Recensie @HarperCollinsHL : Jager in de nacht #JagerInDeNacht – Chris Carter

– ‘The Magic of Wor(l)ds’ blog is een hobby, recensies en andere boekgerelateerde berichten worden gratis geplaatst.
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De auteur :

Chris Carter werd geboren in Brazilië en groeide op in de Verenigde Staten. Hij studeerde psychologie en bestudeerde in zijn baan als forensisch psycholoog gedrag van criminelen. Tegenwoordig is hij fulltime schrijver. Zijn reeks rondom profiler Robert Hunter wordt in meer dan 20 landen uitgegeven.

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Korte inhoud :

De nieuwe Chris Carter: spanning en sensatie gegarandeerd. Voor lezers van M.J. Arlidge en Robert Bryndza.
Een onbekende vrouw wordt dood aangetroffen in een verlaten slagerij. Haar lichaam heeft geen verwondingen, maar haar lippen zijn zorgvuldig dichtgenaaid. Pas tijdens de autopsie ontdekt de patholoog hoe gruwelijk de daad werkelijk is…
Profiler Robert Hunter en zijn partner Carlos Garcia worden op de zaak gezet om de dader te achterhalen. Maar wanneer hun onderzoek botst met een vermissingszaak, die wordt onderzocht door privédetective Whitney Meyers, rijst bij Hunter het vermoeden dat de moordenaar het op meerdere vrouwen gemunt heeft. De jacht op deze obsessieve moordenaar, een stalker voor wie liefde veranderd is in haat, is nu pas echt geopend.

HarperCollins Holland

Mijn mening :

‘Jager in de nacht’ is voor mij het tweede boek dat ik las van Chris Carter en net als het voorgaande boek hield het mij van begin tot het einde in z’n greep.
Gruwelijke moorden, korte hoofdstukken, interessante hoofdpersonages en een aangename schrijfstijl zorgden er immers voor dat ik moeite had om het boek weg te leggen.
Het principe van nog vlug 1 hoofdstuk voor het slapen gaan was hier dus niet aan de orde, doorlezen absoluut wel!
Wanneer je dan denkt toch even op adem te kunnen komen, verrast de auteur je alweer met een mini cliffhanger of een eindspurt om u tegen te zeggen.
Ik heb spijt dat deze geweldig goede thriller reeds uit is en ik opnieuw (on)geduldig moet zitten wachten op het volgende deel, want had ik het geld, ik had deze volledige serie (12 boeken), in gelijk welke vorm, reeds gekocht in het Engels.
Mijn naam is The Magic of Wor(l)ds en ik ben een mega-fan!

The Magic of Wor(l)ds

Recensie @amboanthos : De fiscalist #DeFiscalist – Ariëlla Kornmehl @AriellaKornmehl

– ‘The Magic of Wor(l)ds’ blog is een hobby, recensies en andere boekgerelateerde berichten worden gratis geplaatst.
Ik ben dankbaar voor het ontvangen van een gratis boekexemplaar van de auteur/de uitgeverij in ruil voor mijn eerlijke mening. –

De auteur :

Ariëlla Kornmehl (1975) studeerde filosofie en woont in Amsterdam. Ze schreef onder meer de romans De vlindermaand (2005), die in zes landen werd vertaald en werd genomineerd voor de IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, en Een stille moeder (2009), die werd bekroond met de Boekdelenprijs 2011 voor het beste leesclubboek. Haar roman Wat ik moest verzwijgen (2013) werd in Duitsland bewerkt tot een theaterstuk. De fiscalist is haar vijfde roman.

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Korte inhoud :

De fiscalist van Ariëlla Kornmehl is het onthutsende verslag van een man die de grip op zijn eigen leven dreigt te verliezen. Anton Frankenmolen, een Haagse fiscalist, wordt al jarenlang opgeslokt door zijn werk. Toch is hij maar gematigd succesvol. Zijn huwelijk is uitgeblust, zijn kinderen zijn de deur uit. Hij heeft besloten om niet door een psycholoog of een zelfhulpboek een wending aan zijn bestaan te laten geven. Om zijn gemis aan echt contact te compenseren gebruikt hij zijn iPhone. Als blijkt dat ook deze methode hem niet gelukkiger maakt, concentreert hij zich op de dochter van een gerespecteerde klant.
Mila is een telg uit de familie Kaufmann, die al decennia eigenaar is van diverse panden in Amsterdam en voor wie Anton meer is dan enkel een belastingadviseur. Kan de obsessie voor Mila hem bevrijden uit zijn beklemmende leven? De fiscalist is de nieuwe roman van gerenommeerd auteur Ariëlla Kornmehl en is gebaseerd op een waargebeurd verhaal.

