Book after Book

Welcome to the blog tour  The  Family Tree  by Yasmine Anane and Mark Beech One day before winter, Mole sets off to find his family tree. A family tree, he explains, is a place where he will find others just like him. He is tired of being on his own. During his journey, he is joined by Owl, Squirrel and Rabbit. They are tired of being on their own too, and the idea to find somewhere they belong sounds amazing! However, winter arrives, and so does the end of the wood. If there are no more trees to explore, it means that the family tree doesn't exist and the four friends are going to be alone forever. Or does it? A beautifully rhyming and gorgeously illustrated book about the meaning of family and belonging. The first time I read it to my girls, they made me start again as soon as we reached the last sentence. A definite hit, and highly recommended by all of us!

Welcome to the blog tour for The Kismet Pension by Melanie Ann Gilbert! More about the book… Family, traditions and a taste of Turkey… The Kismet Pension is the only guest house in the village and its owner, Fatma, wants to keep it that way. When Harun arrives from Istanbul with a plan to build a retreat where jaded city dwellers can get back to nature, Fatma sets out on a mission to stop him. She recruits an unlikely group of supporters and together they wage war against the retreat. But as the summer heats up, Fatma’s followers drift away and even her family are giving her cause for worry. When the retreat is threatened with destruction, will she stand back and watch, or will her conscience get the better of her? The Kismet Pension  will transport you to the village of Ortakoy, with its colourful inhabitants, quaint customs and long days of sunshine! More about the author… I grew up in England and studied Geography at university, then took a TE...

Welcome to the blog tour for The Original Daughter by Jemimah Wei! More about the book… Singapore, 1996. Before Arin, Genevieve Yang was an only child. Living with her parents and grandmother  in a single-room flat in Bedok, Genevieve is saddled with an unexpected sibling when Arin  appears, the shameful legacy of a grandfather long believed to be dead. Gen and Arin grow up as sisters in Singapore: a place where insistence on achievement  demands constant sacrifice in the realms of imagination and play. As the sister’s struggle  toward individual redemption, their story reveals the fault lines of Singaporean society,  our desperate need for acceptance, and our yearning to be loved. Vivid and visceral, The Original Daughter is a breathtaking act of empathy by a new  literary star. More about the author… Jemimah Wei was born and raised in Singapore and is currently a 2022-2024 Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. She is the recipient of ...

Welcome to the blog tour for The In-Between Bookstore  by Edward Underhill! More about the book… If you had one chance to talk to your younger self… would you? What would you say? A healing novel about a trans man in New York who - almost 30, laid off, broke - moves back to his small Illinois hometown. Darby left Oak Falls, Illinois years ago, hoping to find a community and to leave behind the memory of his childhood best friend, Michael, and the painful way their friendship ended. He walks into the bookstore he worked at in high school and feels an eerie sense of déjà vu – everything is exactly the same. Even the newspapers are dated 2009. And behind the till is a teen who looks a lot like Darby did at sixteen... a teen who just might give him the opportunity to change his own present for the better – if he can figure out how before his connection to the past vanishes forever. More about the author… Edward Underhill grew up in the suburbs of Wisconsin, where he coul...

Welcome to the blog tour for Lost In The Forest  by Colin Heber-Percy! More about the book… This book is a hymn to getting lost. Drawing on his experience as a troubled schoolboy, a burnt-out screenwriter at the BBC, an 'awkward' priest in the Church of England, Colin Heber-Percy reflects on the value of not belonging... We all share a desire to belong. There's reassurance and safety in knowing who we are and where we fit in. But at significant moments in our lives - a new job, new school or an unexpected change of circumstances - or just in the ruts and routines of everyday life, we can experience a sense of not belonging, of dislocation, of being lost in a forest. But there is another way to approach these uneasy moments. Rather than fearing the forest, Colin discovers great value and creativity there. Join parish priest Colin Heber-Percy in an invitation to get lost - to lose the labels society and institutions use to box us in - and to relish the liberation of lo...

