Franco and the Green Light Fairy by Fiona Lowry ~Blog Tour

 Publisher: Three Geese and a Gander

Publication Date: 4th April 2024

Genre: Childrens

Summary:

Meet Franco, a typical 6-year-old boy who loves everything about cars. Franco dreams of owning his own bright red Ferrari one day but how to get one...?

It is not until he uncovers the mystery of the Green Light Fairy that he realises, with a bit of positive thinking, he really can make his dreams come true!

Review:
Firstly thank you to Literally PR  and Fiona Lowry for having me on this tour and sending me a copy of the book.
This was another book I got to share with my small human and I do so love doing that and so do they, especially as it means book mail for them! This is aimed at 3-5-year-olds old and my small one is in that bracket. While they enjoyed the story and the fact that Franco gets help from the green light fairy and uses positive thinking to get things he wants, we did get to the end of the book and their first comment was "Is that it?". I thought it was a lovely book with a really positive message on how children can use a positive mindset to help them in life and it was really well written but like my small one, I was surprised by the size. I think I expected a longer book and to be honest I feel like it could have been a longer book because whilst you do get the positive message across in the pages we have I think it could have been made more of with a few more pages. Having said that I think that this is one that would be good to have in a preschool setting, I think whilst my little one is within the age bracket for the book actually maybe they were a little too old for this book, they read it through with me once and haven't wanted to read it again. Though they did love the illustrations and I found them super cute, perfectly fitting with the words of the story.
All in all its a lovely book with a brilliant message.

Krystina xx

The Plot Twist by Victoria Walters ~Blog Tour

 

Publisher: Boldwood Books

Publication Date: 19th June 2024

Genre: Romance

Summary:

One new boss, one ex-boyfriend, one big dilemma…

Stevie Phillips has just landed her dream job working for a publishing company and it seems like this is page one of her new, improved life.

But her first day throws more curveballs than she thinks she can handle: there’s been a takeover and the whole publicity team has been fired. And her new boss is the last face she expected to see.

Because Noah Anderson also happens to be her ex-boyfriend.

Thrown together on a campaign for a book the rest of the staff don’t want to touch with a barge-pole, Stevie resolves to make the best of a bad situation. This is her chance to prove herself, and she’s not going to let the man who broke her heart ruin it for her.

When Noah starts hinting that there was more to their break up then him just not loving her, Stevie’s resolution starts to wobble. Getting back with your ex is never a good idea, is it? Especially not when your ex is also your boss…

Review:
Firstly thank you to Rachels Random Resources, Boldwood Books and Victoria Walters for having me on this tour and sending me a copy of the book.
Oh, I was so excited to be getting this book because I loved The Love Interest and as soon as I knew Stevie was getting her own book I knew I had to read it. Stevie was a brilliant character in that book so I knew when she had her own book to romp through she would shine even brighter and make me smile so much, and I wasn't wrong but what I hadn't expected was to love Noah as much as I did. At first when we meet him, how he behaves makes him someone we don't like and I'll be honest, we want to slap him because he hurt Stevie so much and was so callus towards her but as she and we get to know his reasons for his behaviour he not only grew on me a little but I really loved him by the end. I thought the whole process of them learning to work with each other and eventually getting back together was so brilliantly paced, it never felt rushed or sudden when something happened and it's one of the things I love about Victoria Walters's writing style, her ability to pace the books just right. Her writing style in general is one I love, I always feel I can step onto the page and join in the conversations between the characters because she makes them so realistic for me.
I love how much Stevie loves Love, her whole fight for romance as a viable genre for the publishing house to spend money on was brilliant, if I could have joined in the protest I would! She has a fight on her hands from the off when she takes on the publicity campaign and I think her whole way of tackling it was bang on and boy did she show any doubting colleagues up.
All in all, I've absolutely loved this book and I really cant wait to read whatever Victoria Walters writes next.

Krystina xx

Boys Who Hurt by Eva Björg Ægisdóttir ~Blog Tour

 Publisher: Orenda Books

Publication Date: 20th June 2024

Genre: Nordic Noir

Summary:

Fresh from maternity leave, Detective Elma finds herself confronted with a complex case, when a man is found murdered in a holiday cottage in the depths of the Icelandic countryside – the victim of a frenzied knife attack, with a shocking message scrawled on the wall above him.
 
At home with their baby daughter, Sævar is finding it hard to let go of work, until the chance discovery in a discarded box provides him with a distraction. Could the diary of a young boy, detailing the events of a long-ago summer have a bearing on Elma’s case?
 