Ambo|Anthos uitgevers

Mijn mening :

‘De Fiscalist’ is voor mij een eerste kennismaking met Ariëlla Kornmehl en ik moet zeggen dat ik aangenaam verrast was.
Persoonlijk ben ik namelijk niet zo’n ‘roman’ lezer, maar de achterflap trok mijn aandacht omdat het toch best wel interessant klonk.
Vanaf pagina één was ik meteen geïnteresseerd in het hoofdpersonage Anton, omdat ik het wel ergens herkende, die angst waar hij het over had in het begin.
Gelukkig ben ik niet obsessief bezig met een ander medemens en ben ik niet verknocht aan mijn mobiel, want dat vond ik soms wel heel erg creepy worden in dit verhaal.
Hoe je jezelf zo kan verwikkelen in een fantasie, want dat is het uiteindelijk, dat je niet meer naar behoren functioneert of logisch redeneert, is heftig.
Een prachtig geschreven boek, over het leven, zoals het voor sommige mensen is, alles behalve perfect met opgekropte, verzwegen, erotische, … emoties.
Schokkend om lezen soms, de gedachtegang van onze fiscalist, de vertrouwensman, maar tegelijkertijd zo realistisch neergepend dat je hem niet alleen kan zien als de creep die hij eigenlijk is.
Ik vermoed dat jullie, net zoals ik, vervoerd zullen raken en meeleven met beide personages, maar hoe het dan precies allemaal in elkaar zit en afloopt met Anton en Mila laat ik jullie graag zelf ontdekken in dit onrustbarend relaas.

The Magic of Wor(l)ds

BlogTour #HarlequinTradePublishingBlogTour @htp_books / #Excerpt : The Last of Seven #TheLastOfSeven – Steven Hartov @Steven_Hartov @Hanover_Square @HarperCollins

– ‘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 Last of Seven’ blogtour, organized by Harlequin Trade Publishing Blog Tour.
To promote this book I have an excerpt, but before I let you read it first some ‘basic’ information.

About the Author :

Steven Hartov is the coauthor of the New York Times bestseller In the Company of Heroes, as well as The Night Stalkers and Afghanistan on the Bounce. For six years he served as Editor-in-Chief of Special Operations Report. He has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, FOX, and most recently the History Channel’s Secret Armies. A former Merchant Marine sailor, Israeli Defense Forces paratrooper and special operator, he is currently a Task Force Commander in the New York Guard. He lives in New Jersey.

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Synopsis :

A spellbinding novel of World War II based on the little-known history of the X Troop—a team of European Jews who escaped the Continent only to join the British Army and return home to exact their revenge on Hitler’s military.
A lone soldier wearing a German uniform stumbles into a British military camp in the North African desert with an incredible story to tell. He is the only survivor of an undercover operation meant to infiltrate a Nazi base, trading on the soldiers’ perfect fluency in German. However, this man is not British-born but instead a German Jew seeking revenge for the deaths of his family back home in Berlin.
As the Allies advance into Europe, the young lieutenant is brought to recover in Sicily. There he is recruited by a British major to join the newly formed X Troop, a commando unit composed of German and Austrian Jews training for a top secret mission at a nearby camp in the Sicilian hills. They are all “lost boys,” driven not by patriotism but by vengeance.
Drawing on meticulous research into this unique group of soldiers, The Last of the Seven is a lyrical, propulsive historical novel perfect for readers of Mark Sullivan, Robert Harris and Alan Furst.

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Chapters Indigo

Excerpt :

