.

About the Author :

Michele James lives in a southern California beach town with her understanding husband, two lazy house cats, and two crazy cattle dogs. She is the proud mother of two fully functional adults, and is Oma to the world’s most adorable grandson.
A mostly retired veterinarian technician, she enjoys reading everything from cereal boxes to serious tomes, watching movies without commercials, cooking, gardening, walks on the beach (especially in winter), and practicing yoga.

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BookBuzz

Synopsis :

WE ARE OUR FUTURE
Alyssa asked Jerrik to marry her when she was eight-years-old. When he finally makes good on his promise to return when she’s old enough to wed, nothing could prepare her for what becoming his queen truly means.
Jerrik is haunted by a tortured past, and has done everything he can to avoid any ties to his parents’ mistakes. Life has other plans, and against his wishes, he agrees to assume the cursed throne that has taken the lives of his loved ones. Now a king, he must wed, and the only real choice is his best friend’s sister – the girl who has loved him since she was a child.
His bride has grown into a beautiful, tempting woman, and Jerrik succumbs willingly to her charms. But lies and betrayal surround them at every turn, and while she holds true, he makes the ultimate mistake, almost ruining an incandescent love.

Apple Books
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The Magic of Wor(l)ds

RABT Book Tours

#ReleaseBlitz #RABTBookTours @RABTBookTours / #PromoPost : Replaced Parts #ReplacedParts – Stephanie Hansen #StephanieHansen @hansenwriter #YA #YoungAdult #SciFi #ScienceFiction

– ‘The Magic of Wor(l)ds’ blog is a hobby, reviews and other bookish stuff on this site are done for free. –

Today I’m on the ‘Replaced Parts’ blogtour, organized by RABT Book Tours.
To promote this book I have some ‘basic’ information.

About the Author :

Stephanie Hansen is a PenCraft Award Winning Author. Her novella series, Altered Helix, released 2020. Her short story, Break Time, and poetry has been featured in Mind’s Eye literary magazine. The Kansas Writers Association published her short story, Existing Forces, appointing her as a noted author. She has held a deep passion for writing since early childhood, but a brush with death caused her to allow it to grow. She’s part of an SCBWI critique group in Lawrence, KS and two local book clubs. She attends many writers’ conferences including the Writing Day Workshops, New York Pitch, Penned Con, New Letters, All Write Now, Show Me Writers Master Class, BEA, and Nebraska Writers Guild conference as well as Book Fairs and Comic-Cons. She is a member of the deaf and hard of hearing community.

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Synopsis :

In the year 2163 a corrupt World Government controls everything on our planet and beyond.
Sixteen year-old Sierra has been so caught up in her own world of saving animal test subjects and her father’s disappearance, she hasn’t paid much attention. When she finally finds his location, she and her friend set off on a covert interplanetary mission to rescue him, she begins to see the corruption first hand.
Discovering that her father has been on the front lines secretly trying to save human test subjects inspires her to join a revolution. But she is afraid of the collateral damage of hurting the people she loves. Will she find the strength to make a deal with the mad scientist Cromwell to save not just her friends and family but everyone?

Amazon
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Giveaway :

$20 Amazon Giftcard & a signed copy (US shipping only)

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The Magic of Wor(l)ds

Release Blitz Organized By:

RABT Book Tours

#BlogTour #RandomThingsTours @RandomTTours / #Excerpt : The Mind’s Eye #TheMindsEye – Miles M. Hudson @milesmhudson

– ‘The Magic of Wor(l)ds’ blog is a hobby, reviews and other bookish stuff on this site are done for free. –

Today I’m on the ‘The Mind’s Eye’ blogtour, organized by Random Things Tours.
To promote this book I have an excerpt, but before I let you read it first some ‘basic’ information.

About the Author :

Notionally, I’m a school physics teacher. I’ve worked in a variety of schools in north-east England and started recently as the PGCE Physics tutor at Newcastle Uni. I also write a whole load of textbook materials for schools, my biggest titles being A Level Physics books for Edexcel exam board courses.
And I’m the inventor of the Best Fit Line Ruler. I ran a small business making and selling those but after ten years and 50,000 rulers, I’ve stopped making them.
I have a major passion for writing fiction. My future-set series of novels, starting with 2089, is about a gently post-apocalyptic, Orwellian future England. You could say ‘sci-fi’, but it’s not really lasers and spaceships; ‘dystopian’ catches the themes well.
I’ve also developed a great series of detective novels featuring the duo Penfold and DS Tony Milburn. Based in Durham City CID, DS Milburn and his civilian foil, the kiwi surfer, Penfold, solve cases that take in high stakes such as murder and big heists, but in a very cerebral way. Holmes and Watson for the 21st Century, if you will.

