Tag: historical fiction

#BlogTour #BookReview Rivals (Georgina Garrett 2) by Sam Michaels @Aria_Fiction

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Welcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for Rivals by Sam Michaels, the follow-up to Trickster and the book that introduced readers to Georgina Garrett.

Thanks to Vicky at Aria for inviting me to take part in the tour and for my review copy. I hope you’ve been following the reviews and content posts by the other fabulous book bloggers taking part in the tour and will continue to do so next week.

cover173287-mediumAbout the Book

The streets of Battersea are about to get a new leader, one who will rule with an iron fist.

It’s the 1930s and Georgina Garrett has risen up from her tough beginnings to become the new boss of the Battersea gang. But not everyone is pleased with a female taking charge…

With rival gangs trying to steal her turf, untrustworthy men in her midst and her dad lost deep in the bottle, Georgina has a lot to tackle. With her friends and family in constant danger and those closest to her questioning her leadership Georgina must use her wits to show that she’s made for this job.

The Garrett name is one to be feared and Georgina will begin to change the face of Battersea forever…

Format: ebook (418 pp)                       Publisher: Aria
Publication date: 3rd October 2019 Genre: Historical Fiction, Crime

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find Rivals on Goodreads

My Review

Rivals follows on from events in the first Georgina Garrett book, Trickster, and in order to bring new readers up-to-date there are by necessity references to key events in the previous book.  Therefore, although Rivals can be read as a standalone, I’d recommend readers who might want to follow the series to start with the first book.  I haven’t read Trickster and I’ll confess it took me a bit of time to work out the different relationships and who did what to whom in the first book.

In Georgina Garrett the author has created a powerful woman who is ruthless towards her enemies and will do whatever it takes to protect her family.  She’s certainly not afraid to take on the men at their own game. In fact, at times she feels the need to go beyond what they might be prepared to do to counteract the prejudice she experiences.

The world Georgina inhabits contains some distinctly unsavoury characters and even some of the more likable characters have secrets they will protect at all costs.  It’s a world of rival gangs out to protect their patches and involved in activities such as extortion, prostitution, illegal gambling, drugs, alcohol and weapons smuggling…and more besides.  Although Georgina reins in some of the more distasteful elements of the Wilcox operation, she’s still up to her neck in some pretty nasty stuff.  And she’s not afraid to get her hands dirty when necessary.

With all the twists and turns of the plot and the action-packed confrontations between rival gangs, there isn’t much space for the reader to get a sense of the period (the 1930s), aside from a few mentions of the depression, the rise of Hitler and German rearmament.  However, I guess murder, extortion and protection rackets go on regardless of the political backdrop.

Described by the publishers as ‘perfect for fans of Peaky Blinders, Martina Cole and Lesley Pearse’, Rivals will appeal to readers who like their crime thrillers dark, violent and populated with ruthless individuals.

I received an advance review copy courtesy of Aria Fiction, via NetGalley.

In three words: Gritty, dark, twisty

Try something similar: Five Days of Fog by Anna Freeman

Sam MichaelsAbout the Author

Sam Michaels writes gritty gangland sagas set in Battersea, South London, which is where she was born and bred, the council estates being her playground.

After leaving school at sixteen with no qualifications, Sam married soon after and had a son. The marriage ended quickly, and as a single mother, she worked in various retail positions until undertaking an Open University degree. This led to Sam becoming an analytical scientist and then into technical sales where she met her husband.

A few years later, they moved from Hampshire to Spain. It was then that her mother, the Sunday Times best-selling author, Kitty Neale, inspired Sam to put pen to paper. She now writes her novels in sunnier climates with the company of her husband, four dogs and six cats.

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#BookReview The Mathematical Bridge by Jim Kelly @AllisonandBusby

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the mathematical bridgeAbout the Book

Cambridge, 1940. It is the first winter of the war and the snow is falling thick and fast. A college porter, crossing the ancient Mathematical Bridge on his nightly rounds, is startled to hear a child’s cries for help coming from the icy river below. Detective Inspector Eden Brooke is summoned by police whistle and commandeers a punt in a desperate attempt to save the child, but the flood carries the boy away into the night. By dawn there is no trace of the victim.