CHAPTER ONE

North Africa, Spring 1943

In the Sahara, the sun could make a man bleed.
It was hard to believe at first, especially if you’d ever trekked a frigid winter landscape somewhere, boots slogging through alpine snow, limbs shivering and aching bone deep. It was a challenge to imagine it, such a murderous sun, when December memory recalled teeth chattering like a Morse code key, toes and fingers numbed and raw, eyebrows stiff with frost, till all at once that blessed star emerged from charcoal clouds to save the day.
The sun was a holy thing then. The breath of God on your frozen face.
Ah, but in the vastness of that empty desert, when spring fell prey to cruel summer, when the cloudless sky was nothing but a silver mirror, the sand an iron griddle, and there was not a tree or cave or cactus to throw a shadow’s sliver. Nowhere to run from the sun. It was then that heaven’s jewel became a hunting thing, its furnace eye unblinking, merciless, and pounding.
You could shade your skull with a cap, drape your blistered neck with burlap, but still you had to see your path as your squinting eyes filled with flies who’d found the only liquid in the land. The lancing light bounced off the dunes to slowly broil your face, lips turned plaster white and split, and the oils of your nose and cheeks fried patches there like poultry on a spit. And then, the crow’s-feet wrinkles at the corners of your bleary vision turned to brittle parchment, until at last they cracked, and the most unnatural happened…
The man across the dunes was weeping tears of brine and blood. But they were not of sorrow or self-pity, for all of his emotions had hollowed out so many weeks ago. They were simply the last vestiges of all the fluid he had left, squeezed from the ducts by that relentless sun.
He was small there in the distance, and nearly weightless now, though from the way he moved it seemed he wore a yoke of iron. He was no more than an upthrust child’s thumb against the umber sands, shimmering in the steaming light of the fata morgana, an illusion where horizon met the sky.
He wore a Bedouin burnoose, tight about his oily blond curls and rough against his bristled jaw. His German staff sergeant’s tunic was girded with white salt lines of evaporated sweat, a single bandolier of ammunition, and the lanyard of a camel skin water bladder, now shriveled like an ancient’s scrotum, nothing left. One Feldwebel rank was on his collar, his Afrika Korps palm-tree shoulder patch was bleached into a ghost, and in one pocket were two lizard tails he’d chewed from time to time, though all the meat was spent. The right waist of his tunic was punched through with a bullet hole, its fringes black with dried blood, and in the left thigh of his trousers was another one just like it, the reason for his crooked limp.
In his dangling right hand, below a ragged sleeve, he clutched a German MP40 Schmeisser machine pistol, barrel down, its leather strap dragging through the sand. His left hand held nothing, the nut-brown fingers capped with broken nails with which he’d tried and failed to dig some water from the heart of a dying oasis. His breaths rattled like an asthmatic’s, yet he came on, another half an hour, another mile.
A pair of British soldiers from Montgomery’s Eighth Army watched him. They knelt behind a berm of sandbags, Tommy helmets buckled tight, sleeves rolled up and neat, shorts revealing sun-browned thighs above knee socks and tanker’s boots. They were alone, the western guards of a garrison south of Medenine, Tunisia, and they raised their bayoneted Enfield rifles to bear down on the stranger, like twins who often read each other’s minds.
At twenty feet the German sergeant stopped, unmoving, only breathing. The Cockney Tommy on the left aimed the rifle at his chest.
“Drop the bloody Schmeisser.”
The German jolted, as if surprised to hear a voice aside from his own mutterings to himself, unsure if these two Brits were real or cruel mirage. Yet he obeyed, as after all he knew it didn’t matter. The machine pistol was choked with grit and only the first shell would have fired. He opened his fingers and let the gun slip, like the hand of a dying lover, and it fell to the sand and was still.
The Tommy on the right said, “Hände hoch.” Hands up. He was a Scot and it came out as “Handerr hook.”
The German tried, but he couldn’t raise his arms higher than his waist, and his leather palms fluttered there above the sand like a maestro urging his musicians to play the passage pianissimo. His cracked lips formed a trembling “O,” though no sound emerged, and he mouthed Water, and then again—a goldfish with its face pressed to the glass of an aquarium. The Scot, keeping his Enfield trained, pulled a tin canteen from his battle harness.
“Don’t go near him, Robbie,” warned the Tommy on the left.
The Scot pitched the water bottle, cricket-style, where it pinged against a rock before the German’s boots. But the man could hardly bend his wounded leg and leaned in half a fencer’s lunge, snatching the canteen two-handed. He unscrewed the cap and brought it, shaking, to his mouth, and raised his face to heaven as the water gushed into his swollen gullet and dribbled from his filthy beard. His body trembled, and he looked at the two men and said, in nearly perfect British English, “I am not a German.”
The Tommies glanced at one another, then back at their intruder.
“You don’t say, Klaus?” the Cockney said to him.
“Looks like a bleedin’ Jerry to me, Harry,” the Scot growled to his partner.
“He’s bleedin’ all right, mate,” said Harry sideways. “Got a couple of nicks.”
“Nicks?” Robbie snorted. “Coupla hefty caliber holes. Can hardly see `em for the flies.”
Cockney Harry craned his neck to peer beyond the German’s head.
“You all alone, mate?”
“Six others,” the German managed in a brittle whisper.
“Don’t see ’em.”
“All dead.”
“Right,” said Robbie. “And where’d ye come from then?”
The German dropped the canteen. His fingers wouldn’t hold it.
“Borj el-Khadra, by way of Tobruk.”
“Bollocks,” Harry spat. “That’s three hundred miles.” He thrust his buckled chin above the sea of endless dunes. “Across that.”
For a long moment, the trio regarded one another like drunkards sizing up opponents for a brawl. The Tommies watched the German’s hands, for they hadn’t searched him yet, while for his part he struggled to stay upright. Cockney Harry gestured at Robbie the Scot, but only with his head.