Website
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Synopsis :

Everything anyone sees and hears is recorded and available to view online. Our eyes and ears are remotely wiretapped. There can be no secrets. But… what if the surveillance system had been hacked, and you weren’t actually committing the crimes people saw you committing? Jack Smith and Vicky Truva are on the run, again.
In 2089, Jack was banished to an island in the Bristol Channel for blowing up the old GCHQ building to destroy the surveillance computers. 18 months later, those responsible for his conviction suffer arson, assault and explosion. Eye witnesses attribute these crimes to Jack. The surveillance system is fixed, but he appears to be evading it. That should be impossible.
With his friend, Vicky, Jack returns from exile to try to prove that he is not the criminal. A militia posse, including Vicky’s brother, pursue them across climate-changed Gloucestershire. The surveillance system functions erratically. Can Jack and Vicky outrun the posse long enough to work out what’s wrong with it? And find out who really committed the crimes? And can they catch them?

Amazon

Excerpt :

Prologue
31st January 2091, 11.40am The Doughnut, Cheltenham

Dira had seen a man carried off a jetty by the wind and into the swollen waters of the Severn. He never resurfaced. He hadn’t personally witnessed it – Dira had watched the audiopt surveillance images from thirty kilometres away, on a screen in his workstation at the Doughnut. The audio feeds from two Newnham residents showed the man fall into the dark water passing the village landing stage. Aluen had asked Dira to come and watch that same footage with her. She had said something seemed ‘off’.
From a first floor corridor window, he looked out to see wet leaves helplessly drawn into a vortex. Wild air swirled around the courtyard inner circle of the Doughnut. The giant building had a perfect wind trap in its centre. The constant rain had been hurled against the long windows for three days. Dira realised his hands were gripping the steel handrail tightly. He blinked away the memory of a screen showing the man falling in and turned from the rain-streaked windows to walk into Aluen’s office.
‘What’s up, boss?’ Dira breezed.
She smiled – Dira was at least thirty years her senior, and neither of them considered Aluen his boss. He had been a technician supporting Newnham’s sifters since the days of her predecessor’s predecessor.
She had a huge space all to herself. In its historic GCHQ days, this had been an open plan office for thirty analysts. Now, Aluen wallowed alone in the middle, and the rest of the room was pretty much bare. As with most sifters, she used a horseshoe of twelve screens, in three rows of four, half wrapped around herself on a big semi circular desk. They masked her view of the computer terminals piled up behind, which operated the screens, and she used only one keyboard for all of it. She also had a gestures input gizmo, which meant she worked much of the time without needing to touch the keyboard. Voice commands worked well but, as her work involved near-constant watching and listening, Aluen preferred silent control of the systems. When she was in full flow, hands and arms waving and swinging, head bobbing up and down and turning left and right, Dira regularly thought she looked like a seated dancer.
‘The algorithms have sent me these audio feeds about a probable death in Newnham, but there’s a lot that I don’t really get. I’m hoping you can help me to corroborate it.’ She worked monitoring the public surveillance system to report potential crimes back to the village of Newnham – her home Kangaroo.
Aluen sat in an oversized office chair that could swivel and roll around easily to be able to peer at any of the screens as needed. She had chocolate hair which she always wore in a functional ponytail. As Dira approached, her dark eyebrows contrasted with the pale face. They were crumpled together in concentration, eyes flicking up and down between two screens.
‘OK, what are you looking at?’
‘Right, watch this one first.’
Aluen played a piece of video showing an average-sized man with short hair standing near the end of a boat jetty. It was the Newnham jetty location he’d watched previously – he’d guessed correctly. Dira recognised the Old Ferry Crossing pilings and boardwalk. The jetty was short but, at the time the feed was recorded, the tide was full, and the water roiled around and under it.
The audio playback screen identified the first feed as having been detected in Roy Lu’s auditory and optic nerves two days previously. Aluen and Dira could see the events on the jetty unfold precisely as Lu had observed them through his own eyes and ears. He saw the jetty man bend and then stand up straight. The wind gusted strongly, and the man on the jetty was blown off into the water. Mr Lu ran out on to the jetty himself but could not see the man in the water at all. The wind was still gusting powerfully, and Mr Lu backed carefully along the centre of the wooden walkway, so as not to suffer the same fate. He was shouting and calling the whole time. He clearly did not know the unfortunate drowned man as he only called in generic terms, never using a name.
‘Looks like an accident, I don’t think you’d need to report that in the KangaReview. It’s a sad incident, but there’s nothing for the Kangaroo to rule on in terms of criminal actions.’
Aluen continued scrutinising a different screen on which playback was paused. She spoke without turning from the still image. ‘Right, yeah. So, now look at this one.’
She pointed away from the paused screen to another one above the first video feed. The same story played out, except this time from the point of view of a different witness, a man called Anton Belling. The only real difference was that Mr Belling stayed put in his fishing spot on the bank adjacent to the jetty. He saw the unidentified man fall in the water, stood up to see better, and then watched Roy Lu race onto the slippery wooden planks to aid the one who had fallen in. Mr Belling clearly knew Mr Lu, as he called for him to be careful, using the name ‘Roy’.

