There’s no such thing as a right time to have a baby.

But six months into a new relationship is definitely not good timing.

Especially as Kat and boyfriend Max are still finding their feet as a couple.

And his snarky mother is doing everything she can to ensure Max dumps Kat and gets back with his ex-girlfriend. Continue reading →

Single dad Eddie is quick-witted, warm-hearted and devoted to his daughter Daisy.

He’s almost perfect – even his ex-partner Jean, Daisy’s mother, is still more than a little bit in love with him.

In fact, they’d probably still be together if she hadn’t jumped into bed with his best friend Jason.

But it wasn’t her fault – Jason looked at her with lust in his eyes while Eddie, working flat out to build his tattoo business, would collapse asleep with exhaustion. Continue reading →

One of my stand-out cinematic memories is the death of Bambi’s mother in Disney’s wonderful 1942 animation.

The hunter raises his rifle and every child in the movie theatre, and quite a few adults, me included, wails in anguish.

It’s one of cinema’s most heart-breaking OMG! moments.

There are two such blood-thumping, sharp-intake-of-breath, stop-the-clock plot twists in Beneath the Skin, RL Martinez’s stunning sequel to In the Blood, the equally memorable opener to her Witchbreed fantasy series. Continue reading →

Dare to look at the dramatic cover of A.J.Waines‘ latest book, which we reveal today: here it is …

…and get ready for a nail-biting ride.

Lost in the Lake:

Amateur viola player Rosie Chandler is the sole survivor of a crash which sends members of a string quartet plunging into a lake. Rosie’s convinced that the accident was deliberate – but she can’t remember what happened.

She seeks out clinical psychologist, Dr Samantha Willerby to help recover her lost memories.

But Rosie is hiding something…

Why is she so desperate to recover her worthless viola? And what happened to the violin lost in the crash – worth more than £2 million?

Sam begins to see the truth – but not until she’s seriously out of her depth.

This is the second book in the Dr Willerby series.

Pre-order on Amazon from today.

Release date: September 7.

About the author:

A.J.Waines has sold over 400,000 books worldwide and topped the UK and Australian Kindle Charts in 2015 and 2016 with her number one bestseller, Girl on a Train (yes, the other one!)

Her fourth psychological thriller, No Longer Safe, sold over 30,000 copies in the first month, in 13 countries.

Following 15 years as a psychotherapist, A.J.Waines (pictured) is now a full-time novelist. She lives in Hampshire with her husband.

Pre-Order on Amazon from 13 July 2017

Release date: 7 Sept 2017

UK (99p):

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B073W8X17W

US ($1.28):

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073W8X17W

As you’d expect from someone who cut her writing teeth at Jackie magazine, author Karen King writes with confidence and style.

Hand on heart, romantic fiction isn’t my preferred genre – I’m more of a whodunit fan – but if anyone could convert me, King could.

Her new release from Accent Press, The Cornish Hotel by the Sea is a perfect demonstration of her story-telling expertise: a nicely believable plot that builds at a satisfying pace without getting bogged down in long descriptive passages, which could have been a temptation given the glorious setting.  Continue reading →

It’s not often I get to the end of a book and find myself lost for words – although perhaps that’s an appropriate response to a book titled The Silence.

I turned the last page and thought: ‘Oh!’

(Strictly speaking, I didn’t turn the page, I swiped my kindle. But you get the point.)

And, it wasn’t: ‘Oh, that was unexpected.’ Or even: ‘Oh, I enjoyed that.’

Although both of those are true.  Continue reading →

Quite by coincidence I’m writing this review of Nordic noir thriller Wolves in the Dark by Norway’s legendary Gunnar Staalesen shortly after a particularly intense trek with my Friday Nordic walking group.

Appropriate really because this latest instalment of Staalesen’s long-running Bergen-based Varg Veum series is equally intense, with a brutal plot and at least one genuine sharp intake of breath moment.

As the novel opens, Veum, who debuted in 1977 in the bizarrely titled The Buck to the Sack of Oats, is still reeling from the death of his great love Karin. Continue reading →

Goodness me! There are enough red herrings in One to Watch, the new thriller from Rachel Amphlett, to feed a smorgasbord of crime fiction readers.

First, the guilty person just HAD to be X.

Then it was definitely Y and I never saw Z coming until the last couple of pages.

Although, perhaps that’s because making Z a murderer breaks one of the cardinal rules of classic crime fiction.

Unfortunately, I can’t tell you which one because then you’d know whodunnit. Continue reading →

My dad was ten-and-a-half when the Second World War broke out.

And he was 12-or-thereabouts when his father took him out in the fields near their Warwickshire home and taught him how to load and fire the old rifle hidden behind a coat in the hallway.

The lesson was just in case Grandad wasn’t home when the Germans invaded and Dad needed to defend his mother and sisters and younger brother against the enemy.  Continue reading →

Maggie Thatcher was newly installed as the UK’s first female Prime Minister the last time I read Walter Greenwood’s Love on the Dole.

She took office in May 1979 in the middle of a recession and in the wake of Labour’s Winter of Discontent.

And, as she entered the door of No 10 Downing Street for the first time as premier, she spoke some lines from a prayer by St Francis of Assisi.

‘Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth…where there is despair, may we bring hope.’ Continue reading →