“Fire the Very pistol, Robbie. Green flare, not red. Let’s have the captain up here for a chat.”
Aside from Robbie’s flare, which arced into the silver sky and fell to earth somewhere, the trio stayed immobile until at last a throaty engine loomed. A four-wheeled open command car appeared from the north, its peeling fuselage bristling with petrol jerrycans, pickaxes, and Bren light machine guns snouted at the sky. It spewed a cloud of dust as it hove to and an officer dismounted, his captain’s cap stained with sweat, Webley pistol lanyarded to a holster. His left hand tapped a swagger stick against his muscled calf while his right fingers smoothed a short mustache. His large driver followed close, hefting a Thompson submachine gun.
The captain ambled up and stopped, his bloodshot eyes squinting at the strange tableau. Robbie the Scot turned and dipped his helmet brim, but Harry kept his rifle trained, and there were no salutes.
“What’s all this then, lads?” the captain said.
“Captured us an Afrika Korps infiltrator, sir,” said Harry.
“Sneaky desert serpent,” Robbie sneered.
“Good show then.” The captain nodded and scanned the prisoner head to foot. “Right. Summon a firing party.”
Harry turned and looked at his commander.
“Execution, sir?”
“Affirmative, Corporal.” The captain flicked his stick toward a distant rise. “And let’s stake his corpse on that hill. Perhaps it shall keep the other vultures at bay.”
“Yessir,” said the captain’s driver, and he turned back for the car to muster up a firing squad.
The captain wasn’t barbarous, but more than worn and weary, and his men were not quite sure if he was serious or bluffing. In the past few weeks, despite the routing of the Germans in the westward push for Tunisia, spies of every kind had probed his lines, including one Bedouin woman. They were often followed by marauding Stuka fighter-bombers. He’d lost four men, most painfully his major whom he’d buried and replaced, and had a fifth now dying in a tent, legless and weeping for his mother. So much, he thought, for Erwin Rommel’s “Krieg ohne Hass,” war without hate.
“I am not a German.” The intruder spoke again, and his voice spasmed with the effort.
The captain raised his chin. His driver stopped and turned. The prisoner’s accent was British, yet with a certain Berlin curl.
“That’s quite a claim,” the captain said, “given your costume.”
“He told us that shite too, sir,” said Robbie.
“Says he hoofed it from Borj el-Khadra,” Harry said. “By way of Tobruk, no less.”
The captain raised a palm to hush his men and squinted at the prisoner.
“What are you, then?”
The prisoner tried to swallow. The water hadn’t been enough. It would never be enough. His body quaked in feverish ripples now, his ragged clothing fluttering like gosling feathers. It was the proximity of rescue, now turned to sudden death, coupled with his famish, thirst, and wounds.
“SIG,” he said, tunneling in his delirium for the words. “Combined Operations.”
The captain raised an eyebrow. Harry asked him, “What’s ess-eye-gee, sir?”
“Special Interrogation Group.” The captain stroked his mustache corners. “Top secret commando unit, attached to LRDG and SAS. Mostly German Jews, but they were all killed at Tobruk, and that was many months ago.”
“Not I,” the prisoner croaked. His right hand reached into his tunic. The captain fumbled for his Webley and the Tommies’ Enfields stiffened, as the prisoner fetched a pair of British identification disks, one green, one amber, like autumn leaves on a threadbare lanyard, and they fell against his chest.
The captain glanced at them, and at the hollow bearded face again.
“Tobruk, you say. And where’ve you been since then…allegedly?”
“Captured. Escaped a month ago, or two, perhaps, I think.”
“You think.” The captain closed his fists and put them to his garrison belt. “And why, pray tell, if you were in this uniform, were you not executed as a spy? Those are Hitler’s orders, after all.”
“Because I had tea with Erwin Rommel,” the prisoner said, yet without a hint of irony that the German field marshal would have thusly intervened.
“Had a pint meself with Churchill just last week,” the captain’s driver quipped. The Tommies laughed, but the captain didn’t. There was something in the prisoner’s eyes—a sincerity of madness, or truth.
“What’s your name and rank?” he asked.
“Froelich, Bernard, second lieutenant.” He pronounced his given name as “Bern-udd” and his rank as “left-tenant.” Then he added, “Six seven two, four five seven.”
The captain produced a small pad and pencil from his tunic pocket—ink was useless in the desert. He wrote the details down, tore the page off and flicked it over his shoulder for the driver, his eyes never leaving the desperate gleaming blue ones there before him. They were bleeding from the ducts, but he’d seen that once or twice before.
“Sergeant Stafford,” he ordered, “take this to the wireless tent and have Binks get onto Cairo. Tell them we’ll need our answer double quick.”
The driver sped off amidst a cloud of dust, but his return was far from quick. A grueling fifteen minutes passed, while the prisoner teetered on his feet. He could no longer keep his head erect, and he fought to stay awake and straight. He told himself he’d stood this way before, for hours in formations, and he dredged up images of bucolic pleasures, the Danube and the Rhine, and even Galilee. He longed for rain and felt its kisses on his face, while rivulets of something else crawled down his beard and touched the corners of his mouth. But he tasted only brine, and then the armored car returned.
He raised his chin as the driver handed back the paper to the captain, who perused it, then spoke again.
“Lieutenant Froelich, if that’s you,” he said, “do you remember your last passwords?”
“I shall try,” the prisoner whispered as he stumbled through his memory, unsure if he could find the thing to save him from a bullet.
“If I said Rothmans cigarettes,” the captain posed, “what would you say?”
The prisoner’s sunburned brow creased deeply like a cutlass scar.
“I’d tell you I don’t like them, sir…that I fancy Players Navy Cut instead.”
The captain nodded, and offered his first thin smile of the week.
“That is correct.”
And Froelich slumped to his knees in the sand, a collapsed marionette, strings cut. And then he slipped from consciousness and toppled forward, knuckles in the desert, his palms turned up to the sun he hated.
“Fetch a stretcher, lads,” the captain said. “It’s him. He’s the last of them. He’s the seventh.”