Welcome to the blog tour for Murder in Covent Garden by Anita Davison! More about the book… Even though its famous opera house has shuttered its doors for the war, Covent Garden remains one of the most exciting, bustling areas of London. It’s where Hannah Merrill and Aunt Violet have their bookshop and, in spite of the recent spate of burglaries in the area, it’s generally thought to be a good neighbourhood. So Hannah is surprised when she sees a fellow shopkeeper – a jeweller named Jacob Cornelis – having a heated argument with a stranger. Especially when the next day Cornelis is found dead in his shop, apparently the victim of another burglary. But what shocks Hannah more is when she meets the policeman supposedly there to investigate the crime. Because he is none other than the man who Hannah saw arguing with Cornelis the day before. Hannah knows it’s up to her and Violet to investigate. But they don’t know they’re about to uncover a secret underworld of theft, murder and blackmail...

Welcome to the blog tour for Madame Matisse  by Sophie Haydock! More about the book… This is the story of three women - one an orphan and refugee who finds a place in the studio of a famous French artist, the other a wife and mother who has stood by her husband for nearly forty years. The third is his daughter, caught in the crossfire between her mother and a father she adores. Amelie is first drawn to Henri Matisse as a way of escaping the conventional life expected of her. A free spirit, she sees in this budding young artist a glorious future for them both. Ambitious and driven, she gives everything for her husband's art, ploughing her own desires, her time, her money into sustaining them both, even through years of struggle and disappointment. Lydia Delectorskaya is a young Russian emigree, who fled her homeland following the death of her mother. After a fractured childhood, she is trying to make a place for herself on France's golden Riviera, amid the artists, fi...

Welcome to the blog tour for Murder At Mill Ponds House by Michelle Salter! More about the book… Spring, 1924. Reporter Iris Woodmore plans to move to London to avoid a shocking hometown scandal. Longtime enemy Archie Powell has been threatening to reveal her darkest secret – and she’s desperate to flee before he does. But when he’s found murdered after a violent argument with her, there’s no escape. Iris must stay and clear her name even though the truth could ruin her reputation. With the police closing in, Iris has to find the real killer if she’s to keep her secret. Can she prove her innocence without revealing the identity of the one man who can provide her with an alibi? More about the author… Thanks for taking the time to stop by my author page. You’ll see all my books are classic murder mysteries – because golden age whodunnits are the stories I enjoy reading most. I love to create memorable characters and devise intriguing plots with a focus on mystery rather than violenc...

Welcome to the blog tour for How To Speak Punjabi in Brampton by Onyeka Nwelue! Being familiar with this author, I was looking forward to reading his latest novel. Sadly, my copy didn’t reach me in time. Below you’ll find more details about the book. What do you think? Is this something that piques your interest too? More about the book… Balminder Jagvir Singh had perfected the art of juggling.  Every morning, Balminder, a tall, slightly round man in his early thirties with a perpetual twinkle in his eye, wakes up to the melodious strains of his mother's early morning prayers playing on his phone, mingling with the distant roar of the city of Brampton coming to life.  Brampton, a city with a rich fabric of different cultures, became home to Balminder just a few years ago.  His move from India to Canada had been filled with the usual immigrant anxieties and aspirations, but he has taken it in his stride, bringing with him a vibrant slice of Punjabi cul...

Welcome to the blog tour for The Immigrant Queen by Peter Taylor-Gooby! More about the book… Hated as a foreigner, despised as a woman, I became First Lady of Athens Aspasia falls passionately in love with Pericles, the leading statesman of Fifth Century Athens. Artists, writers and thinkers frequent her salon. She hides her past as a sex-worker, trafficked to the city, and becomes Pericles’ lover. Her writings attract the attention of Socrates, and she becomes the only woman to join his circle. She is known throughout the city for her beauty and wit and strives to become recognised as an intellectual alongside men. Pericles’ enemies attack him through Aspasia and charge her with blasphemy. As a foreigner she faces execution, but her impassioned address to the jury shames the city and saves her. Pericles is spellbound, they marry, and she becomes First Lady of Athens. Sparta besieges the city; plague breaks out and Pericles is once again in danger. The Immigrant Que...

