Tag: 4.5 stars

A Chain Across the Dawn Blog Tour

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I’m thrilled to be kicking off the blog tour for A Chain Across the Dawn today. Thanks so Anne at Random Things Tours for inviting me to take part.

About the Book

It’s been three years since Esa left her backwater planet to join the ranks of the Justified. Together, she and fellow agent Jane Kamali have been traveling across the known universe, searching for children who share Esa’s supernatural gifts.

On a visit to a particularly remote planet, they learn that they’re not the only ones searching for gifted children. They find themselves on the tail of a mysterious being with impossible powers who will stop at nothing to get his hands on the very children that Esa and Jane are trying to save.

With their latest recruit in tow—a young Wulf boy named Sho—Esa and Jane must track their strange foe across the galaxy in search of answers. But the more they learn, the clearer it becomes—their enemy may be harder to defeat than they ever could have imagined.

My Review

I didn’t realise that this was the second book in a series when I started reading it, but this didn’t take away from my enjoyment of the book. This can be read as a standalone, however I am going to get the first in the series.

I really enjoyed this book. I love sci-fi and space operas, but I find they can often be quite hit and miss. A Chain Across the Dawn kept my interest wonderfully for the entire book.

I thought that this book excelled at things that sci-fi can really struggle with. It doesn’t get too bogged down in world building, and giving the entire history of different planets and races, but it does give enough detail that the reader understands what’s going on, and doesn’t feel like they’re missing out on part of the story.

I also thought the pacing of this book worked really well. I couldn’t put the book down as I had to know what was going on. The pacing kept the story moving really well, while still allowing time to discover more about the character’s back stories, and giving the reader time to process what was going on.

The characters in this book are really well written and easy to connect to. They’re all incredibly human, despite the fact that they’re aliens. The motivations of the characters, and the reasoning behind the ongoing wars, are easy to relate to, and similar to what we see around us today. I liked the idea of religion as something that doesn’t end, and instead expands as technology does and we start to explore different planets, and species. The use of religion as a justification for war is a common one, but despite this religion isn’t portrayed negatively in the book.

I absolutely adored Esa. She was a wonderful character, and one the reader could relate to easily. I also love seeing bad-ass females who are still in touch with other aspects of themselves. So often the strong female character is an excellent fighter, but don’t have any other personality. We saw that Esa was fighting for the right reasons, but was still affected by what she did.

I loved this book. I’ve already ordered the first in the series, and I’ll be looking out for more from this author.

Another huge thanks to Anne for inviting me onto this blog tour. All opinions are my own.

About the Author

Drew Williams was born and raised in Birmingham,
Alabama, in the southern United States of
America. He is a bookseller at the Little Professor
Book Center in Homewood, Alabama. A Chain
Across the Dawn is his second book.

Clear My Name Blog Tour

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About the Book

Innocent?

When Carrie was accused of brutally murdering her husband’s lover, she denied it. She denied it when they arrested her, when they put her in front of a jury, and when they sent her to prison.

Now she’s three years into a fifteen-year sentence, away from the daughter she loves and the life she had built. And she is still denying that she is to blame.

Guilty?

Tess Gilroy has devoted her life to righting wrongs. Through her job for Innocence UK, a charity which takes on alleged miscarriages of justice, she works tirelessly to uncover the truth.

But when she is asked to take Carrie’s case, Tess realises that if she is to help this woman, she must risk uncovering the secrets she has struggled a lifetime to hide…

We’ve all done things we’re not proud of.

My Review

This blog tour was originally booked up before I had even seen the email, so I was thrilled when it had been extended. Thanks to damppebbles and for my copy of the book.

This was a really interesting twist on the usual crime/murder mystery novel. Carrie has already been convicted and sentenced for murder, and been in prison for the last three years. Has she been wrongly convicted, or is her daughter unable to accept that her mother is a murderer?

The majority of murder mysteries or crime dramas end with the murderer admitting their crimes once they have been confronted with the evidence, so we never really think about what happens if an innocent person if found guilty. We like to think that we live in a society where this wouldn’t happen,  but this probably happens more often than we’d like to admit.

It’s not clear from the start of this book whether Carrie is innocent or guilty. We follow Tess as she tries to determine whether Carrie is innocent, and if she is, who is the murderer?

There is a lot going on in this book, it keeps you guessing as you’re not sure who to believe, or what the truth is. If Carrie is innocent, who hated her enough to frame her for murder? 

I couldn’t put this book down. The characters draw you in, and I was desperate to find out what was really going on. Clear My Name manages to give you enough background information about the characters throughout the book to keep you invested in them, without going into so much detail that it takes away from the pacing of the story.

Tess is a flawed character, which is what makes her so relatable and likeable. I’d love to see her in future books.

About the Author

© Stephen Lea

Paula Daly is the critically acclaimed author of six novels. She has been shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger for Crime Novel of the Year award, and her books have been developed for the new ITV television series, Deep Water, starring Anna Friel. She was born in Lancashire and lives in the Lake District with her husband, three children, and whippet Skippy.

Social Media:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/PaulaDalyAuthor

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Paula-Daly-490968164379299

The Perfect Child

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The Perfect Child – Lucinda Berry

Hannah and Christopher have always wanted a child but were unable to have one. When Christopher treats an abused and abandoned child he thinks she will be the perfect addition to their family. Hannah’s not so sure, but nothing she says will convince him otherwise.

This was an uneasy read in a good way. I couldn’t put the book down but it creates an uncomfortable feeling. Children are supposed to be innocent and it’s always unsettling when they act in a way that doesn’t fit with this belief.

This book started with a police interview, before going back to the start of the story, which I’m not usually a fan of but it worked well in this book. I thought I’d guessed what was happening early in the story, but what I thought was happening changed throughout the book, and I still didn’t guess the ending.

There’s the obvious parallels between this and Bad Apple/Baby Teeth by Zoje Stage, but while they both centre around manipulative children this did feel like a very different story.

My rating: 4.5 stars, and I’ve added other books by Lucinda Berry to my TBR list.