Excerpted from My Last of the Seven @ 2022 by Steven Hartov, used with permission by Hanover Square Press.

The Magic of Wor(l)ds

CoverReveal #RandRBookTours @RRBookTours1 : Village of Salt and Sorrow #VillageOfSaltAndSorrow – Laura Holt @authorlauraholt #MagicalRealism

– ‘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

organized by R&R Book Tours.

But first some information.

About the Author :

Laura Holt is the award-winning author of Fathoms Below, Fathoms Above, Fathoms Between, Fathoms Across, and the forthcoming final book in the Star-Crossed series, Fathomless. She is a self-professed word witch with a passion for mythology, history, and caffeine. When she’s not writing, you can find her stretched out on a yoga mat, hiking down wooded trails, or wandering the aisles at a local bookstore searching for her next great read. She lives in small-town Georgia with her daughter, three cats, and a lot of fake plants.
Follow her on Instagram to stay up to date on bookish news, events, and book and music recs, or subscribe to her seasonal newsletter for even more exclusive content and writer resources.

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Synopsis :

Title: Village of Salt and Sorrow
Genre: Adult Fiction / Magical Realism

Nova McIntosh has been called many things—a witch. Dangerous. The girl with fire in her hair and salt water in her veins, whose eyes will drag you in and crush your heart like an under tow—and they’re all true.
It’s said that Loch Moira was once home to a flock of selkies, until its fishermen made a deal with a sea witch to steal their pelts. Unable to transform, the selkies were forced to retain their human forms and wed their captors. But the sea is unforgiving and eternal and demands restitution: the lives of two girls after every storm as penance for the selkies who perished on land, or it will swallow the town whole.
The youngest in a long line of magical women bound to perform these sacrifices, Nova understands the need to be cold and merciless. So, when she finds a boy washed up on the beach after a storm, she doesn’t expect to feel anything for him. However, the ocean has never given back anything alive, either, and the closer Nova grows to Arron, the closer she comes to unraveling the mystery behind his survival and discovering the key to ending her town’s curse.

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 released September 27th, 2022, but you can already pre-order on Amazon or B&N.

The Magic of Wor(l)ds

CoverReveal #RandRBookTours @RRBookTours1 : A Lust for Blood #ALustForBlood – K.C. Smith @kcsmithbooks @PhantomHPress #AdultFantasy #DarkFantasy

– ‘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

organized by R&R Book Tours.

But first some information.

About the Author :

K.C. Smith is a writer of Adult Fantasy from Maryland where she lives with her husband and their chihuahua, Tank. Writing allows her to escape from her busy life as an Accountant and small business owner. When not writing or reading, she can be found rock climbing or traveling the world! A Lust for Blood is K.C.’s debut novel and will be releasing November 1, 2022!

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Synopsis :

Title: A Lust for Blood (A Realm of Curses Novel)
Genre: Adult Dark Fantasy
Publisher: Phantom House Press

There is no escape when the monster is you.
When Oriana awakens in a field of blood and bodies, she is devastated to realize the patchwork of death was caused by her own hand. A curse lingers in the air, and there is only one option to save herself from further bloodshed. Oriana uses her magic to create an enchanted forest imprisoning the monster responsible for the massacre–herself.
Garren has built a career around slaying demons. When he learns of a centuries old creature locked away in the strange Phantom Wood, the opportunity is too great. He will stop at nothing to destroy the demon filth that lurks in those shadows if only to satisfy his own haunting memories.
Oriana soon finds herself caught in a cat and mouse game, fighting to keep her identity secret. As the two grow closer, secrets unravel. But could they each be the answer the other has been searching for?

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 released November 1st, 2022, but you can already pre-order on Amazon.

The Magic of Wor(l)ds

Recensie @amboanthos : Duivelsdal (Een Annie Ljung-thriller) #Duivelsdal #AnnieLjung – Ulrika Rolfsdotter #UlrikaRolfsdotter

– ‘The Magic of Wor(l)ds’ blog is een hobby, recensies en andere boekgerelateerde berichten worden gratis geplaatst.
Ik ben dankbaar voor het ontvangen van een gratis boekexemplaar van de auteur/de uitgeverij in ruil voor mijn eerlijke mening. –

De auteur :

Ulrika Rolfsdotter (1977) groeide op in Bjärtrå in Zweden. Ze is sociaal werker en cognitief therapeut. Duivelsdal, het eerste deel van een serie met Annie Ljung in de hoofdrol, is haar debuut. Rolfsdotter woont tegenwoordig in Gävle met haar twee kinderen.

Korte inhoud :

Een moeizame terugkeer
Sneeuw valt op de voorruit van de auto terwijl sociaal werker Annie Ljung naar het noorden van Zweden rijdt, naar het kleine dorp Lockne. Ze heeft enkele dagen vrijgenomen om op bezoek te gaan bij haar zieke moeder. Annie kijkt er niet naar uit, een litteken in haar nek is een dagelijkse herinnering aan de reden waarom ze ooit het dorp uit is gevlucht.
Een plotselinge verdwijning
Wanneer haar zeventienjarige nicht Saga verdwijnt, besluit Annie langer te blijven om te helpen met de zoektocht. De politie lijkt op een dood spoor te zitten en Annie gaat zelf op onderzoek uit. Al snel ontdekt ze dat Saga niet het perfecte meisje is, zoals iedereen dacht. Dan wordt er een ander meisje gevonden in een drugscoma, en begrijpt Annie dat de antwoorden op haar vragen nog veel sinisterder zijn dan ze had durven vermoeden…
In dit dorp heeft iedereen geheimen

