loopyloulaura

Detective Iris Locke is still reeling from the outcome of her previous case in Silent Night and I would advise reading the first in the series to get the background story (plus it was really good!)

In this case, a teenager goes missing and her support worker is found dead. Could Eleanor be a suspect or a victim? She has been locked away for her own protection and that of her wealthy and influential family but is she dangerous or vulnerable?

Secrets begin to emerge about the murder victim’s and missing teen’s families that give the police plenty of avenues of enquiry. But the frantic search for Eleanor is failing to provide any clues and time is running out…

Locke is devastated by the events of the last book and her colleague Slattery is dealing with his wife’s dementia. These subplots serve to make the police more rounded characters and demonstrate their humanity. These two lead detectives are developing a positive working relationship despite their personal problems and show mutual respect and support over the course of the book.

Like the previous book, Why She Ran is a solid police procedure novel and the focus is on the investigation and interrogation of suspects. There was repetition as individuals needed to be interviewed several times to reveal their secrets but this made it more realistic and doesn’t interfere with the momentum of the plot. The setting in Ireland and use of accented dialogue adds another dimension of credibility to the plot and characters.

Author Bio:

Set in Scotland, Love Potions and Other Calamities is a warm and rich farcical tale of herbal ‘witch’ Rosie. She is struggling to cope with the idea of turning 40 and feels decidedly unattractive. She hopes to uses her plant power to entice her husband’s lust but the plan goes awry, kicking off a string of amusing consequences.

I admit to struggling to get into the book as the tone is quite literary and I felt that it jumped between the characters a little too much. However, around a quarter of the way through, the humour began to shine through for me and I enjoyed the events and disasters described within the pages.

Having visited Scotland for our holiday this year, I liked the description of the history and setting that Charlie Laidlaw includes within the novel. Village life is well described and the timing of the election in the book with the election in real life was good but not necssary to enjoy it!

The characters felt believable and their actions and behaviour realistic. Rosie is a fab lead character and as a woman approaching my own 40th birthday I could really relate to her!

There is also a mystery and murder threaded through the plot. A black cat is causing mischief and this is linked back to a murder 20 years ago but this is secondary to the main plot strand and I had no idea on the culprit until the very end!

Overall, this was a quirky and fun book, full of love and laughter as well as disaster and mayhem (the after effects of a chicken pie on the bowls is just sublime comedy…)

Welcome to the long awaited blog tour for Love Potions and Other Calamities by Charlie Laidlaw! Follow along for tour details, exclusive content, and a chance to win a signed copy of the book!

Love Potions and Other Calamities

Expected Publication Date: November 7th, 2019

Genre: Comedy/ Mystery

Publisher: Headline

Welcome to the strange world of Rosie McLeod, an amateur detective with a big difference. Her deductive powers are based solely on the careful preparation and use of plants and herbs.

Love Potions and Other Calamities is pure comedy, with a bit of drama thrown in, as Rosie sets out to discover whether her husband is having an affair and, as the story unfolds, to solve a murder – before she becomes the next victim.

Rosie McLeod, pub proprietor and a gifted herbalist of some renown, is thirty-nine and holding, but only just. The talons of her fortieth birthday are in her back and her bloody, bloody husband hasn’t laid a lustful hand on her for months.

She has the fortune, or misfortune, to live in one of Scotland’s most famous places – the East Lothian village of Holy Cross, which takes its name from the legendary Glastonbury Cross that was spirited away – and subsequently lost – when Henry VIII purged the English monasteries. The cross of pale Welsh gold, reputedly buried within the village, had at its centre a fragment of emerald from the Holy Grail. The story is, of course, complete baloney.

But the association with the Holy Grail and the later witch persecutions of James VI mean that the village is as well known around the world as Edinburgh Castle, haggis or Loch Ness. It has been described as “the heartbeat of Scotland” and is a major tourist destination – many of whom visit the village with metal detectors, hoping to discover the elusive cross.

