Tag: NetGalley

#BlogTour #BookReview The Witch’s Tree by Elena Collins @rararesources @BoldwoodBooks

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The Witchs TreeWelcome to the opening day of the blog tour for The Witch’s Tree by Elena Collins. It also happens to be publication day! My thanks to Rachel at Rachel’s Random Resources for inviting me to take part in the tour and to Boldwood Books for my digital review copy via NetGalley.   Do check out the reviews by my tour buddies for today, Anne at Being Anne and Wendy at wendyreadsbooks.

The Witch's TreeAbout the Book

A tale as old as time. A spirit that has never rested.

Present day – As a love affair comes to an end, and with it her dreams for her future, artist Selena needs a retreat. The picture-postcard Sloe Cottage in the Somerset village of Ashcombe promises to be the perfect place to forget her problems, and Selena settles into her new home as spring arrives. But it isn’t long before Selena hears the past whispering to her. Sloe Cottage is keeping secrets which refuse to stay hidden.

1682 – Grace Cotter longs for nothing more than a husband and family of her own. Content enough with her work on the farm, looking after her father, and learning the secrets of her grandmother Bett’s healing hands, nevertheless Grace still hopes for love. But these are dangerous times for dreamers, and rumours and gossip can be deadly. One mis-move and Grace’s fate looks set…

Separated by three hundred years, two women are drawn together by a home bathed in blood and magic. Grace Cotter’s spirit needs to rest, and only Selena can help her now.

Format: Paperback (401 pages)    Publisher: Boldwood Books
Publication date: 17th May 2022 Genre: Historical Fiction

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Purchase links
Hive | Amazon UK
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My Review

The book moves back and forth between the two timelines with some interesting parallels between the two women’s experiences. There are some clever, subtle touches such as when Selena and Grace share the same impulse, for example to walk barefoot in the garden at night or to warm their hands in front of the fire. I also liked the way certain characters echoed others in the alternate timeline. For instance, Bett, Grace’s grandmother and Selena’s friend, Joely, who both have knowledge of natural remedies, or Nathaniel and Nick who are both sons of the owners of Hilltop Farm (although quite different in personality). There were also some neat opposites as well, such as Selena and Grace having quite different experiences of motherhood and friendship.  There was one particular character in Grace’s life I didn’t trust from the outset!

The author gives Sloe Cottage an unsettling atmosphere, something sensed not just by Selena but by other visitors to the cottage. Personally, I found the hints of a supernatural presence – rooms that have a perpetual chill, unexplained noises in the night, the tapping of branches against a window – scarier than any actual physical manifestation.  I liked how Grace’s experiences became somehow manifested in Selena’s artwork, as if by a spectral guiding hand.  I wonder if it also influenced Selena’s productivity as she seemed to produce paintings at a rate of knots!

There are some beautiful descriptions of the Somerset countryside and I can see quite a few readers including visiting the area in future holiday plans.  Several characters are given an interest in local history which allows the author to include some historical detail about the period in which Grace’s story is set and enable the eventual discovery of her fate and that of her family.

I’ve read enough books set in the period to know that women perceived as ‘different’ – unmarried or gifted in the art of healing – were often the subject of accusations of witchcraft, either as a result of superstition, ignorance or vindictiveness. Along with subtle clues from Selena’s exploration of the local area, it wasn’t difficult to guess what Grace’s fate would be although it was still desperately sad to witness. By the end of the book if Grace’s story is one of love and sacrifice, Serena’s is one of healing and hope.

The Witch’s Tree weaves together a number of different elements – a little bit of drama, a little bit of romance and a touch of the supernatural – to form an enjoyable time-slip novel.

In three words: Atmospheric, engaging, romantic

Try something similar: The Marsh House by Zoë Somerville

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Elena Collins Judy LeighAbout the Author

Elena Collins is the pen name of Judy Leigh. Judy Leigh is the bestselling author of Five French Hens, A Grand Old Time and The Age of Misadventure and the doyenne of the ‘it’s never too late’ genre of women’s fiction. She has lived all over the UK from Liverpool to Cornwall, but currently resides in Somerset.