The boy was Sean Flynn, part of a group of Irish Catholic children evacuated from a poor London parish. When an explosion causes damage at a factory engaged in war work and the bombers leave an Irish Republican slogan at the scene, Brooke questions whether there could be a connection between the two events. As more riddles come to light, he begins to close in on a killer, but there is one last twist: it seems that Sean Flynn had his own startling secret.

Format: Hardcover (352 pp)                  Publisher: Allison & Busby
Publication date: 21st February 2019 Genre: Historical Fiction, Crime

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com | Hive (supporting UK bookshops)
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find The Mathematical Bridge on Goodreads

My Review

In The Mathematical Bridge, the author once again creates a vivid sense of what it must have been like to live in wartime Cambridge with familiar views transformed by the addition of rooftop observation posts and searchlights to detect enemy bombers. Detective Inspector Eden Brooke’s home life reflects the daily experience of families during wartime. He and his wife, Claire, are awaiting news of their son serving with the British Expeditionary Force and his pregnant daughter, Joy, is anxiously awaiting news of her submariner husband. Alongside this uncertainty, there are long night shifts, blackouts, air raid warnings and rationing to contend with, not to mention the threat of attacks by the IRA. One of the many things I enjoyed about the book is this mixture of the personal and the political, the local and the global.

Another theme, as in the first book in the series, is that of darkness and light. Eden Brooke himself is the most obvious manifestation of this. The damage to his vision and the insomnia caused by his traumatic experiences in the desert during the First World War make the night time streets of Cambridge a sanctuary. It’s one he shares with fellow “nighthawks”, such as cafe owner Rose King, expert in circadian rhythms Aldiss, or night porter  Doric, ‘condemned to live life out of the light, at home in the shadowy world of the college after dark’. There are also some wonderfully atmospheric night time scenes such as the search of the drained River Cam.

However, although Brooke may welcome the darkness in a physical sense, his moral and professional impulse is to seek just the opposite. ‘Joining the Borough, on his return from the desert, had offered an opportunity to tilt the world towards light, and away from the darkness, even by small fractions of a degree.’

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The Mathematical Bridge, Cambridge

As in The Great Darkness, the author makes the reader feel they are alongside Brooke as he travels the streets of Cambridge in the course of his investigations, crossing the various bridges over the River Cam, including the famous Mathematical Bridge of the book’s title. And I’m sure I’m not the only reader who reacted with joy when they opened the book and found there was a map in the front.

In the enthralling final chapters, there are dramatic events, surprising revelations, split second life and death decisions to be taken and some poignant moments. At one point, Brooke observes, ‘He didn’t like the sense that fate was contriving a circular narrative, a story that was being drawn back to the beginning’. As a reader, I can only disagree (sorry, Eden) because I loved the way the various storylines were skilfully brought together. Oh, and a word of advice for Eden – listen to your wife when it comes to making assumptions about the identity of a murderer in future.

I loved The Great Darkness and this follow-up certainly didn’t disappoint. The Mathematical Bridge would be perfect for those mourning the demise of TV’s Foyle’s War or for fans of James Runcie’s ‘Grantchester Mysteries’ series. Readers who enjoyed The Great Darkness and have read, or are looking forward to reading, The Mathematical Bridge will be pleased to learn (as I was) that a third book in the series is due to be published early next year. It already has a place on my wishlist.

I received a review copy courtesy of Allison & Busby.

In three words: Atmospheric, compelling, assured

Try something similar: Nucleus (Tom Wilde #2) by Rory Clements (read my review here)

Jim KellyAbout the Author

Jim Kelly was born in 1957 and is the son of a Scotland Yard detective. He went to university in Sheffield, later training and working as a journalist on publications including the Financial Times. His first book, The Water Clock, was shortlisted for the John Creasey Award and he has since won a CWA Dagger in the Library and the New Angle Prize for Literature. He lives in Ely.

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