Dead Lands by Lloyd Otis

Read from Oct 28th 2017 - Nov 3rd 2017.

Published Oct 12th 2017 by Urbane Publications.

Format    Paperback -  320 pages.

Synopsis - 
Taken from Goodreads - Dead Lands is a thrilling crime story set in the 1970s. When a woman's body is found a special team is called in to investigate and prime suspect Alex Troy is arrested for the murder. Desperate to remain a free man, Troy protests his innocence, but refuses to use his alibi. Trying to protect the woman he loves becomes a dangerous game - questions are asked and suspicions deepen. When the prime suspect completes a daring escape from custody, DI Breck and DS Kearns begin the hunt. Breck wants out of the force while Kearns has her own agenda and seeks revenge. Breck has his suspicions and she wants to keep it from him, and a right-wing march provides an explosive backdrop to their hunt for Troy. Lloyd Otis brings a startling account of the past back to life over a burgeoning '70s landscape, and delivers a thrilling piece of crime fiction that will excite any fan of the genre.

My Review - Firstly, I'd love to tell you all about Lloyd Otis as this is the first book blog tour I have partaken in and I am honoured to be reviewing his book as my first. Yes, it's MY day today. MY turn. I have never met him but before receiving the book I received information about him, photo's etc. I have put an extra tab on my blog to share these lovely book tour writers with you as it covers pages and pages and then we can leave this bit for the product itself - the book. 

Please check him out on that tab. I think he looks one cool dude myself. ;-)

As soon as I was asked to get involved in this tour, I jumped at the chance. The book looked amazing. The initial thing that caught my eye was the wonderful shiny cover. This is always an attractive eye catcher to the reader scanning the shelf for their next new read. It also has a simple but eye catching graphic. Red on black? great choice there Lloyd and Urbane. This simple design runs through the book at the start of each chapter, not in colour. A gun makes it absolutely clear that it is a crime story with killings involved, so if you are looking for a warm, cosy Agatha Christie then walk away, this is not for you.

I loved the teaser of an opening at chapter one, a short welcoming paragraph worded around that continuing graphic of a gun. This was a theme throughout at the beginning of each and every chapter which set the scene.

This book was very easy to read and just flowed, like sucking on your favourite perfectly round sweet that fits easily in your tongue. The wording never too intense, almost making it a light read if it wasn't for the content. It sure isn't a heavy deep mind bending read.

Lloyd astounded me with his punchy chapters, no, no waffle here. Straight in, no long monotonous intro's to everything. I liked that.

Saying that, I did have a criticism. I didn't feel atmosphere in the settings. There was no feeling to me. A super read but in these areas it lacked. Was this down to not enough description? Maybe it was stripped a little too much for me then. 

The detectives, wow! I loved the conversations between them. It was like I was the third wheel just looking in on them. The dynamics between them were very odd mind. They both gave off an air of distrust about them which made for a rather itchy relationship, but to be fair with personal histories like both of them have, I am not surprised they give off those kind of vibes.

Set in the 70's where police had to work on their own intuition and things were not always done above board and I'm guessing more so in a place such as London with a very diverse and growing population, with racial tensions brewing, it only added grittiness to this fantastic crime novel. I was only born mid 70's so can not comment from experience but I have seen 70's police shows compared to police shows of today and the police were brutal and got away with so much more. I think Lloyd captured some of that in this novel. I would have liked to have read more of how the 70's police/detectives worked which is different to now in more of a descriptive way but Lloyd was very consistent throughout.

This novel is a fabulous, gritty read which keeps you full of intrigue and as soon as you think something is solved, up comes a spanner in the works.

I would certainly love to read more from Lloyd Otis in the future and would like to see where these detectives get to. I wonder if Lloyd will let us know?

4 stars out of 5. 

The Marsh King's Daughter by Karen Dionne

Read from Aug 26th 2017 - Sept 4th 2017.

Published June 13th 2017 by Sphere.

Format    Paperback -  320 pages.

Synopsis - Taken from Goodreads - I was born two years into my mother's captivity. She was three weeks shy of seventeen. If I had known then what I do now, things would have been a lot different. I wouldn't have adored my father.
When notorious child abductor - known as the Marsh King - escapes from a maximum security prison, Helena immediately suspects that she and her two young daughters are in danger.
No one, not even her husband, knows the truth about Helena's past: they don't know that she was born into captivity, that she had no contact with the outside world before the age of twelve - or that her father raised her to be a killer.
And they don't know that the Marsh King can survive and hunt in the wilderness better than anyone... except, perhaps his own daughter