However, a sighting of a large, black cat by the local Church of Scotland minister sets off a chain of events that lead back twenty years and, although the villagers are blissfully unaware of it, to a woman’s murder. The black cat had last been sighted near the village some two decades before, and the minister’s predecessor was sure that it had triggered something evil. The villagers, of course, think otherwise.

Nothing ever happens in Holy Cross.

For fans of Mel Brooks and Monty Python!

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Excerpt

Coincidentally, Rosie had once owned a black cat, although it was very small, and was eaten by an eagle on the Christmas morning she was given it. That was also the Christmas she stopped believing in Santa Claus. One minute, the kitten was on a scrubby patch of grass in their Sussex back garden, a round ball of black fluff, peering fretfully at her new world; the next, she wasn’t anywhere to be seen until, looking up, Rosie saw large and predatory wings disappear over the farmhouse roof.

She was at an age when she knew that bad things happened, but still believed that Christmas Day was somehow exempt: guns fell silent, everyone had enough to eat, and pestilence was postponed until Boxing Day. Her parents tried to console her by saying that eagles weren’t native to Sussex, searching fruitlessly in flowerbeds and, then, in the surrounding fields. In a way, that day had become a metaphor for her life: that in unexpected ways good things can be randomly snatched away. It felt like that now: sagging boobs, carpet slippers, a dreaded birthday – and the revelation of a precise delusion.

Available on Amazon UK and Amazon!

About the Author

I was born in Paisley, central Scotland, which wasn’t my fault. That week, Eddie Calvert with Norrie Paramor and his Orchestra were Top of the Pops, with Oh, Mein Papa, as sung by a young German woman remembering her once-famous clown father. That gives a clue to my age, not my musical taste.

I was brought up in the west of Scotland and graduated from the University of Edinburgh. I still have the scroll, but it’s in Latin, so it could say anything.

I then worked briefly as a street actor, baby photographer, puppeteer and restaurant dogsbody before becoming a journalist. I started in Glasgow and ended up in London, covering news, features and politics. I interviewed motorbike ace Barry Sheene, Noel Edmonds threatened me with legal action and, because of a bureaucratic muddle, I was ordered out of Greece.

I then took a year to travel round the world, visiting 19 countries. Highlights included being threatened by a man with a gun in Dubai, being given an armed bodyguard by the PLO in Beirut (not the same person with a gun), and visiting Robert Louis Stevenson’s grave in Samoa. What I did for the rest of the year I can’t quite remember

Surprisingly, I was approached by a government agency to work in intelligence, which just shows how shoddy government recruitment was back then. However, it turned out to be very boring and I don’t like vodka martini.

Craving excitement and adventure, I ended up as a PR consultant, which is the fate of all journalists who haven’t won a Pulitzer Prize, and I’ve still to listen to Oh, Mein Papa.

I am married with two grown-up children and live in central Scotland. And that’s about it.