Welcome to the blog tour for The Lion Women of Tehran  by Marjan Kamali! More about the book… In 1950s Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie lives in grand comfort until the untimely death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move to a tiny home downtown. Lonely and bearing the brunt of her mother’s endless grievances, Ellie dreams of a friend to alleviate her isolation. Luckily, on the first day of school, she meets Homa, a kind, passionate girl with a brave and irrepressible spirit. Together, the two girls play games, learn to cook in the stone kitchen of Homa’s warm home, wander through the colorful stalls of the Grand Bazaar, and share their ambitions for becoming 'lion women.' But their happiness is disrupted when Ellie and her mother are afforded the opportunity to return to their previous bourgeois life. Now a popular student at the best girls’ high school in Iran, Ellie’s memories of Homa begin to fade. Years later, however, her sudden reappearance in Ellie’s pri...

Welcome to the blog tour for People Collide  by Isle McElroy! More about the book… When Eli leaves the cramped Bulgarian apartment he shares with Elizabeth, his more organized and successful wife, he discovers that he now inhabits her body. Not only have he and his wife traded bodies, but Elizabeth, living as Eli, has disappeared without a trace. What follows is Eli’s search across Europe and to America for his missing wife—and a roving, no-holds-barred exploration of gender and embodied experience. As Eli comes closer to finding Elizabeth—while learning to exist in her body—he begins to wonder what effect this metamorphosis will have on their relationship and how long he can maintain the illusion of living as someone he isn’t. Will their new marriage wither completely? Or is this transformation the very thing Eli and Elizabeth need for their marriage to thrive? A rich, rewarding exploration of ambition and sacrifice, desire and loss,  People Collide  is a portr...

Welcome to the blog tour for Estella’s Revenge by Barbara Havelocke! More about the book… You know Miss Havisham. The world's most famous jilted bride. This is her daughter’s story. Raised in the darkness of Satis House where the clocks never tick, the beautiful Estella is bred to hate men and to keep her heart cold as the grave. She knows she doesn’t feel things quite like other people do but is this just the result of her strange upbringing? As she watches the brutal treatment of women around her, hatred hardens into a core of vengeance and when she finds herself married to the abusive Drummle, she is forced to make a deadly choice: Should she embrace the darkness within her and exact her revenge? More about the author… Barbara is an international bestselling author, whose psychological thrillers have topped Amazon and Kobo. Her writing career started in journalism, interviewing the real victims of crime - and the perpetrators. The realistic, complex characters who populat...

Welcome to the blog tour for The Booklover's Library by Madeline Martin! More about the book… In Nottingham, England, widow Emma Taylor finds herself in desperate need of a job. She and her beloved daughter Olivia have always managed just fine on their own, but with the legal restrictions prohibiting widows with children from most employment opportunities, she's left with only one option: persuading the manageress at Boots' Booklover's Library to take a chance on her with a job. When the threat of war in England becomes a reality, Olivia must be evacuated to the countryside. In the wake of being separated from her daughter, Emma seeks solace in the unlikely friendships she forms with her neighbours and coworkers, and a renewed sense of purpose through the recommendations she provides to the library's quirky regulars. But the job doesn't come without its difficulties. Books are mysteriously misshelved and disappearing and the work at the lending library forces h...

Welcome to the blog tour for Earthly Creatures  by Stevie Davies! More about the book… For all her life, idealistic 20-year-old bookworm Magdalena Arber has been split down the middle: veering wildly between fidelity to indoctrinated Nazi beliefs, and her father's humanist values. Then comes the summons–the Nazi War Labour Service is conscripting her into a teaching position in East Prussia. Magda is elated. It's a release from the cosy cage of childhood, and a chance to form young minds. She enters a lush rural world of forests, lakes, and meadows where order prevails. Yet there are monstrous hands out to shape the whole continuum of earthly creatures. The Gestapo are a lurking darkness. There is bombing further East, and news of a moving Russian front. Will Alt Schönbek burn as well? Can Magda survive? More about the author… Stevie Davies, who comes from Morriston, Swansea, is a novelist, literary critic, biographer and historian. She is a Fellow of the Royal Socie...