The Magic of Wor(l)ds

#CoverReveal #LoveBooksTours @LoveBooksGroup : Ultimatum – John Andersen @CayellePub

– ‘The Magic of Wor(l)ds’ blog is a hobby, reviews and other bookish stuff on this site are done for free. –

Today I’m super pleased to be on the blogtour, organized by Love Books Group Tour, to reveal the cover of

But first some information

About the Author :

/

Synopsis :

When alien delegate Charlie was sent down to Earth, he never imagined the humans would comply with his demands. He wanted to give humanity a chance to eradicate all the wrong in the world by eliminating discrimination, hate, greed, immorality, and envy. The only way he believed they would comply was to threaten their entire existence by an alien invasion takeover. He would give them 10 years to right all the wrongs and to unify with one another. Even the President of the United States expressed extreme displeasure about the demand. However, stricken with fear, even though the humans didn’t want to bend to the threat, they knew there was not much of a choice. Ten years pass…
Did the humans come together to force out the aliens or did the aliens return seeing not much had changed since giving the Ultimatum? Will destruction fall upon Earth obliterating human civilization?

After this great teaser I hope you are still excited for the

because this is happening

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right now!

Did this all pique your interest in reading the book? It will be available soon.

The Magic of Wor(l)ds

#BlogTour #RachelsRandomResources @rararesources / #PromoPost : Bad Blood – Lily Hayden @hwoods_creative

– ‘The Magic of Wor(l)ds’ blog is a hobby, reviews and other bookish stuff on this site are done for free. –

Today I’m on the ‘Bad Blood’ blogtour, organized by Rachel’s Random Resources.
To promote this book I have a some ‘basic’ information for you.

About the Author :

Lily Hayden writes chick lit with a kick.
Modern day women want modern day heroines and Lily’s characters want sizzling romance, rewarding careers and equal partnerships, but like all of us, they face many challenges and it isn’t always easy.
A mother to four children, Lily graduated with a degree in Business in her hometown in South Wales and enjoyed a successful career in Financial Services before fulfilling a lifelong ambition to write books.
Her debut novel Butterflies, a heartwarming alternative to the traditional boy-meets-girl story, was released in 2018, reaching readers all over the world and she is the author of seven books, including a Young Adult Dystopian novel Project Terra under the alias SJ Woods (because who doesn’t love a bit of action and defeating bad guys every now and again).
Follow Lily on social media for the latest releases, promotions and occasional photos of her dogs.

Social Media Links:
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Synopsis :

Even Bad Blood is Thicker than Water
Tim, Rose, Will and Belle led a charmed childhood growing up together on idyllic Bluebell Farm, but everything changed when their mother died. Sixteen years on, they’re practically strangers.
An unexpected invitation from their estranged father brings them back together giving them an opportunity to heal past wounds and start afresh.
But when Frank is found dead on the morning of his wedding, suspicion turns to the four siblings’ motivations, and the bad blood of the past resurfaces.

Purchase Links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US

The Magic of Wor(l)ds

#BlogTour #LoveBooksTours @LoveBooksGroup / #Excerpt : Triple Jeopardy – Christopher Lowery @clowerywriter @urbanebooks

– ‘The Magic of Wor(l)ds’ blog is a hobby, reviews and other bookish stuff on this site are done for free. –

Today I’m on the ‘Triple Jeopardy’ blogtour, organized by Love Books Tour.
To promote this book I have an excerpt, but before I let you read it first some ‘basic’ information.

