My Book Reviews for July 2024 (Part Two)
My Book Reviews for July 2024 (Part Two)
My Book Reviews for July 2024 (Part Two) comprise a timeslip ghost story, a novella-length crime prequel, a literary novella and two NetGalley early reads.
On a Falling Tide by Georgia Hill
Recently I’ve been drawn to ghostly timeslip mysteries where a woman escapes her difficult past by setting up in a new location, but it turns out the new location has a difficult past of its own. As well as parrying the attentions of a brooding, mysterious suitor, the protagonist has to face unquiet ghosts from a previous era to set the place, the suitor and herself free from impending doom. I had thought the genre was the exclusive province of American authors such as Simone St James and Wendy Webb, so I was delighted when I chanced upon this book set closer to home by Georgia Hill.
Mourning the death of her beloved grandfather, who brought her up, Charity takes a break from her London life to rent a cottage in Lyme Regis. She hopes to find out something about her grandfather’s family who came from the area.
Out on the beach one day, she slips on the mud and is helped to her feet by local eligible bachelor, Matt. Her fall was caused by the startling vision of an angry young woman collecting fossils. Before long, Charity is seeing the ghostly woman everywhere and seeks to find out more about her from the local museum archives. She starts to experience whole episodes from the woman’s life in 1863. As visions become more vivid, Charity suffers migraines and lapses in consciousness. Why has this angry ghost attached herself to Charity? What is the connection to her grandfather’s family? Will Charity come to terms with her grief to build a new life with Matt in Dorset or return to London?
The writing is flawless, characters rounded, and as for the setting… Georgia Hill did such a good job of depicting Lyme Regis that I wanted to go there. So I did, yesterday. I’m pleased to say it lived up to the descriptions this talented author created – The Cobb, Monmouth Beach and the Ammonite Pavement, fossil shops, the Mary Anning Statue, the Boat Building Academy, the lifeboat station…
Georgia Hill is well known for her uplifting contemporary fiction but I’ve also tracked down another ghostly suspense mystery by her: While I was Waiting. I’ve made a start on it and it’s great too.
A Meeting in Milan by AJ Aberford
This is a page-turning, fluently written novella that shows how Marco Bonnici, a character in the Inspector Zammit crime series, joined The Family, a powerful organised crime organisation in Milan, when he was a young student studying in the city thirty years before the events depicted in the novels.
Not as explosive as the full-length titles, this is still an engaging, absorbing read and, at fifty pages, an ideal way to get to know this author’s richly imagined world of Mediterranean intrigue.
This prequel is available free from the author’s website Home | AJ Aberford if you sign up to his newsletter.
Missing Words by Loree Westron
Set against the backdrop of the 1984 miners’ strike, this is a summer in the life of Jenny, a post office sorting office worker. With unrest between staff and management at work and unhappiness at home, forty-year-old Jenny yearns for something different. When she comes across an incompletely addressed postcard from a man in Australia to his wronged sweetheart in the Isle of Wight, she decides to spend her weekends trying to hand deliver it. This is despite it being illegal to remove mail from a sorting office, even an incorrectly addressed ‘dead letter’.
In this tale of grief and longing, of family complexity and the road not travelled, there is a touch of Harold Fry both in premise and theme. The beautiful writing gets to the core of Jenny’s personality and situation.
The novella is published by Fairlight, a publisher of literary fiction I haven’t come across before. Given the excellent quality of this Loree Westron novella, I will be on the lookout for more Fairlight Modern titles.
The Silence in Between by Josie Ferguson
Having lived in Berlin, I was keen to read a novel that explored the themes of the divided city and wartime deprivations. Taking as its starting point a woman finding herself on the other side of the border from her newborn son, when soldiers closed off East Berlin in 1961, this story is perfect for fans of highly emotional historical fiction.
With thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an early copy in exchange for an independent review.
The Cracked Mirror by Chris Brookmyre
Classic mystery meets hardboiled cop story and spins off somewhere else. There are lots of layers. Ideal for fans of quirkiness, who like a close read to spot the clues.
With thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an early copy in exchange for an independent review.
The Gloucestershire Crime Series
The first two books in my Gloucestershire Crime Series are out now. If you like your police procedurals on the Whitstable Pearl/The Last Detective/Midsomer Murders end of the crime fiction spectrum, please give the books a whirl.
Recently I took part in a lovely BBC Upload radio show alongside other creatives from the south west. My interview and reading from Her Deadly Friend are in the second hour, just after Charles and Eddie sing ‘Would I Lie To You’ – an appropriate intro for a crime novel where things are not what they seem… Thank you to Adam Crowther for being a welcoming host. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0j64vy7...
Her Deadly Friend, the first in the series, is currently 99p in ebook from Amazon.
A random sequence of murders rocks West Gloucestershire. First one, then another. From calculated and clinical, to opportunist and frenzied. As the body count tops five, Detective Inspector Steph Lewis’s investigations point to Amy Ashby as chief suspect for the rampage.
Steph and Amy were arch enemies at school.
Amy, still seething with fury about what Steph did back then, refuses to let the detective stand in the way of her current hunt for a new man and a fresh start. This time, it is for keeps.
As the evidence mounts, Steph is convinced of Amy’s guilt. But is Steph obsessed with a schoolgirl vendetta that could wreck her career and destroy her family? Or is she closing in on a deadly killer?
Her Charming Man - The second book, Her Charming Man, came out on 14 May.
DI Steph Lewis of West Gloucestershire Police is working two cases.
A woman is found dead in the Cathedral grounds. Few, not even her family, mourn her. And a man has gone missing. His wife, colleagues and neighbours fear for the safety of this perfect gentleman.
A witness comes forward to say the cases are linked. A breakthrough, perhaps? But the witness has form for finding dead bodies and she knows things about Steph that the detective wants kept hidden. A reliable witness? Or a fantasist with the power to cause chaos in Steph’s personal life?
What could possibly connect the murder of an unpopular woman and the disappearance of a charming man?