Category: Blog Tour

Book Review – Girl Friends by Alex Dahl @AriesFiction

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Welcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for Girl Friends by Alex Dahl. My thanks to Andrew at Head of Zeus for inviting me to take part in the tour and for my review copy via NetGalley. Do hop over to Instagram and check out the posts by my tour buddies for today, Kim at StratosphereGirl and Chloe at The Secret Book Review.

About the Book

Book cover of Girl Friends by Alex Dahl

THEY CAN BUILD YOU UP

Charlotte has it all: the successful career, the loving family. But, secretly, she is dangerously bored of her life. So when she meets free-spirited Bianka, it feels like fate – Bianka is exactly the person that Charlotte needs.

OR TEAR YOU DOWN

On a girls’ trip to Ibiza, home is forgotten as Charlotte dives head first into a life that is looser, wilder. She feels free, but there are devastating consequences: someone doesn’t return home.

As the aftermath of the holiday rips through her life back in London, Charlotte soon regrets ever breaking out of her carefully constructed routine – and begins to wonder whether meeting Bianka was really an accident at all…

Format: ebook (374 pages) Publisher: Head of Zeus
Publication date: 11th April 2024 Genre: Thriller

Find Girl Friends on Goodreads

Purchase Girl Friends from Bookshop.org [Disclosure: If you buy books linked to our site, we may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookshops]

My Review

If your guilty pleasure is reading novels about wealthy people whose carefully constructed lives fall apart, then you will love Girl Friends. The story unfolds from the point of view of three characters: Charlotte, Bianka and Bianka’s stepson, Storm.

Charlotte has become an online sensation as the ‘Keto Queen’. She’s a self-confessed control freak whose image is carefully curated and whose domestic life is rigidly organised. But behind the facade, everything’s not so perfect. Her marriage to bank executive Andreas has become stale and passionless so she lives for her boozy get togethers with her friends Anette and Linda, fellow Scandinavian ex-pats. When Andreas asks her to cosy up to Bianka, the wife of his boss Emil, she agrees but, boy, does she not realise what she’s getting herself into.

If Charlotte is an expert at controlling herself then Bianka is an expert at controlling others. And, it transpires, she has a history of it. (As the book progresses, we get little suggestions that experiences earlier in Bianka’s life might have contributed to her need to control.) Bianka fawns over Charlotte wanting to learn every detail of Charlotte’s life but without giving away too much about her own. What she does divulge is, one suspects, often complete fiction carefully designed to create a bond between them. Bianka dresses to stand out, seems assured in any social situation and proves up for anything. It’s that adventurous spirit that proves irresistible to Charlotte.

Charlotte’s decision to invite Bianka to the annual ‘girls only’ trip to the family villa in Ibiza doesn’t go down well with Anette and Linda but by this time Charlotte is too dazzled and besotted by Bianka to care. Egged on by Bianka, long afternoons dozing on the terrace, morning yoga sessions and trips to fancy restaurants are soon replaced by wild, hedonistic parties where all forms of intoxication are available. From that point on it’s like watching an impending train crash. But who is the driver, who is the passenger and will anyone else be injured in the process?

In case you think I’ve forgotten Storm, I haven’t and, in fact, his was a storyline I really enjoyed. He is much the most empathetic character in the book, although that wouldn’t be difficult. Why is it, he wonders, that his father and, in particular, his stepmother Bianka are so reluctant to mention Storm’s mother Mia, or the circumstances of her death, supposedly the result of a freak accident in the mountains. As he digs into the past, memories that he’d previously suppressed start to emerge and what they reveal is shocking.

With its mix of intrigue and glamour, Girl Friends is like an exotic cocktail but one that will leave you with an almighty hangover in the morning and perhaps yearning for the carb hit of a piece of garlic foccacia. I confess I wasn’t a fan of the epilogue-type ending which seemed a little farfetched. But that apart, Girl Friends is the perfect beach read or book to get you through a long, otherwise tedious journey.

In three words: Glamorous, twisty, dark
Try something similar: Her Perfect Life by Sam Hepburn

About 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 five other thrillers: After She’d Gone, Cabin Fever, Playdate, The Heart Keeper, and The Boy at the Door, which was shortlisted for the CWA Debut Dagger. 

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Book Review – Sword of the War God by Tim Hodkinson @AriesFiction @TimHodkinson

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Welcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for Sword of the War God by Tim Hodkinson. My thanks to Andrew at Head of Zeus for inviting me to take part in the tour and for my review copy. Do check out the review by my tour buddy for today, Sue at Brown Flopsy’s Book Burrow.