Christopher Lowery is a ‘Geordie’, born in the northeast of England, who graduated in finance and economics after reluctantly giving up career choices in professional golf and rock & roll. Chris left the UK for Switzerland in 1966 and has lived and worked in six different countries over the last 50 years. He was a real estate developer and Telecoms/Internet entrepreneur and inventor and has created several successful companies around the world, notably Interoute Communications, now Europe’s largest cloud services platform provider and Wyless Group, now part of Kore Telematics, one of the world’s largest Internet of Things providers.
In 2014, Chris started writing historically/factually based thrillers and the first two volumes of his African Diamonds Trilogy – The Angolan Clan & The Rwandan Hostage, were published by Urbane Publications, a UK publisher. These books are based upon his family’s experiences during the Portuguese Revolution of the Carnations of 1974 and his daughter’s work as a delegate with the ICRC in Rwanda in 1996. The third volume, The Dark Web, was published in April 2018 and draws on his experience as one of the creators of The Internet of Things, between 2002 and 2016. His fourth book, The Mosul Legacy, an unrelated story, will be published in September 2018. His illustrated All About Jack stories for children are written in humorous verse and were published privately.

Synopsis :

Triple Jeopardy is the gripping follow-up to the best-selling African Diamonds Trilogy.
After lying undisturbed for almost a half century, a mysterious batch of diamonds reappears to be sold at public auctions in Switzerland.
But where do these priceless stones come from and who is behind their discovery and sale?
Jenny Bishop knows the gems are surrounded by a legacy of death and corruption and sets out to foil the conspiracy.
Deception, murder, and revenge abound in Lowery’s new, compelling international thriller.

Amazon

Excerpt :

Santa Monica, California
May 2019

Ricardo Menendez’s iPhone alarm awakened him at 6:30 am. In fact, he’d been unable to sleep for most of the night and only fallen into a light doze around 4:00. By 7:30 he had shaved and showered, dressing in his dark blue suit with a red tie. Despite his Spanish origins, Ricardo was a conservative dresser, like everything else he did in life – he didn’t like taking risks, not usually anyway. That was why he wasn’t married. He had gone out with some good-looking girls in college and afterwards, but the consensus seemed to be that he was an unadventurous bore and no woman in her right mind wanted to spend her life being bored.
He took his wallet, driver’s licence and car keys from the sideboard in the hall then opened the bottom drawer, took an item out and shoved it in the inside pocket of his jacket. In the mirror, he saw the bulge and transferred it to the side pocket. Lastly, he folded the letter and placed it inside a manila file with an elastic band around it that already contained some documents; a stamped, addressed envelope and several items of correspondence. He’d reread the letter a couple of times while he was getting ready and it was now covered with notes in his untidy scrawl. His Ford was in front of the building and at 8:00 he parked it at the diner on the corner of Overland and Regent Street.
He checked the stamps on the envelope, kissed the seal and pushed it into the nearby post box, then walked into the diner, the file in his hand. The teenage waitress placed a mug of coffee in front of him and went to the kitchen with his order. He glanced around at the other customers; they were all eating, reading newspapers or looking at phones. He gazed out the window at the park on the other side of the street.
It was a bright, clear morning and several dog owners were walking their pets around the park. He regretted that he’d never owned a pet. Not a cat, they were far too independent and sure of themselves. A small to medium sized dog would have been good company for him and he would have enjoyed looking after it. He was a very tidy and well-organised man and apart from this last experience his life had been without any major disruptions. A dog would probably have enjoyed the stability and routine he’d established.
The girl came back with his eggs, bacon and pancakes and he poured a generous dose of syrup over the meal then devoured it greedily, feeling hungrier than he had for some time. He pushed the empty plate aside and put his glasses on, sitting with another mug of coffee, checking the items from the file and reading the letter one more time. He could have recited the contents from memory, so many times had he gone through it word for word, looking for some meaning that might have escaped him. But there was none and even if there had been he knew it would make no difference in the end.

The Magic of Wor(l)ds

#BlogTour #RandomThingsTours @RandomTTours / #Excerpt : Killing The Girl #KillingTheGirl – Elizabeth Hill @wickedwriteruk

– ‘The Magic of Wor(l)ds’ blog is a hobby, reviews and other bookish stuff on this site are done for free. –

Today I’m on the ‘Killing The Girl’ blogtour, organized by Random Things Tours.
To promote this book I have an excerpt, but before I let you read it first some ‘basic’ information.

About the Author :

Elizabeth published ‘Killing The Girl’ in April 2019, which has won the ‘Chill With A Book’ Premier Readers Award and Book Of The Month for October 2020. She is now busy working on her second novel, Killing The Shadowman.
We all love a great murder mystery and ‘Killing The Girl’ explores the reasons why an ordinary woman kills. What pushes her to her limit of endurance and sanity? And could that woman be you?
Elizabeth is a member of The Alliance of Independent Authors, The Bristol Fiction Writers Group and Noir At The Bar, Bath. She was a speaker at the 2019 Bristol Festival of Literature.