Charlie Laidlaw | Facebook | Twitter

Blog Tour Schedule

December 9^th

Gwendalyn’s Books (Spotlight) https://gwendalynbooks.blog/

Quirky Cats Fat Stacks (Review) https://quirkycatsfatstacks.com/

Rambling Mads (Review)  http://ramblingmads.com

December 10^th

Viviana MacKade (Guest Post) https://viviana-mackade.blog/

Breakeven Books (Spotlight) https://breakevenbooks.com

December 11^th

Crossroad Reviews (Spotlight)  http://www.crossroadreviews.com

Dash Fan Book Reviews (Review) https://dashfan81.blogspot.com/

December 12^th

B is for Book Review (Guest Post) https://bforbookreview.wordpress.com

I Smell Sheep (Review) http://www.ismellsheep.com/

December 13^th

Life’s a Novelty (Review) https://lifesanovelty.blogspot.com/

Reads & Reels (Review) http://readsandreels.com

December 14^th

Didi Oviatt (Spotlight) https://didioviatt.wordpress.com

Jessica Belmont (Review) https://jessicabelmont.wordpress.com/

Lunarian Press (Review) https://www.lunarianpress.com/

December 15^th

The Invisible Moth (Review) https://daleydowning.wordpress.com

December 16^th

Nesie’s Place (Spotlight) https://nesiesplace.wordpress.com

LoopyLouLaura (Review) https://www.loopyloulaura.com/

December 17^th

I’m into Books (Spotlight) https://imintobooks.com

Turning the Pages (Spotlight) https://turningthepagesonline.wordpress.com

Cup of Toast (Review) https://cupoftoast.co.uk

December 18^th

The Magic of Wor(l)ds (Review) http://themagicofworlds.wordpress.com

December 19^th

This is My Truth Now (Spotlight) https://thisismytruthnow.com/

It’s All About the Books (Review) https://itsallaboutthebooksblog.wordpress.com/

The Bookworm Drinketh (Review) http://thebookwormdrinketh.wordpress.com/

December 20^th

Entertainingly Nerdy (Spotlight) https://www.entertaininglynerdy.com

Banshee Irish Horror Blog (Review) www.bansheeirishhorrorblog.com

Book Dragons Not Worms (Review) https://bookdragonsnotworms.blogspot.com/?m=1

J Bronder Book Reviews (Review) https://jbronderbookreviews.com/

For your chance to win a signed copy of Love Potions and Other Calamities, click the link below!

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Hannah and her eldest daughter Olivia have The Argument. Olivia wants more freedom and sneaks out to a party. She obviously gets into big trouble when she gets home and is determined not to speak to her mother again.

Then the house is broken into and the word LIAR painted onto the kitchen cabinets. Hannah suspects Olivia is to blame. Other strange things start to happen and secrets are revealed…

The Argument is a fascinating story of teenage angst but also a psychological thriller as it becomes clear there is more to the plot than merely family drama.

Although I seem very sweet now (!), I was a hideous teen and refused to speak to my mum for days on end. The frustration, self doubt and growing pains of adolescence are so well written and realistic from both Olivia and Hannah’s perspectives. The use of the dual viewpoint allows us to devleop a better understanding of the characters and sympathise with them.

The big twist about the reality of their family life did make me gasp in surprise but I did not find the ending particularly believable except for the self justification in the final chapter. This did not affect my enjoyment as the beginning and middle were so strong.

Victoria Jenkins writes cleverly to weave mystery and suspicion into the plot. This increases the tension and anticipation for the reader. I had plenty of guesses about where I thought the plot was going but they were all wrong!

Media Pack  Information Sheet:

Title: The Argument

Author: Victoria Jenkins  

Publication Day: 10/12

Buy Links:

Amazon: https://geni.us/B07YCPXL2FSocial

Apple Books: https://apple.co/2mUlIKN

Kobo: http://bit.ly/2lJrf74

Googleplay: http://bit.ly/2ljeMqo

Description:

It happens to every mother. One day, the daughter whose whole world you once were, becomes someone you barely know. And you don’t know the secrets she’s hiding…

One night, 15-year-old Olivia comes home late from a party she was strictly forbidden from going to, and she and her mother, Hannah, start arguing. Soon Olivia speaks the words that every parent has heard from their teenage child:

‘I hate you. You’ve ruined my life. And I’m never speaking to you again.’

Olivia has never been an easy child, a sharp contrast to her easy-going, happy-go-lucky little sister. But Hannah thinks Olivia’s outburst is the end of a normal family argument. In fact, it’s only the beginning of a nightmare…

After one day of silence, Hannah thinks Olivia is taking a teenage sulk too far. After two days, she starts to feel anxious that something more serious could be going on. After a week, when her daughter still hasn’t spoken, Hannah knows that Olivia is hiding a bigger darkness – something that could threaten to tear their precious family apart…

The Argument is an unputdownable psychological thriller that asks how far we can push our families before they finally break. Perfect for fans of Gillian Flynn, The Woman in the Window, and The Silent Patient.