Ambo|Anthos uitgevers

Mijn mening :

Ik ga eerlijk toegeven dat ik na het uitlezen van ‘Duivelsdal’ van Ulrika Rolfsdotter niet meer zo laaiend enthousiast ben dan na het lezen van de omschrijving en de lovende kritieken uit Scandinavië.
Het mag dan, dankzij oa. de korte hoofdstukken, een zeer vlot lezend debuut zijn, persoonlijk vind ik het nogal uit veel toevalligheden bestaan en is het einde bijna volledig uit de lucht gegrepen.
Ik snap ook het hoofdpersonage niet altijd even goed, hoe ze zich gedraagt of reageert, en dat komt volgens mij omdat het mysterie rond haar achtergrond niet voldoende werd uitgewerkt.
Pas op het einde krijg je een, nogal droge, ontknoping van wat er in het verleden gebeurde met haar en dat is best wel jammer, want nu leek het een los eindje oplossing.
Het dorp Lockne en de omgeving is dan wel weer uitgebreid en beeldend omschreven waardoor je je ook echt in een afgelegen Zweeds dorp waant waar iedereen iedereen kent, heden en verleden, en waardoor er spanning heerst tussen de bevolking.
Daarnaast zijn de meeste van de nevenpersonages met hun gezinssituaties en hun gevoelens ook zeer goed uitgewerkt.
Het mag dan soms hard en rauw zijn, tegelijkertijd is het gewoon prachtig goed neergezet en dat is absoluut de sterkte van het boek en de auteur, het gebruik van haar eigen kennis van de streek en haar ervaringen.
Andere karakters hadden daarentegen misschien wel wat meer body kunnen gebruiken, vind ik, zeker omdat ik dan een betere klik zou hebben met het einde.
Een boek waar ik dus duidelijk, ondanks de vlotte leesbaarheid en de prachtige pennenstreken van Ulrika Rolfsdotter, veel meer van had verwacht!

The Magic of Wor(l)ds

CoverReveal #RandRBookTours @RRBookTours1 : The Heart of Neverland #TheHeartOfNeverland – Natalie J. Reddy #NatalieJReddy #FantasyBooks

– ‘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

organized by R&R Book Tours.

But first some information.

About the Author :

Natalie J. Reddy is a Canadian Author who spends her days trying to escape reality by making up stories about the characters in her head.
Natalie realized at an early age that she had a passion for storytelling and that passion followed her into adulthood. There is nothing she loves more than to be pulled into a fictional world whether it’s in her own writing or the writing of others. Natalie is the author of the Scar of Days Forgotten series, a New Adult Urban Fantasy series with characters who have supernatural abilities and dark and sometimes unknown pasts to overcome.
When she’s not writing, Natalie can be found having all sorts of real-life adventures with her husband and daughter or curled up with a good book and a cup of tea.
To keep up to date on upcoming books, subscribe to Natalie’s newsletter.

Website | Instagram | Facebook | GoodReads

Synopsis :

Title: The Heart of Neverland (The Neverwitch Chronicles #1)
Genre: Fantasy / Romance / Adventure / Pirates / Pan Retelling

One night.
That’s all it takes to turn my life upside down. It’s not like I had the most stable childhood to begin. Most of it was spent on the run from the villains in my mom’s head. It isn’t until after she’s murdered right in front of me that I realize maybe they weren’t in her head after all.
After her death I go to stay with an uncle I didn’t know existed to try to make sense of my life and find some answers about who I really am. As I search for the truth a guy named Peter shows up and makes it his mission to constantly get in my personal space. He’s gorgeous, flirty and completely infuriating. And possibly not actually human or from this world.
The things he tells me sound insane and I don’t think I can trust him. It doesn’t matter that each heated touch draws me deeper into his web. Things like magic, pirates and Peter Pan just aren’t real.

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 released November 30th, 2022, but you can already pre-order on Amazon.

The Magic of Wor(l)ds

BlogTour #RandRBookTours @RRBookTours1 @Shanannigans81 / #PromoPost : Through Titan’s Trail – Austin Dragon @Austin_Dragon #EpicFantasy #FantasyBooks

– ‘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 ‘Through Titan’s Trail’ blogtour, organized by R&R Book Tours.
To promote this book I have some ‘basic’ information.

About the Author :

Austin Dragon is the author of over 20 books in science fiction, fantasy, and classic horror. His works include the cyberpunk detective LIQUID COOL series, the epic fantasy FABLED QUEST CHRONICLES, the international epic AFTER EDEN Series, and the classic SLEEPY HOLLOW HORRORS. He is a native New Yorker but has called Los Angeles, California home for more than twenty years. Words to describe him, in no particular order: U.S. Army, English teacher, one-time resident of Paris, ex-political junkie, movie buff, Fortune 500 corporate recruiter, renaissance man, futurist, and dreamer.