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Synopsis :

• Publisher : Independently published (27 April 2019)
• Language : English
• Paperback : 310 pages
• ISBN-10 : 1093123737
• ISBN-13 : 978-1093123739

A perfect life, a perfect love – and a perfect murder.
For over forty years Carol Cage has been living as a recluse in her mansion, Oaktree House. Fear is her constant companion. She’s been keeping a secret – and it’s about to be unearthed.
When she receives a compulsory purchase order for her home, she knows that everyone is going to find out what she did to survive her darkest weeks in 1970. She writes her confession so that we can understand what happened because she wasn’t the only one living a lie. The events that turned her fairy-tale life into a living hell were not all they seemed.
She’s determined not to pay for the mistakes of others; if she has to suffer, then they will too.
Carol Cage has a terrible secret … and she’s about to exact retribution on everyone who’d let her suffer.

Amazon

Excerpt :

Part 1
Prologue

Perry Cutler and I buried Frankie Dewberry in the orchard. He lies close to the garden wall, under the shade of the apple trees. Over the last forty-odd years, I’ve spent many hours sitting on the wooden bench we placed next to his grave. It’s a peaceful spot near the boundary wall running to the south-west of my estate. Sitting near him comforts me. I tell Frankie how restricted my life has been since his death. I tell him how sorry I am that our daughter, Francine, died so young. Although I loved him, I never tell him I’m sorry he’s dead.
Outside my study window, the trees and bushes sway stiffly in the winter breeze; their shifting branches stripped bare in the cold air. January is my least favourite month, with its grey, joyless days and cruelty towards my garden.
On my desk, my notebook lies waiting for my reluctant attention. The sick feeling I’ve had this last month stirs as I touch it. It lists the many tasks I have to complete; inventories to write and documents to sign. Chilly air surrounds me as Frankie’s spirit enters the room. Shivering in his ghostly presence, I reread the newspaper article. My house is to be demolished to make way for a ring road. They will find Frankie’s resting place when they cut into the soil protecting my lover, my darling man. Police will ask questions. Strangers, who know nothing about me or my pain, will look at me in disgust.
After they have finished with his skeleton, we can arrange his funeral so they can lay him to rest in consecrated ground. We will say prayers and sanction his long-awaited trip to heaven, although when I killed him, I was sure that he went straight to hell.

Chapter 1
Now – January

There’s not been a schedule requiring my strict adherence since the birth of Francine and motherhood duties. Now the number of things that must be done to enable me to leave my home overwhelms me. Doing nothing is preferable. No one will die if I stay in bed and read; inactivity tempers the crushing sensation that my life is out of my control. But dread edges closer, carrying with it the knowledge that I have to act, do, process, move. Those verbs build into a crescendo, threatening to stifle me. I pull the sheets over my head and, to distract myself, ponder that I hate verbs. But now my feet itch with frustration at my inability to step up to the tasks required to secure my future, and I should get out of bed to calm them.
I’m moving into Perry’s house until a new replica of my home, Oaktree House, is built using many of the bricks, tiles, fixtures and fittings of the original. We will be kind to the environment as we churn up the green belt and replace it with tarmac. We will build my new home on the other side of Perry’s farmhouse, in one of my fields. There will be a house, a copse and an orchard in the new setting. It will be exactly the same. But Frankie will not be resting close by. I will miss him. It will be the first time we have been apart in over forty years.
They leave my post in a letterbox next to the locked gate at the end of the lane adjoining the main road. This is where the new road will carve through my land as it progresses along its destructive route. Leaving my home once a day to collect it is a must, as failure to collect it will cause alarm to the post-person, who may call the police. A police presence upon the land concealing my dead boyfriend is not conducive to a quiet life. That thought spurs me on as I shower, dress and eat breakfast.
Wearing my heavy coat and wellington boots, I hesitate on the threshold. One day, I chide myself, I will leave the confines of my home without giving it a second thought. Gathering my nerves, I step out as though into the unknown, instead of into an area secured by walls and locked gates. The twelve-bore and air rifle sit in the hallway cupboard, and on days when I need extra support, I rest one of them over my arm. Why an empty gun that I’ve no intention of using calms me defies explanation; I suppose the weight comforts, and the menace any trespasser might imagine when confronted, boosts my confidence. There’s no intention to kill anyone else. I’m not a killer. I’m someone who makes bad choices.
In front of me, in a circle of grass, is a magnificent oak tree. It has a twin growing behind the house, in Dawnview Wood, on the path leading down the hillside to the rabbit warren of council streets below. That other tree has distressing memories surrounding each branch and leaf. Guilt and damnation ooze from its core like poison gas. That tree will remain untouched by the coming destruction–an act of God, or whoever decides I need reminding of the frailty of human nature. It will remain to symbolise what happens when you mistakenly place faith and trust in the wrong person. My new house will be further away from it, so that is some consolation.
My driveway is large and circles the tree. Making my way across it, I try not to think about a time when all this will be gone, but to, as one of my counsellors puts it, ‘live in the moment as it is now, not the future, nor the past’. Nevertheless, I cannot shut out the imagined noise of future traffic screeching along. Or the disturbance to nesting birds and scurrying voles, field mice, foxes and arguing magpies as they live, die, and kill, unaware that their time is running out. There’s a wish on my breath for strength as I suck the atmosphere in and commit it to memory. More sadness to add to the depressiveness of life. Reaching the lane, I hang on to a fence post and breathe and count and breathe and count.
The lane runs through a wooded area that conceals my house from the road. No one can come along here, as the gate by the road is padlocked, except Perry. Perry has keys to every lock on my estate and in my home. Not that he would enter my home, but he has them anyway. He will only venture into the orangery adjoining the kitchen. There’s a reason he won’t. I shall explain in my confession.