Author Bio:

Victoria Jenkins lives with her husband and daughter in South Wales, where her series of crime novels featuring Detectives King and Lane is based. Her debut novel The Girls in the Water is an Amazon UK top 30 bestseller, and top 5 bestseller in the Amazon US chart.

Her first psychological thriller, The Divorce, was published in July 2019. The second, The Argument, publishes December 10^th 2019.

Author Social Media Links:

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/victoriajenkinswriter/

Twitter:      @vicwritescrime

https://twitter.com/vicwritescrime

A new case for pathologist Beth Adams and her lover DS Josh Walters. Their relationship has developed significantly since the last book but now a case keeps them busy and a personal dilemma drives a wedge between them.

Two women are pulled form Lake Windermere, both apparently accidental but Beth is convinced that identical paint chips beneath their fingernails is suspicious. Josh and his team begin their investigation into the deaths but he is waylaid by his ex and her cancer diagnosis.

Beth and Josh’s relationship, both the personal and professional dynamic, is so well written and realistic. I really wanted to knock their heads together at some points in the book and was urging them to be open with each other and communicate properly!

There are references to events in the previous book but author Helen Phifer maintains a clear focus on the current case. The forensic detail was a little grisly but presented in an informative and objective way through Beth’s occupation as a pathologist.

The pace of The Girls in the Lake is speedy, with short chapters which sweep the reader along. The energy of Josh and Beth as they investigate is conveyed to the reader and the tension for their relationship as well as the case is carefully built up by the quickfire chapters and speedy plot developments.

In all honesty I felt the ending was a little abrupt and wanted more explantion of motive and the history of the character to gain a better understanding of their motivation.

However, overall the book was excellent and I can’t wait for the next installment!

Take a look at my review of the first Beth Adams book The Girl in the Grave, and Last Light from another of her series.

Media Pack  Information Sheet:

Title: The Girls in the Lake

Author: HELEN PHIFER

Publication Day: 09/12/19

Buy Links:

Amazon: https://geni.us/B07YNQ4N5VSocial

Apple Books: https://apple.co/2K7Z4aU

Kobo: http://bit.ly/2oMUcQl

Googleplay: http://bit.ly/2pBkLIU

Description:

Peering over the side of the boat, the glare of early morning sun catches on something pale in the inky water. The boy’s curious fingertips break the surface, pulling up a tangle of long blonde hair from the reeds below…

The discovery of a young student floating face down in Lake Windermere, her naked skin almost translucent in the freezing water, looks like yet another tragic teen suicide. But the victim’s lack of clothes make Forensic Pathologist Beth Adams want to investigate further. Anything to distract her from the arrival of her abusive ex-boyfriend’s body on the mortuary table that morning.

With witnesses keeping tight-lipped and any clues washed away by the tides, it’s up to Beth to find the evidence her team needs. But then another girl is found in the lake, this time still clinging to life. She tells them she was at a party on a boat, and that she was pushed…

As more bodies surface, Beth finds tiny traces of boat paint present on each victim. It’s a critical lead that links these attacks back to a tragic accident involving a group of school children years ago.

Faced with a killer hungry for revenge, and with her own life spiralling out of control, it’s going to take every ounce of skill and determination for Beth to catch this monster before he takes another innocent life. But will Beth realise he’s been right beside her all along?

An absolutely unputdownable serial killer thriller that will have you sleeping with the lights on. Fans of Patricia Gibney, LJ Ross and Angela Marsons will have to hold on tight for this nail-biting rollercoaster ride!

Author Bio:

Helen Phifer lives in a small town called Barrow-in-Furness with her husband and five children.

Helen has always loved writing and reading. Her love of horror films and novels is legendary. Helen adores reading books which make the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. Unable to find enough scary stories to read she decided to write her own. 

Author Social Media Links:

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/Helenphifer1

Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/helenphifer

Twitter:      https://twitter.com/helenphifer1

Website:     https://www.helenphifer.com