Once again, the team at West Iceland CID have to contend with local secrets in the small town of Akranes, where someone has a vested interest in preventing the truth from coming to light. And Sævar has secrets of his own that threaten to destroy his and Elma’s newfound happiness.

Review:
Firstly thank you to Random Things Blog Tours, Orenda books and Eva Björg Ægisdóttir for having me on this tour and sending me a copy of the book.

I absolutely love Nordic Noir and I truly think Scandinavian crime writers write the best crime fiction because they always take me til about 50 pages before the end before I think I'm 100% sure who the killer is, they just keep me guessing and intrigued from start to finish far more than most other authors. This is my first in the Fobbiden Iceland series and Eva Björg Ægisdóttir is a new author to me but I can defiantly tell you it won't be my last (the previous four books have magically ended up in my shopping basket) because I've adored her writing style like I said I have been kept intrigued the whole way through the book, the various threads of the case entangling with what Saevar finds was so brilliant to follow. I liked that we heard from different characters' points of view throughout the book, mostly we hear from Elma and Saevar but it was good to hear from their boss, Hordur, too and I really enjoyed the back-and-forth between the different time periods(before and after the murder and back to 1995) it both rounded out our information and at the same time gave nothing away, I spent most of the book wondering what was on the video camera tape for instance because we got glimpses of it being filmed or it being watched but never a full picture until almost the end. It really heightened my need to keep reading the book so I could find out what happened and I really loved that. I'm going to have to stop reviewing now before I give anything away because I really do want people to go out and read this for themselves, it's a fantastic book both in terms of its storyline and its writing style and if you love a bit of crime this should definitely be on your reading list this year.

Krystina xx

Second Chances at the Board Game Cafe by Jennifer Page ~Blog Tour

 Publisher: Aria

Publication Date: 6th June 2024

Genre:Romance

Summary:

In the cosy Yorkshire village of Hebbleswick, single mum Taylor dreams of a fashion design career, but she spends her days fixing zips, hemming skirts and worrying about her son, Max.

At the local board game cafe, railway enthusiast Harry, still recovering from a painful breakup, dreams of fatherhood. When Taylor and Harry cross paths, sparks fly, but Harry's confidence issues and Taylor's concerns for Max threaten their budding romance.

Can they find a second chance at love where they least expect it?

Review:

Firstly thank you to Rachels Random Resources, Aria and Jennifer Page for having me on this tour and sending me a copy of the book.
So I jumped into this series with Love Letters on Hazel Lane (and then backtracked to The Little Board Game Cafe) so as soon as I saw this I jumped about excitedly and got my butt on the tour for it! I've absolutely loved this series so far and this addition to it is no exception, we have all the characters we encountered in the last two books coming back to give us that feeling of coming back home, you know the comfortable warm feeling you get when you come home after a long break away that's what this setting gives you. And I instantly fell in love with Harry and Taylor as individual characters, They are so well-rounded that I feel like I could walk into my local gaming cafe and bump into them. Once they came together as a couple it just felt perfect they suited each other so well and they were like each other missing puzzle pieces (I know bad dad joke alert) it just felt right from the off and I was completely and utterly rooting for them the whole time.
I have to do a little bit of Max, he is such a sweet little boy and I love and completely understand as a mum Taylor wanting to make sure he's happy above her own happiness and sometimes at the expense of it and that makes her (and him) such realistically written characters for me. The whole community in Hebbleswick just makes me so happy to read about it, I'd love to live in a place like that where neighbours look out for each other and you really feel part of the community instead of being separate from it.
Jennifer Page's writing style is so warm and easy to read that I could happily sit and read her books any day of the week and I really can't wait for the next book in the series, especially as it's a Christmas book!

Krystina xx

Whispers In The Dark by Calum France ~Blog Tour

 Publisher: Independently published

Publication Date: 31st May 2024

Genre: Horror

Summary:

In the ominous corridors of 1950, Eleanor Mayfield flees from her tormented past into the chilling embrace of an eerie mental institution. Each night, reality blurs as whispers and ghostly visions relentlessly stalk her. Accompanied only by a devoted security guard and a cryptic caretaker, Eleanor plunges into the institution's sinister depths, unveiling terrifying secrets that should have stayed hidden.

Decades later, Alina MacLeod grapples with her own demons within those same crumbling walls. Hunted by a vindictive ex-lover, her discovery of ties to Eleanor's past draws her into a chilling moment of fear that defies time. Together, these women from different times untangle a haunting legacy of dread, confronting the horrors that link their destinies.