The Magic of Wor(l)ds

#BlogTour #RachelsRandomResources @rararesources / #PromoPost : Death at Rainbow Cottage – Jo Allen @JoAllenAuthor @Aria_Fiction

– ‘The Magic of Wor(l)ds’ blog is a hobby, reviews and other bookish stuff on this site are done for free. –

Today I’m on the ‘Death at Rainbow Cottage’ blogtour, organized by Rachel’s Random Resources.
To promote this book I have a some ‘basic’ information for you.

About the Author :

Jo Allen is the author of the successful DCI Satterthwaite series of detective novels set in and around the English Lake District, where she lives. After a career in economic consultancy she took up writing and was first published under the name Jennifer Young in genres of short stories, romance and romantic suspense. In 2017 she took the plunge and began writing the genre she most likes to read – crime. In common with all her favourite characters, she loves football (she’s a season ticket holder with her beloved Wolverhampton Wanderers) and cats.

Social Media Links:
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Synopsis :

At the end of the rainbow, a man lies dead.
The apparently motiveless murder of a man outside the home of controversial equalities activist Claud Blackwell and his neurotic wife, Natalie, is shocking enough for a peaceful local community. When it’s followed by another apparently random killing immediately outside Claud’s office, DCI Jude Satterthwaite has his work cut out. Is Claud the killer, or the intended victim?
To add to Jude’s problems, the arrival of a hostile new boss causes complications at work, and when a threatening note arrives at the police headquarters, he has real cause to fear for the safety of his friends and colleagues…
A traditional British detective novel set in Cumbria.

Purchase Link

The Magic of Wor(l)ds

#BlogTour #RandomThingsTours @RandomTTours / #Excerpt : Alter Ego #AlterEgo – K A Masson @kamasson_writer

– ‘The Magic of Wor(l)ds’ blog is a hobby, reviews and other bookish stuff on this site are done for free. –

Today I’m on the ‘Alter Ego’ blogtour, organized by Random Things Tours.
To promote this book I have an excerpt, but before I let you read it first some ‘basic’ information.

About the Author :

I live in London with my teenage son and our black cat Slinky, and have worked in graphic design for over 20 years, bringing to life the words of others. I began writing Alter Ego almost by accident. I emailed Faber Academy on a day when someone had just pulled out of their ‘Start Your Novel In A Week’ course. Without that stroke of luck, I may never have got further than the first few chapters.
I’ve always loved books with a psychological element; My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier, Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro and the Dublin Murders series by Tana French are among my favourite books. I’m fascinated by the crazy things that normal people do, when pushed by anger, fear, jealousy, and hate.
I’m an avid runner, and love cinema, photography and art. I couldn’t live without coffee and I’m a decent meringue baker.
You can find out more about me at my website.

Synopsis :

Pounding on the door. My seven-year-old son shaking me awake. My head fuzzy with sleeping pills. The hallway flashing with blue light. This morning my life will change forever.
Alex Kendrew is juggling single parenthood, work and dating; with a wild, impetuous streak that’s hard to keep in check, she struggles to find a balance and feels perpetually guilty for the choices she makes.
In K.A. Masson’s domestic noir thriller, Alex begins a passionate affair when an old flame gets in touch. But one morning, the police arrest her for his attempted murder. Someone is framing her; can she prove her innocence as the evidence mounts against her?
Start reading Alter Ego today – a fascinating portrayal of a woman caught between her desires and responsibilities.