Website | Facebook | Pinterest | BookBub | VIP Readers Club

Synopsis :

Title: Through Titan’s Trail (The Fabled Quest Chronicles #1)
Publication Date: April 2018
Genre: Epic Fantasy / Adventure

Many die along the Trail, but to embark on such a magical adventure and behold its ultimate treasures, all shall be gladly risked!
Every three years it arrives—The Kings’ Caravan to the legendary city of Atlantea. From the far reaches of the Seven Empires of Pan-Earth, men travel from Avalonia—the sole gateway into the realm of the Magical Lands for the year-long journey along a path created by the ancient Titans themselves.
It is a journey like no other through unimaginable dangers, both mortal and magical, of men and monsters, by day and night—all to reach the limitless riches of the magic kingdom of Atlantea. Only under the protection of the Four Kings—the Kings’ Caravan—is such a journey possible. Or is it?
A new alliance forms under the stranger known as Traveler as the most fantastic and deadliest adventure of all time, this fable quest, begins!
Through Titan’s Trail is Book One of the Fabled Quest Chronicles.

GoodReads

Buy Link

Giveaway :

Win a Brand-New KINDLE FIRE HD 8 (US only)

A Rafflecopter Giveaway

The Magic of Wor(l)ds

BlogTour #RachelsRandomResources @rararesources / #GuestPost : Unjust Bias – Liz Mistry @LizMistryAuthor

– ‘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 ‘Unjust Bias’ blogtour, organized by Rachel’s Random Resources.
To promote this book I have a guest post, but before I let you read it first some ‘basic’ information.

About the Author :

Born in Scotland, Made in Bradford sums up Liz Mistry’s life. Over thirty years ago she moved from a small village in West Lothian to Yorkshire to get her teaching degree. Once here, Liz fell in love with three things; curries, the rich cultural diversity of the city … and her Indian husband (not necessarily in this order). Now thirty years, three children, two cats and a huge extended family later, Liz uses her experiences of living and working in the inner city to flavour her writing. Her gritty crime fiction police procedural novels set in Bradford embrace the city she describes as ‘Warm, Rich and Fearless’ whilst exploring the darkness that lurks beneath.
Struggling with severe clinical depression and anxiety for a large number of years, Liz often includes mental health themes in her writing. She credits the MA in Creative Writing she took at Leeds Trinity University with helping her find a way of using her writing to navigate her ongoing mental health struggles. Being a debut novelist in her fifties was something Liz had only dreamed of and she counts herself lucky, whilst pinching herself regularly to make sure it’s all real. One of the nicest things about being a published author is chatting with and responding to readers’ feedback and Liz regularly does events at local libraries, universities, literature festivals and open mics. She also teaches creative writing too. Liz has completed a PhD in Creative Writing on Diverse voices in crime fiction
In her spare time, Liz loves pub quizzes (although she admits to being rubbish at them), dancing (she does a mean jig to Proud Mary – her opinion, not ratified by her family), visiting the varied Yorkshire landscape, with Robin Hoods Bay being one of her favourite coastal destinations, listening to music, reading and blogging about all things crime fiction on her blog, The Crime Warp.

Social Media Links:
Website
Twitter
Facebook

Synopsis :

A murdered boy disowned by his family.
A teen terrified his past will catch up with him.
A girl with nowhere to go.
Men with rage so visceral they will do anything.
With the unsolved murder of a homeless boy still preying on his mind, DI Gus McGuire is confronted with a similar murder, a missing teen and no clues.
Does the answer lie with an illegal dark web site where ‘slaves’ are auctioned off? Or with an online forum for teens?
How can Gus keep people safe when unjust bias rears its head and being different could cost you your life…?

Purchase Links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US

Guest Post :

Bringing back characters from previous books

Earlier in the Unjust Bias blog tour I did a guest post about how hard it is to kill off characters that during the course of the story you’ve come to love. This post is about a couple of characters that I created in Unseen Evil and why they just had to come back.
In Unseen Evil, I created a brother and sister called Jo Jo and Jessie. They were characters that meant a lot to me over the course of the narrative and so when the idea for Unjust Bias came to me, I thought this was an ideal opportunity to develop Jo Jo and Jessie’s storylines and perhaps give readers a little bit of insight into their back stories by including that as a sub plot.
Of course, I’ve written a fair few books, both Gus ones and my new series of Nikki Parekh stories, so an adjustment period to get back into their heads was inevitable. However, I was surprised by how quickly Jo Jo and Jessie came to life for me and brought me joy. I think one of the highlights that Jessie brought to Unjust Bias was her nicknaming Gus ‘Gussy’. Naturally, as expected this results in Taffy, Compo and Alice taking the opportunity to call rename their long suffering boss ‘Gusset’ – you can imagine how that went down in McGuire land.
Re-introducing Jo Jo allowed me the chance to offer Jo Jo a morsel of happiness after everything he went through in Unseen Evil. Living with a foster parent and his sister and having a boyfriend allows Jo Jo some of the happiness that was so severely lacking in Unseen Evil.
Of course, having Jo Jo and Jessie in the picture also allowed me access to the horrible estate where Jo Jo and Jessie previously lived and some of the characters we previously encountered on that estate. One of the thugs from the estate – Goyle – Goyley becomes a little more well-rounded in Unjust Bias.
Unfortunately, when Gus and Alice attempt to question him he tries to evade capture resulting in him falling flat on his face and breaking his nose. Alice, not one to miss cracking a joke at someone else’s expense ‘strolled over, her hand extended, holding her mobile, recording everything. ‘Bang to rights?’ Alice’s wide grin matched her amused tone. ‘You think this is the bloody Sweeney, Arthur?’
‘Eh? Tweeny?’
Shaking her head, Alice winked at Gus. ‘Yeah, Arthur, you’re defo more Tweenie than Sweeney.’
It’s being able to delve back into my back catalogue and whip out a character that lends itself to the current narrative that makes writing so enjoyable. The thing is, you never quite know when an old character will push to be resurrected in your newest book , nor in what role and it’s that that keeps the ideas flowing and the writing fresh.

