Category: Blog Tour

#BlogTour #BookReview After She’d Gone by Alex Dahl

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After She'd gone blog tour bannerWelcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for After She’d Gone by Alex Dahl. My thanks to Sophie at Ransom PR for inviting me to take part in the tour and to Head of Zeus for my review copy. Do pop over to Instagram and check out the post by my tour buddy for today, Charli at bookishcharli.

After She'd GoneAbout the Book

Liv loves her son, Adrian. That’s why she keeps a low profile in Sandefjord, Norway: just another tired single mother, trying to make ends meet. She has never told her son about the secrets she carries or the life she lived before he was born. She will do anything to keep him safe.

Anastasia’s life is transformed when she moves from Russia to Milan and starts modelling. Suddenly, she’s rich. She’s desired. But then she begins to see the dark side of her new life: the high-pressure catwalk shows; the glamorous, drink-fuelled after-parties; the sun-baked Italian palazzos owned by powerful men. She will do anything to escape.

Selma is an investigative journalist in Oslo. She’s been looking into the dangerous underworld of the modelling industry, but can’t seem to get her article published. Then, a woman goes missing in Sandefjord and Selma’s about to uncover the biggest story of her life…

Format: Hardback (416 pages)         Publisher: Head of Zeus
Publication date: 18th August 2022 Genre: Thriller

Find After She’d Gone on Goodreads

Purchase links
Bookshop.org
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Hive | Amazon UK
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My Review

This unsettling and at times dark thriller immerses the reader in the sinister side of the fashion world in which young women, often from Eastern Europe, attracted by the prospect of travelling the world and striding the catwalks for big fashion houses discover the reality is quite, quite different. They find themselves drawn into a murky world of drugs and sexual exploitation in which men hold the power and aren’t afraid to use it. For the women, staying is risky, but leaving is even more so.

Investigative journalist Selma’s involvement comes about because of her role in investigating the  previous disappearance of a young girl from the very same place as the missing woman – Sandefjord. (The case was the focus of the author’s previous book, Playdate.) Selma’s investigation takes her into a very murky world populated by extremely ruthless and, in some cases, very damaged individuals. I loved her strength, her fearlessness and her determination to get answers.

I confess I guessed some key aspects of the plot pretty early on but with this type of thriller you can never be sure the author’s not going to spring a surprise until you reach the final page, can you?

The standout element of the book for me was the wonderfully tender portrait of Adrian, a young boy who is different from other children. ‘Adrian craves freedom. He feels trapped in his own mind; he’s not like anyone else and he wishes he could fly away.’ He is obsessed with airplanes, loves watching them take off and land at the nearby airport, can spend hours absorbed in creating origami models of planes and knows the codes for every international airport. Contrary to what many think, he’s intelligent but often finds it difficult to communicate or express his feelings except through the ‘secret’ language his mother Liv has taught him. What he does know is there are things he must keep secret at all costs and, that if he’s to save his mother, he will have to be very brave. Spoiler: he is.

After She’d Gone is a taut, skilfully-crafted thriller that demonstrates all that glitters is not gold. It would make the perfect beach read.

In three words: Compelling, pacy, dark

Try something similar: Cold As Hell by Lilja Sigurðardóttir

Alex DahlAbout the Author

Alex Dahl is a half-American, half-Norwegian author. Born in Oslo. She studied Russian and German linguistics with international studies, then went on to complete an MA in creative writing at Bath Spa University and an MSc in business management at Bath University.

A committed Francophile, Alex loves to travel, and has so far lived in Moscow, Paris, Stuttgart, Sandefjord, Switzerland, Bath and London. She is the author of four other thrillers including The Boy at the Door, which was shortlisted for the CWA Debut Dagger.

Connect with Alex
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#BlogTour #BookReview The Shimmer on the Water by Marina McCarron

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The Shimmer on the Water Blog Tour BannerWelcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for The Shimmer on the Water by Marina McCarron which was published as an ebook on 4th August and will be available in paperback later this year. My thanks to Amy at Head of Zeus for inviting me to take part in the tour and for my digital review copy via NetGalley.  Do check out the post by my tour buddy for today Wendy at Wendy Reads Books.