Amazon

Excerpt :

Extract from chapter one

Hi, I’m grabbing five minutes between meetings to send you a quick message! Love your profile – I’m a fellow Scot – I was born in Glasgow but no longer have the accent, unfortunately! Anything more you’d like to know about me, please feel free to drop me a line. Mal.
Three days after unhiding my dating profile, I was already beginning to feel the onset of online dating fatigue – man shopping should be as fun as it sounds. But the kid-in-a-sweetshop appeal of trawling through profile after profile quickly subsides when you begin to suspect the photographs are ten years old, before the men have lost their hair and gained a beer belly. And they start their ‘bit about me’ with ‘Hello, thanks for stopping by. I consider myself a gentleman with integrity, am genuine, caring and thoughtful. I’ve been told I’m good looking, charming, well-mannered, interesting, interested and engaging, fun loving with a good sense of humour.’
Anyone who feels the need to mention they possess a sense of humour clearly doesn’t. What stops me throwing the towel in completely is the prospect of being single for the next forty years, gradually drying out and becoming increasingly wrinkled and grey and crotchety.
On the whole I could scan pages of profile photos of men that had appeared as my ‘matches’, with no danger of my heart racing. Occasionally, some square-jawed, raven-haired, dark-eyed lovely would cause it to skip a beat, providing a brief interlude from the real world. Until reading his profile where he would undoubtedly prove himself to be a narcissist, only interested in women twenty-five years younger than him, with dubious beliefs, religious and political, providing too much information about his hobbies, terrible taste in music or a lack of interest in anything that isn’t sport-related.
Sometimes all of these traits are missing, but I had grown to assume there must be some unspoken rule, that if someone is not only extremely attractive but also appears to be sane, intelligent, successful and solvent, they pretty much can pick or choose from the entire site. I had learned that, in the interests of self-preservation, they were best avoided.
The odd profile made me laugh out loud though, spraying coffee all over my keyboard, as had happened earlier that morning.
‘Recently I’ve looked around and realised I’m the last one left on the dance floor and if I’m not careful, I’m headed for an undignified single existence, probably involving silver leather jackets and some kind of white sports car.’
Sadly he fell into the above category, so I decided not to darken his inbox.
I remembered this guy though. He’d ‘liked’ me a few days ago, and had looked at my profile a few times. He sounded just my type, mainly because he said he was obsessed with music – he’d listed a few bands that would get into my top ten too. His profile stated Brixton as his location which was handy; I lived not too far away. He had a line about wanting to meet someone who’d like to go to gigs with him so that he no longer look like a record company executive; on his own, in a suit and twenty years older than the rest of the crowd. His photos were a little uninspiring though; his main one a selfie taken on a train – no one is going to look their best under the harsh strip lighting of public transport. But there was one – he was in profile, sitting on a bench with a lake behind him, wearing a really good suit, tanned, expensive sunglasses, hair coiffured with just the right amount of care and product. And, I noted with delight, a slight chin cleft. A true sign of a flirt, they say. Ned, then four-years-old, had one and he was already in training.

The Magic of Wor(l)ds

#PublicationDayPush #RachelsRandomResources @rararesources / #Excerpt : The Duke’s Runaway Bride – Jenni Fletcher @JenniAuthor @MillsandBoon @HarlequinBooks

– ‘The Magic of Wor(l)ds’ blog is a hobby, reviews and other bookish stuff on this site are done for free. –

Today I’m on the ‘The Duke’s Runaway Bride’ blogtour, organized by Rachel’s Random Resources.
To promote this book I have an excerpt, but before I let you read it first some ‘basic’ information.

About the Author :

Jenni Fletcher was born in Scotland and now lives in Yorkshire where she writes historical romance novels ranging from the Roman to late Victorian eras. She studied English at Cambridge and Hull and has been nominated for 4 RoNA awards, winning for Short Romantic Fiction in 2020. She teaches Creative Writing at a university in the north of England and her favourite hobbies are baking and, of course, reading.

Social Media Links:
Twitter
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Synopsis :

From shopkeeper…
To Duke’s wife
When Beatrix, Duchess of Howden, writes to her estranged husband offering a divorce, she’s stunned when he arrives on her doorstep with a different proposition: a six-week marriage trial! Quinton Roxbury seems cold and inscrutable, but Beatrix gradually realises his rough exterior hides a heavy burden. As their connection deepens, dare she trust him with her own scandalous past and risk the marriage she never knew she wanted?