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#BlogTour #BookReview Outcast by Chris Ryan @rararesources @ZaffreBooks

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OutcastWelcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for Outcast by Chris Ryan. My thanks to Rachel at Rachel’s Random Resources for inviting me to take part in the tour and to Zaffre for my digital review copy via NetGalley.  Do check out the posts by my tour buddies for today, Nat at The Pursuit of Bookiness and Jo at Bookmadjo.

OutcastAbout the Book

After single-handedly intervening in a deadly terrorist attack in Mali, SAS Warrant Officer Jamie ‘Geordie’ Carter is denounced as a lone wolf by jealous superiors.

Now a Regiment outcast, Carter is given a second chance with a deniable mission: locate SAS hero-gone-rogue, David Vann.

Vann had been sent into Afghanistan to train local rebels to fight the Taliban. But he’s since gone silent and expected attacks on key targets have not happened.

Tracking Vann through Afghanistan and Tajikistan, Carter not only discovers the rogue soldier’s involvement in a conspiracy that stretches far beyond the Middle East – but an imminent attack that will have deadly consequences the world over . . .

Format: Hardback (304 pages)     Publisher: Zaffre
Publication date: 12th May 2022 Genre: Thriller

Find Outcast on Goodreads

Purchase links
Bookshop.org
Disclosure: If you buy a book via the above link, I may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookshops

Hive | Amazon UK
Links provided for convenience only, not as part of an affiliate programme

My Review

Fasten your seat belts, we’re about to go on one helluva ride!

What do you want from a thriller? Plenty of action scenes? Good guys who just might be bad guys? Bad guys who are really bad? More action scenes? A race against time pursuit? A scenario where all the odds are against the hero making it out alive?  A protagonist who’s seemingly invincible? A main character with an interesting back story? Well, in that case, Outcast is the book for you!

The up-to-the minute plot set in the aftermath of the US’s sudden and disorganised withdrawal from Afghanistan makes it feel incredibly timely and relevant. It’s a situation where an official Western military presence has been replaced by embedded Special Forces agents whose actions are deniable if things go wrong. And they do. Enter Carter…

I loved that the author doesn’t make Carter a mere killing machine. He’s a man who never knew his father, grew up in a council flat with his mother and a stepfather who was a violent drunk. Carter could have gone off the rails – indeed he did for a time- but joining the army and, eventually, the SAS saved him. It gave him a purpose and instilled discipline in him. In a way, the SAS Regiment has become his pseudo family, although he’s still solitary by nature. Of course, Carter is a killer but not one who kills for the sake of it.  His SAS training means he’s in peak physical condition. In the words of a girlfriend (actually an ex-girlfriend, silly girl) he possesses ‘muscles that looked as if they had been sculpted from a block of marble’. (Is it me, or is it hot in here?) His physical fitness is certainly tested in the course of the book which includes perilous border crossings and mad dashes along mountain paths in pursuit of an enemy who becomes more deadly by the minute.

As I’m not a member of the SAS (although, if I was, obviously I couldn’t tell you or, if I did, I’d have to kill you), I can’t judge how accurate the descriptions of weaponry, military hardware and tactics are but they convinced me. Given the author’s military background, you’d expect nothing less.

Outcast is a kick-ass, action-packed thriller that positively oozes authenticity. It’s the epitome of a page-turner and, although it’s very different from my usual diet of historical fiction, I really enjoyed it. I very much hope there will be a future mission for Carter. In the meantime, can he please go and take out Putin?

In three words: Action-packed, exciting, authentic

Try something similar: Betrayal by David Gilman

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Chris RyanAbout the Author

Chris Ryan was born in Newcastle. In 1984 he joined 22 SAS. After completing the year-long Alpine Guides Course, he was the troop guide for B Squadron Mountain Troop. He completed three tours with the anti-terrorist team, serving as an assaulter, sniper and finally Sniper Team Commander.

Chris was part of the SAS eight-man team chosen for the famous Bravo Two Zero mission during the 1991 Gulf War. He was the only member of the unit to escape from Iraq, where three of his colleagues were killed and four captured, for which he was awarded the Military Medal.

Chris wrote about his experiences in his book The One That Got Away, which became an immediate bestseller. Since then he has written over fifty books and presented a number of very successful TV programmes.

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