My Review - Told from the perspective of the daughter of the kidnapped victim. The daughter that was born into captivity. The daughter born to the father that happened to be the kidnapper and keeper of teenage kidnapped and then his own daughter. Told many years post their release and a few years after the daughters mother had unfortunately passed away after going through such turmoil psychologically since release from his clutches.
My star rating, I appreciate is going to be rather controversial, but this book, in my opinion didn't connect to me internally on any level. There wasn't any tugging at heart strings or sitting on the edge of the seat tension and I certainly didn't feel the need to raise my finger nails to my grinders. For a book that is described as a suspense thriller, I neither found it suspenseful nor thrilling in the slightest.
There seemed to be a huge amount of description and emphasis on nature and surroundings which was great, I love nature but this was a suspense thriller book remember and this was what I chose it for and what I indeed expected to find when reading it. Describing surroundings did make it feel a little lonely and a little dark, when you think about being stranded out there in the woods with no one around for miles which was what the writer was obviously trying to portray in one respect but I, personally didn't get anything else from that because there wasn't enough description about the things that would have made it suspenseful and thrilling to me.

As far as characters are concerned. I found Helena (the daughter), had no redeeming qualities at all. There was just absolutely nothing about her. This may too be because there was less character description and emotion involved in her portrayal than the surroundings about her. I couldn't have cared less about her or her story to be honest. The whole book was way too calming for a thriller style story. The father escaped from prison and it didn't even make me blink. I think I expected a lot more from a thriller!
I didn't not like the book It is beautifully written, grammatically correct. The writer can definitely write books, however for me, it was 'just ok'.

2 and a half stars out of 5.

The Other Twin by Lucy V Hay

Read from Aug 16th 2017 - Aug 21st 2017.

Published July 3rd 2017 by Orenda Books.

Format    Paperback -  260 pages.


Synopsis - Taken from Goodreads - When India falls to her death from a bridge over a railway, her sister Poppy returns home to Brighton for the first time in years. Unconvinced by official explanations, Poppy begins her own investigation into India’s death. But the deeper she digs, the closer she comes to uncovering deeply buried secrets. Could Matthew Temple, the boyfriend she abandoned, be involved? And what of his powerful and wealthy parents, and his twin sister, Ana? Enter the mysterious and ethereal Jenny: the girl Poppy discovers after hacking into India’s laptop. What is exactly is she hiding, and what did India find out about her? Taking the reader on a breathless ride through the winding lanes of Brighton, into its vibrant party scene and inside the homes of its well-heeled families, The Other Twin is a startling and up-to-the-minute thriller about the social-media world, where resentments and accusations are played out online, where identities are made and remade, and where there is no such thing as truth.


My Review - Ooo, ooo, ooo, oodles of wonderfulness between a subtle but eye catching book cover with a title font that is definitely a bit of a grabber. It certainly attracted me.
Little did I realised when I first looked at this cover how many meanings it actually portrayed, whether or not the writer Lucy Hay, and the cover designer initially planned it to be this way or whether it is just my over imagination going off on a tangent as per usual.
I am going to presume, reading my review, that you have read the synopsis?
The hand on the cover, is it the hand of letting go? the hand of a push, the last thing India saw or as I thought, is it a hand of what you can't see. The answer being right in front of your face? just to put a little more complexity into an already complex story.

This story powers straight in with no hesitation and puts the reader in his head, his thoughts and follows his actions but who is he and who is she? and to be honest, it isn't at all clear and had me a bit flummoxed but on I read believing like most things, all will become clear. I don't think the writer intended any of that electrifying beginning to be clear.
The writer hadn't introduced them to us yet.

Chapter two finally reveals two names, India and Jenny. Ok,these must be the twins I thought. It was like eeking blood out of a stone. Are we being drip fed, slowly?
Chapter three then changes tack and the story takes off all in first person. The reader finds out that this first person is Poppy and she is the sister of India who died (that was in the blurb). Jenny? no.Still need to figure this out. The book hits hard but slows with a few pages to give you back ground of when India was alive and her and Poppy were younger. This gives the story substance and depth. Much needed in a book which you don't always need with T.V.

The Other Twin is only the second book I have read that has incorporated the social media age into it's style and format keeping the story very up to date. In fact, it is in more ways than one where other literature have failed. This book has it all in spades. Riddled with deception and lies and it's impact upon a small community, in particular two main families. It has diversity in every way, sexuality orientation, race and gender amongst affluence and prejudice making this read an invigorating one.

If I had to knock Lucy's work in any way here, it would be such a tiny tap. A tap which I did feel enough to note, so I shall share. She is funnily descriptive, i.e-'.........with a proud green Mohawk' (pg 29), made me think of a peacock, but some of her descriptions just ramble a little bit and she seems to feel she has to keep at it. This gets a little word excessive and takes the imagination away from the reader.