About the Book

Book cover of Sword of the War God by Tim Hodkinson

In a world of war and ruin, men and gods collide.

436 AD. The Burgundars are confident of destroying Rome’s legions. Their forces are strong and they have beaten the Romans in battle before. But they are annihilated, their king killed, his people scattered. Their fabled treasure is lost. For Rome has new allies: the Huns, whose taste for bloodshed knows no bounds.

Many years later, the Huns, led by the fearsome Attila, have become the deadliest enemies of Rome. Attila seeks the Burgundars’ treasure, for it includes the legendary Sword of the War God, said to make the bearer unbeatable.

No alliance can defeat Attila by conventional means. With Rome desperate for help, a one-eyed old warlord from distant lands and his strange band of warriors may have the answers… but oaths will be broken and the plains of Europe will run with blood before the end.

Format: Hardback (608 pages) Publisher: Head of Zeus
Publication date: 11th April 2024 Genre: Historical Fiction, Adventure

Find Sword of the War God on Goodreads

Purchase Sword of the War God from Bookshop.org [Disclosure: If you buy books linked to our site, we may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookshops]

My Review

In Sword of the War Gods, the author has taken the conflicts between the declining Roman Empire and its enemies and added a generous helping of Norse and Germanic mythology to create a thrilling historical adventure. Figures who have inspired authors and composers like Richard Wagner feature in the book: there are Swan Maidens, a mysterious one-eyed figure calling himself Wodnas and the women of the Valkyrjur known as ‘the Choosers of the Slain’ led by Brynhild.

To describe the book as action-packed is something of an understatement. Right from the outset, the reader is plunged into the bloody battle that results in the near annihilation of the Burgundars by the combined forces of the Roman army and their allies, the Huns. To be fair, it’s the Huns who are responsible for most of the destruction, using their deadly skills on horseback to launch wave after wave of attacks, killing without mercy. ‘The air was filled with a deafening cacophony of men and horses screaming, steel clashing on steel and the thudding of hooves. Arrow-riddled corpses and severed body parts lay all around.’

Hagan, son of the Burgundar King’s champion, is one of the few survivors of the battle, spared only by agreeing to join the Roman army, an army by this stage made up mostly of warriors from tribes the Romans have defeated. Fast forward six years and Hagan has gained much from his time in the army, honing his ability with sword and spear, experiencing first-hand the discipline needed in the shield wall and developing some impressive scouting skills. Yet a question mark remains over his parentage. Just what is the significance of the unusual amulet he retrieved from the dead body of his mother?

With Rome’s power on the wane, enter the infamous Attila the Hun whose hordes have been cutting a swathe through the former Empire and beyond. The cursory dispatch of his brother in order to become sole king of the Huns is just one indicator of the coldheartedness of a man described as ‘the Devil incarnate. Cruel, vicious, greedy. Utterly ruthless.’ Attila’s a man who has no compunction about having people die in the most horrific ways, his only grumble being when they make too much noise in the process.

There is a saying that ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend’. For Rome, the only prospect of defeating the Huns seems to rest upon it convincing former enemies, such as the Visigoths, to join them in an alliance against the Huns. Hagan plays his part here, discovering in the process that he is not as alone in the world as he thought. He also acquires a delightfully singular and resourceful companion.

The climactic battle scene with which the book concludes immerses the reader in the sights and sounds of conflict. You can almost visualise it playing out in front of you as you watch from the sidelines. (You wouldn’t want to be any closer than that.) It’s bloody, it’s brutal but it’s utterly compelling.

Sword of the War God is a thrilling historical adventure peopled with memorable characters and woven through with myth and legend.

I highly recommend checking out Tim’s website where he’s been blogging about some of the key characters in the book, including their historical or legendary inspiration.

In three words: Action-packed, immersive, gripping
Try something similar: The Emperor’s Shield by Gordon Doherty

About the Author

Author Tim Hodkinson

Tim Hodkinson grew up in Northern Ireland where the rugged coast and call of the Atlantic Ocean led to a lifelong fascination with Vikings and a degree in Medieval English and Old Norse Literature. Tim’s more recent writing heroes include Ben Kane, Giles Kristian, Bernard Cornwell, George R.R. Martin and Lee Child. After several years in the USA, Tim returned to Northern Ireland, where he lives with his wife and children.

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