The Shimmer on the Water Author Square shareable 3About the Book

Three women. Two generations apart. One secret they share.

Maine, 1997. As the people of Fort Meadow Beach celebrate the Fourth of July, four-year-old Daisy Wright disappears and is never seen again.

Maine, 2022. Fired from her job and heart-broken, Peyton Winchester moves back home for the summer. Bored and aimless, she finds a renewed sense of purpose when an ad for a journalism course reminds her of a path not taken. Returning to life in her home town brings back all kind of memories – including Daisy’s disappearance when she was a young girl herself.

As Peyton begins to search for answers about Daisy’s disappearance, she finds that they might be closer to home than she thinks – and their lives become intertwined with irreversible consequences.

Format: ebook (413 pages)             Publisher: Aria
Publication date: 4th August 2022 Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Find The Shimmer on the Water on Goodreads

Purchase links
Amazon UK
Link provided for convenience only, not as part of an affiliate programme

My Review

The Shimmer on the Water alternates between two storylines, one in the present day and one starting in 1966.

The book is not so much about solving the mystery of Daisy Wright’s disappearance, although it does provide a number of connections between the two storylines, as about family secrets and the impact they have when they are finally revealed.  For Peyton, trying to discover the person responsible for Daisy’s disappearance allows her to focus on something other than recent events in her life. ‘Getting dumped. Getting fired. Losing friends. The embarrassment of all her failures.’ Having to return to her parents’ home feels like the final humilation. Peyton feels there is a story to be told about Daisy’s disappearance, one which might help in her ambition to become a journalist.  It’s not a plan that finds much favour with Peyton’s mother whose attitude to her daughter is one of disappointment and often cool indifference.

A separate storyline follows the early life of Euella and her younger sister, Minnie, in 1960s Tennessee. It’s a powerful and moving story which was the standout element of the book for me. Euella’s father and brother are both drunks prone to violent outbursts as a result of which her mother has become absent emotionally, and later literally absent. It is left to Euella to care for and protect her young sister. It’s a struggle to put food on the table and to keep them warm through the harsh winters. The family’s poverty and increasingly dysfunctional nature mean they are ostracised by the local community. Fuelled by anger and an innate fortitude, Euella is determined to make a better life for herself and her sister. ‘A plan is forming. New ideas are coming. She can feel herself changing, becoming something different. Someone different.’

The connections between the two storylines become apparent fairly early on but this doesn’t stop Eualla’s story continuing to be utterly compelling as we see her literally reinvent herself. That’s not to say she doesn’t make mistakes along the way, quite costly ones as it turns out that will have repercussions in the future. Gradually Peyton discovers more about her family, and in particular her mother. It will result in her seeing things in a completely new light and bring about a fundamental change in her relationship with her mother. It also triggers memories of events on the day Daisy Wright went missing. But after so many years can those memories be relied upon?

And the ‘shimmer on the water’ of the title? This early description of what Peyton observes as she gazes out to sea made me think it is the prospect of calm returning after a period of turmoil. ‘The sound of a boat grows louder and she turns to watch as it speeds by, the frothy white wake it leaves disturbing the shimmer on the water before it is absorbed again into the waves and the water is once again flat.’

If The Shimmer on the Water is less of a mystery novel than the book description might suggest, it is still a skilfully crafted dual time novel that explores the impact of fractured family relationships.

In three words: Moving, insightful, intriguing

Try something similar: Only May by Carol Lovekin

Marina Image by Julia HawkinsAbout the Author

Marina McCarron was born in eastern Canada and studied in Ottawa and Vancouver before moving to England. She holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Publishing degree. She has worked as a reporter, a freelance writer, a columnist and a manuscript evaluator. She loves reading and travelling and has been to six of the seven continents. She gets her ideas for stories from strolling through new places and daydreaming. Her debut novel, The Time Between Us, came to her as she stood at Pointe du Hoc on a windy June day and asked the magical question, what if…?

Connect with Marina
Website | Twitter