Review:
Firstly thank you to Hygge Book Tours and Calum France for having me on this tour and sending me a copy of the book.
So I was really glad that I finished this book in the daylight hours, I know that sounds daft but it's got a lot of psychological horror aspects to it that will stick in your head and make you check all the shadows with a little bit of trepidation. I was expecting your normal ghost-type horror, and whilst this has the ghosts in it, it is way more than that it borrows from various different classic horror techniques that I've seen in some brilliant horror films and I loved seeing them come to life on the page. I've really enjoyed reading it, occasionally I've disliked reading it when something has stuck around in my mind way past me putting the book down, but that just goes to show how brilliantly Calum France has written this. 
His writing style was brilliant from the off, it completely draws you into the story and you get invested in Eleanor's and then Alina's story and you are rooting for both of them in turn, you want them to survive being in this building and whatever haunts it. I think the only issue I had with the whole book was the numbering, i thought they were continuous chapters within the different time sections but we kept getting 1 etc for each of those I thought was a chapter. But aside from that I loved the book, it had almost two endings because when we get to the end of Eleanor's section it reads like the end of the book and we were about 50% through and the beginning of Alina's section almost feels like we're heading to a different book we don't get the connecting part of the storyline for a little while but when we do it all happens fairly quickly.
This is definitely one of my favourite horror reads of this year and I'm hoping we get another book from Calum France soon.

Krystina xx

Zero Ri$k by Simon Hayes ~ Blog Tour

 Publisher: The Rubriqs Press Limited

Publication Date: 25th May 2024

Genre: Thriller

Summary:

When customer complaints on Christmas Eve about tenfold inflated bank balances herald not early gifts, nor a botched system upgrade, but the most sophisticated cyber attack in history, National Bank Chief Operating Officer Rob Tanner finds himself in the eye of a ‘Black Swan’ storm no one predicted, but anyone could have anticipated

____________________________________

23 December 2024… Rob Tanner should have been enjoying a rare day off from his life-consuming work as Chief Operating Officer at one of the country’s largest banks. But a panicked phone call from a senior colleague forces him to put his Christmas plans on ice: more than a thousand of the bank’s accounts have seen their balances increased by a factor of ten. Exactly ten.

Tanner enlists the help of brilliant American cyber security expert Ashley Markham, but the attacks only worsen: bank balances rise remorselessly and spread to all the nation’s banks. The only clues to the hacker’s intentions are cryptic daily emails, centred on Hieronymus Bosch’s medieval representation of the seven deadly sins—and packed with colourful artistic and cultural references—taunting Tanner and the newly incumbent Prime Minister, James Allen.

With financial markets—and the very world as he knows it—on the brink of collapse, Tanner races against the clock to decode not just the bizarre emails but their deeper meaning, and the implications for who he can really trust. All the while, his former boss “The Toad” is seeking revenge... and answers of his own.

Review:
Firstly thank you to Literally PR, The Rubriqs Press Limited and Simon Hayes for having me on this tour and sending me a copy of the book.
Ok so this is a thriller so this is a no spoilers review, which isn't saying much because I do try and always do no spoiler reviews but this is all about the writing and nothing about the plot because I really do want you all to read it for yourselves!
I got the teaser of this at Christmas from Literally PR and practically flew through that first 80 pages, getting to the end of it really annoyed actually that I had to wait until May to read the rest! But it was definitely worth the wait but boy was I surprised by the length of it when it came 780 pages! But if I'm honest I barely noticed the length once I got into it and that didn't take long, much like the Teaser I felt like I flew through it in record time ( it was probably the best part of a week but it didn't feel that long) and the length is defiantly needed to get across all the different layers to this story. It has so many different issues woven through the story that made it an enjoyable read that kind of felt like it was still making your brain work in a way that it normally doesn't when reading a fiction book. Simon Hayes's writing style is so enjoyable and easy to read that I was drawn in so quickly, like I said I read the teaser so quickly because I was hooked from page one. And from reading the first 80 pages I had ideas of who I thought had done it which made waiting to find out who it was so frustrating, but when I got to find out I thought it was worth waiting for, but I won't tell you if my ideas were right.
I really enjoyed the pacing of the book, I thought it was spot on. The emails from the hacker were absolutely one of my favourite parts, i loved the riddles they threw in and I stopped at each one to see if I could puzzle out what they were trying to tell Rob/The Toad.
I've really enjoyed this and I definitely can't wait to see what Simon Hayes writes next.

Krystina xx