Purchase Links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Kobo
WHSmith

Excerpt :

In this extract, the newly reunited Beatrix and Quin have just returned to his ducal home, Howden Hall, where his little sister Helen has a habit of hiding under tables…

‘Good morning,’ Quinton announced to the empty-looking breakfast room, making his way to the sideboard and preparing two plates of scrambled egg, mushroom, sausages and bacon and then carrying them both back to the table. ‘It looks like it’s going to be a pleasant day.’
No answer.
‘I’d rather hoped you’d be outside with the others yesterday.’ He slid one of the plates under the tablecloth, waiting until it was plucked from his fingers before continuing. ‘I know you’re shy around new people, but there’s no need to worry about meeting Beatrix. She’s very nice, trust me.’ He almost smiled at the words. They were true. She was very nice, if a little unconventional for a duchess. ‘In any case, I’d be grateful if you could make an appearance at luncheon. You don’t have to eat with us, just show your face. Will that be all right?’
A small bump on the table answered in the affirmative.
‘Good. Now, do you want toast?’
Another bump.
‘Butter and marmalade?’
Two bumps.
‘Just butter, then?’
One bump.
‘Quinton?’
He lifted his head at the sound of his wife’s voice. She was standing just inside the doorway, regarding him with an expression of perplexity mixed with alarm as he pushed a piece of bread under the table.
‘Beatrix?’ Fortunately, the toast was pulled from his fingers at that moment, allowing him to stand up and make a small bow. ‘You’re awake early.’
‘I got used to early hours at Belles.’ She seemed somewhat reluctant to come any closer, looking from him to the table and back again. ‘Who were you talking to? Is there a dog under there?’
‘No-o, no dog.’ He gave a small cough. ‘Can I fetch you anything?’
‘Um…no, thank you. I can manage.’ She regarded him suspiciously for another moment before reaching for a plate, appetite obviously outweighing caution. ‘Don’t let your own breakfast get cold.’
‘You slept well, I trust?’ He sat down again, wondering how to explain.
‘Very well, thank you. And you?’
‘Not bad,’ he lied. Truthfully, he’d had a wretched night, kept awake by a combination of anger at his intractable, ill-mannered family and a sleep-thwarting awareness of her on the other side of the wall. If she was on the other side of the wall, that was. He still hadn’t asked Mrs Hastings. For all he knew, he’d been lusting after a completely empty bedchamber…
‘Can I pour you some coffee?’
‘Please.’ She took a seat beside him. ‘So…why were you just talking to the table?’
‘Ah. Well, about that… I wasn’t talking to the table exactly.’ He passed her a small silver milk jug. ‘Beatrix, meet my youngest sister, Helen.’
‘Your sister?’ Her eyes widened, flashing with something like panic.
‘Again, not the table. The little girl sitting under it. She’s a little reserved.’
‘Oh…’ Beatrix lifted a hand and pointed a finger downwards. ‘So I shouldn’t…?’
‘It’s usually best to wait until she comes out. I’m afraid it might take a few days before she actually says anything.’
‘I see. Well, then, it’s very nice to meet you, Helen. I’m Beatrix.’
There was a momentary pause, followed by a faint bump.
‘I hope that we’re going to be friends.’ She leaned towards Quinton, lowering her voice slightly. ‘How old is she?’
Ten bumps, one after the other, answered for him.
‘Thank you.’ She laughed delightedly, her face lighting up in a way that was completely different to all the tight, forced smiles she’d given him so far. She looked transformed. Radiant. Captivating. Beautiful. Enough to make him forget all about the piece of bacon he’d been about to pop into his mouth. People rarely smiled like that at Howden. Or anywhere, come to think of it. The sight seemed to warm his insides. And as for her laugh…
‘What’s the matter?’ To his dismay, the smile faded as her eyebrows lifted instead.
‘Nothing.’ He gave his head a small shake, returning his attention to the bacon. ‘It just occurred to me that I’ve never heard you laugh before.’
‘I’ve never heard you laugh either, but then I suppose we haven’t had a great deal to laugh about together so far, have we?’
‘True. Although to be honest, I don’t remember the last time I laughed at all.’
‘Hmm.’ She looked thoughtful rather than shocked by the observation. ‘I suppose I never used to laugh much either. There was a time, when I lived with my uncle and aunt, when I wasn’t even sure that I could. Of course, that was before I met Nancy.’
‘She’s amusing?’
‘Very, although not always intentionally. She has the worst temper and biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever met.’ She chuckled quietly to herself before bending down to speak under the table. ‘Would you like anything else, Helen?’
Two bumps.
‘That means no,’ Quinton interpreted. ‘I gave her a full plate earlier.’
‘Ah. What a kind brother you have.’
A single thud, louder this time.
‘So…’ He gave a small cough of embarrassment. ‘I was hoping to show you the park this morning, but I’m afraid there’s a problem with the roof that requires my attention. Perhaps we might take a ride after luncheon instead?’

The Magic of Wor(l)ds