The Magic of Wor(l)ds

BlogTour #ZooloosBookTours @ZooloosBT / #Excerpt : Somewhere Beyond the Sea #SomewhereBeyondTheSea – AK James @amandajames61 @SpellBoundBks

– ‘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 ‘Somewhere Beyond the Sea’ blogtour, organized by Zooloo’s Book Tours.
To promote this book I have an excerpt, but before I let you read it first some ‘basic’ information.

About the Author :

Amanda James has written since she was a child, and as an eight-year-old, she asked her parents for a typewriter for Christmas. She never imagined her words would ever be published however. Then in 2010, after many twists and turns, the dream of becoming a writer came true when she had her first short story published for a Born Free anthology. She left teaching in 2013 to pursue her dream full-time.
Originally from Sheffield, Amanda now lives in Cornwall and is inspired every day by the wild and beautiful coastline near her home. Amanda writes more suspenseful novels also set in Cornwall, under the name A.K. James, but her last few books have been uplifting in nature with a twist of magic. She loves writing feel-good reads, as she thinks the world needs more joy in it right now. Amanda can usually be found playing on the beach with her family, or walking the cliff paths planning her next book.

Instagram
Twitter
Facebook

Synopsis :

If a marriage is based on secrets and lies – can love survive?
Doctor Tristan Ainsworth has returned to his beloved Cornwall with his family. The past has taught him some hard lessons, some of which he’s keeping to himself, but he’s hoping to put it all behind him and make a fresh start with his wife Karen. He longs to see her happy, as she’s been struggling with her mental health.
However, Karen Ainsworth isn’t telling Tristan the whole story, because she has a past that she’d rather leave behind her too. Apart from her family, Karen’s big passion is singing and a chance to use her extraordinary voice would mean the world to her, so why shouldn’t she take it? Surely her past can’t hurt her now?
As a tide of blackmail and betrayal threatens the foundations of their marriage, Karen and Tristan face a hard question. Is their love strong enough to face the truth when the truth might cost them everything.

Buy Link

Excerpt :

Apparently, I was the reason that my mother’s life was a mess. My fault that she drank, slept around and locked me in the attic. I had never been the child she wanted; I always wanted to do the opposite to what she told me, so petulant and unruly. Too clever by half. And before I was even born, I’d ruined her figure. Her tummy had never been the same after the birth, and the welt of stretch marks were an embarrassment. Bikinis had been out ever since.
And, as if that wasn’t all bad enough, I was still such an embarrassment to her now. How could someone as pretty as her admit that she had a hulking monster for a kid?
My father, of course, was nearly as much to blame. He doted on me at her expense. She said he’d changed that first day he held me in the hospital. There she’d been, so weak with pain and exhaustion, her vagina feeling like a rare joint of beef, and there he’d been, paying her no attention, yet full of love and admiration for a ‘little cabbage-faced ball of shit and tears’.
It got worse as I grew up. I could do nothing wrong for Dad. We two were inseparable, always down by the beach or talking nonsense of some sort or another. Well, we were separated now, by the grave, and my mother was bloody glad that he was dead. That would be the end of all the namby-pamby mollycoddling. It was about time I stood on my own two feet, got a job like other teenagers, instead of sitting on my fat arse doing fuck all. What did I think she was, a bloody idiot? Why should she work in the pub all hours to keep me in chips and cake?
Though she’d never been particularly pleasant to me, and often spewed torrents of verbal abuse as just described, the months of torture only began about six months after Dad died. Once I woke to find myself choking, gasping for air, my lungs full of acrid smoke. My mother had set fire to the rug in my room while I slept and then crept out, locking the door behind her. I could hear her howls of laughter out on the landing as I hammered on the door, begging to be let out.
She opened the door just as I was passing out and threw a bucket of water on the rug. As I lay coughing and retching on the floor, she kicked me hard in the kidneys and told me to ‘clean up the fucking mess’ before I went back to bed. Whenever I smell smoke now, fear twists my gut. I really thought that she’d leave me to burn that night.
Other less physical torture happened on a regular basis. For example she thought it was funny to pretend she’d put ground glass in the meal I’d just eaten and would explain in gory detail what would happen to my insides as a result. Another time when I got home from school she said that we’d won the lottery and she’d bought tickets to Disneyland. Of course it was all a lie.

The Magic of Wor(l)ds