Tag: NetGalley

#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.

Connect with Sam
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#BookReview The Vanished Bride by Bella Ellis @HodderBooks @brontemysteries

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cover171547-mediumAbout the Book

Yorkshire, 1845. A young wife and mother has gone missing from her home, leaving behind two small children and a large pool of blood. Just a few miles away, a humble parson’s daughters – the Brontë sisters – learn of the crime. Charlotte, Emily, and Anne are horrified and intrigued by the mysterious disappearance.

These three creative, energetic, and resourceful women quickly realize that they have all the skills required to make for excellent “lady detectors.” Not yet published novelists, they have well-honed imaginations and are expert readers. And, as Charlotte remarks, “detecting is reading between the lines – it’s seeing what is not there”.

As they investigate, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne are confronted with a society that believes a woman’s place is in the home, not scouring the countryside looking for clues. But nothing will stop the sisters from discovering what happened to the vanished bride, even as they find their own lives are in great peril…

Format: ebook (352 pp.)                             Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Publication date: 12th September 2019 Genre: Historical Fiction, Mystery

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

Find The Vanished Bride on Goodreads

My Review

It’s 1851 and the prologue to the book sees Charlotte, now the last surviving member of the Brontë family, looking back on her and her sisters’ lives before they became famous authors.  It underlines how tragically short their lives were, Emily having died in 1848 and Anne in 1849.  Charlotte herself was to die in 1855.

The book’s very engaging premise is that the sisters were enterprising ‘detectors’ before they were novelists and The Vanished Bride represents their first case undertaken in 1845 (before, for example, the publication of Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights in 1847).  In a clever nod to the fact that the Brontë sisters’ novels and poems were initially published under pseudonyms (Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell) in order to disguise their gender, the author has adopted Bella Ellis as her pen-name for this new series of historical mysteries. That’s only one of very many clever nods to the works of the Brontë sisters that feature in The Vanished Bride and readers who are familiar with any of the novels of the Brontës will have great fun in spotting the allusions.  I know I did but I probably missed just as many more.   (There is also at least one allusion to another famous fictional detective in the reference to what might be described as a ‘curious incident’.)

The book also makes references to events in the lives of the sisters.  There is one especially poignant scene where Charlotte and Anne visit Scarborough as part of their  investigation and Anne remarks that, apart from Haworth, Scarborough is ‘the only other place in the world that she ever wished to be…standing on the clifftops, marvelling at the boundless magnitude of the sea, and wondering at what might lie beyond it’.

The sisters take it in turns to relate the story and, as well as making engaging narrators, it allows the reader to appreciate their different strengths when it comes to the art of ‘detecting’, neatly mirroring what you might imagine were their characters in real-life.  For example, Emily is all action, emotional and instinct, whereas Anne is methodical and thoughtful, and Charlotte is in her element when dealing with people and eliciting information.  Collectively, the sisters find their gender is a positive advantage on a number of occasions, something very different from the position they find themselves in as members of society.   Fans of Branwell Brontë will be pleased to know that he also features, although very much in an assisting role.

I wouldn’t want what I’ve said so far to put off readers who are unfamiliar with the lives or works of the Brontë sisters because The Vanished Bride works perfectly well as an engaging historical mystery even without such knowledge (although, I suspect readers may be tempted to pick up one of the sisters’ novels afterwards).  The sisters’ investigation involves everything you’d expect from a mystery: examining the scene of the crime, looking for evidence, interviewing suspects, even a bit of undercover work and an early outing for what we’d probably recognise today as psychological profiling.  Those with good powers of observation may pick up clues along the way but you definitely won’t know if they were significant or ‘red herrings’ until the final chapters.

The Vanished Bride is an accomplished, entertaining historical mystery that is also great fun for Brontë fans.  I shall certainly be looking out for future books in the series.

I received an advance review copy courtesy of Hodder & Stoughton via NetGalley

In three words: Clever, engaging, mystery

Try something similar: Lady Helena Investigates by Jane Steen (read my review here)

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Rowan ColemanAbout the Author

Bella Ellis is the Brontë-esque pseudonym of Rowan Coleman, an acclaimed author of numerous novels for adults and children. She first visited the former home of the Brontë sisters when she was ten years old. From the moment she stepped over the threshold she was hooked, and embarked on a lifelong love affair with Charlotte, Emily, and Anne; their life; their literature; and their remarkable legacy. (Photo credit: Goodreads author page)

Connect with Bella
Website | Twitter | Goodreads