Welcome to the blog tour for Unravelling by Preethi Nair! More about the book… To the outside world, Bhanu seems to have a perfect life: a beautiful home and a wonderful husband and family... No one knows that each superficial layer has been carefully constructed to hide the dark secrets of her past and to bury the utter disappointment that what was written in the stars did not come to pass. Then, on the eve of her fortieth wedding anniversary and vow renewal ceremony, a chance encounter shatters Bhanu's pretence, when a face from her past reappears. Deep, her first love who was etched into her heart, the man who lingered in her dreams throughout her married life, reappears, asking her to abandon everything for a second chance at love. Forced to confront the consequences of choices made long ago, Bhanu begins to unravel as her life is thrust into chaos. But by reaching for a different future, can she heal the wounds of her past? More about the author… Preethi worked as a management...

Welcome to the blog tour for The Last Bookshop in Prague by Helen Parusel! More about the book… The banned books club was only the beginning; a place for the women of Prague to come together and share the tales the Germans wanted to silence. For bookshop owner, Jana, doing the right thing was never a question. So when opportunity comes to help the resistance, she offers herself – and her bookshop. Using her window displays as covert signals and hiding secret codes in bookmarks, she’ll do all in her power to help. But the arrival of two people in her bookshop will change everything: a young Jewish boy with nowhere else to turn, and a fascist police captain Jana can’t read at all. In a time where secrets are currency and stories can be fatal, will she know who to trust? More about the author… Helen Parusel is a historical novelist, having been a teacher and a clothes buyer for M&S. She currently lives in Hamburg. My impressions… From the same author of The Austrian Bride , which I h...

Welcome to the blog tour for The Beforelife of Eliza Valentine by Laura Pearson! More about the book… There are four of us: Samuel, Lucy, Thomas, and me – Eliza. We came into being the day Becca Valentine was born. We’ve been by her side ever since. What she doesn’t know yet, is that one day she might become our mother. Then two men come into her life. Both seeking her heart. And then we realise: everything rests on Becca’s love story. Because one of the men is Lucy and Thomas’s father. And the other is mine and Samuel’s. And there’s simply no way we can all be born. We all want her to make the right choice. We all want to be born. To hold her hand one day. To feel her stroke our hair. To call her our mother. Then we discover there is something we can do. We can change Fate. But we only have a single chance each. How would you make sure you were born? And what if doing that isn’t what’s best for the person you already love the most in the world – your mother? More about the author...

Welcome to the blog tour for Diva  by Daisy Goodwin! More about the book… In the glittering and ruthlessly competitive world of opera, Maria Callas is known simply as la divina : the divine one. With her glorious voice, instinctive flair for the dramatic and striking beauty, she's the toast of the grandest opera houses in the world. Yet her fame has been hard won: raised in Nazi-occupied Greece by a mother who mercilessly exploited her, Maria learned early in life how to protect herself. When she meets the fabulously rich shipping magnate, Aristotle Onassis, her isolation melts away. For the first time in her life, she believes she's found a man who sees the woman rather than the legendary soprano. Desperately in love, Onassis introduces her to a life of unbelievable luxury, mixing with celebrities like Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. And then, suddenly, it's over. The international press announce that Onassis will marry the most famous...

Welcome to the blog tour for Vagabond  by Mark Eveleigh! More about the book… This incredible true story of one man's 1,225-km hike across the Iberian Peninsula is a celebration of rural Spain along the road less travelled. Inspired by a nomadic "vagabundo" he met decades ago, travel writer Mark Eveleigh eschews the fast pace of modern life and sets off on a solo hike 1,225 km across the Iberian Peninsula - from Gibraltar in the far south to Estaca de Bares, Spain's most northerly tip - carrying just a backpack and a hammock. Hiking through sleepy siesta-hour plazas, shady cork forests and heat-shimmering plains, the hours would be long, dusty and hot. But, as Mark passes through the many small villages and communities en route, his trek comes to be characterized most of all by the sharing of stories, the true kindness of strangers, and the unbridled freedom of the open road. Recounting Mark's fascinating nomadic journey through Spain's least-visited region, E...