This story is full of levels, like playing one of them old 90's computer games where your character makes their way to the top or bottom of the screen. Each level leads off somewhere else and opens up another dark twisted opening into this psychological thriller.
The characters are very strong and flawed at the same time and as a reader, they have all struck with me in one way or another. Never in a book has so many characters had so much of an effect. Very clever Lucy, very clever. They will stay with me for a long time to come. This book was a surprise from beginning to end but I didn't realise how much of a surprise until I had got to the end. Many a time I thought I knew what had happened only to find, I hadn't a clue and couldn't have been more wrong.
A book that keeps you guessing continuously but whatever you think happened.............think again.

5 out of 5 stars.

The Babble Hinge - 8.

BOO!! I am back! Over a year away and over the last couple of weeks I have slowly crept back in. Did you notice? No prize if you did but hey, well done. oh and welcome back faithful Zebinoco readers.

What to tell you.....ok, so I had to take a break as the pain in my wrist and hand was getting just a little too much but over the last few months a wonderful Doctor at the pain management team has been my godsend. Did I mean to give him a capital D, oh yes, I sure did.It's as close as I can get to naming him on here- The Doctooooor.haha.Yes, ok, more meds but he never treated me like a leper.He believed me.He could see there was something that wasn't right and finally the right meds have and are working.I am hoping to stay on them for a good year or two and hopefully reroute my pain pathway and then slowly come off them all.I hate taking so many.I feel like a crumbly 90 year old living in a medicine cabinet.Still, if it is what is needed right now, then so be it. What we do know is that it is definitely neuropathic pain.

BUT (da,da,da,daaaa), it doesn't end there, oh no.I am not meant to have a break.😄
I have been off work with an acute case of Achilles Tendinopathy/Tendonitis with also a possible Haglunds deformity lump on the calcaneous bone where the tendon joins. I am off for an ultrasound to prove this in a few days.Physio is helping the Achilles and I am able to walk down stairs normally now and without hobbling thanks to my fabulous orthotics but this weekend has been so so sore.I have to wear the orthotics in full shoes, but the best thing for haglunds is open cloggs.aarrrghhh! A viscious circle, so whilst I am helping my tight achilles tendon, I am making my Haglunds very sore. I have ordered some Haglunds support gel padding.

Warning: Feet Photo's - Just because, it's my blog. hahahaha 😇 Scratch and sniff currently not working.Please retry later.

As you can see, this was at one of  the points at the beginning. There were times I couldn't even put my shoe on.It doesn't swell like this now or get inflamed, although I know it still does inside as my nerves buzz somewhat. 

Lets talk about more jollier stuff now.I met a friend and colleague for, what shall we call it.....elevenses (ooooo posho) yesterday. 11:15 at a cute little place called The Bicycle Shop in the city where I live (Norwich). I am a little out of blog practice I didn't take any photo's to put up so lets scout the net.....Such a quaint cute place.I recommend booking a table though as it is very small.
It used to be a bicycle shop many years ago, funny that.

 
https://www.thebicycleshopcafe.com/

I had a wonderful eggs benedict with a latte. oh my, it was so nice.The decor was so delightful with yes, you got it, old scattered books along the wall edge and bird cages in the huge plants in the cafe, no, not real ones with real birds.All pretend with pretend birds in the plants. They accept dogs in too which I thought lovely and I know some would disagree but I'd rather sit next to many dogs than many humans I've met! Most are a lot cleaner to be honest.They had a little bowl of dog biscuits by the till.Cute. What a lovely, lovely place.The staff were very pleasant and it was a very relaxed atmosphere too. I'd definitely go again.

In Chapelfield Gardens there was an Alice in Wonderland fun day for the RSPCA.It had been really hyped up all year but upon a slow walk over, I felt slightly disappointed if I'm honest.Yes, I was aware it was mainly going to be aimed at children but thought there was going to be many characters and such like.There was a few games and some food and craft stalls.The weather hadn't been great so maybe that had affected it and it was a charity event so money would have been tight but it did take almost the way around before we saw anything remotely Alice in Wonderland AND I donned my Alice tee shirt for the occasion too! I love Alice in Wonderland as many of you will remember from my 40th Mad Hatter tea party.

 Photo from Norwich in Wonderland Event's post in Alice in Wonderland Family Fun Day.
 https://www.facebook.com/events/1668503556783231/permalink/1718267138473539/
People who went reported to have a fun time and the children loved it.There was lots of nice food about and I hope they made lots of money for the RSPCA.

Well, that's all for now or I'll run out of paper and you know how big I write.Catch you next time readers.

Immortalis by G.M. Sherwin

Read from May 24th 2017 - May 27th 2017.

Published May 26th 2017 by Sherwin Publications.

Format    Kindle -  pages.

Synopsis - Taken from Goodreads - On the last planet to be colonized by humans, astrophysicist Ash Palmer will set in motion events that will change the history and future for the human race.
Still trying to come to terms with a horrific tragedy he sets out to finish his father’s life’s work
There are others who are interested in Palmers work that will stop at nothing, no matter what the cost to prevent an ancient prophecy becoming a reality.
In his search, Palmer encounters a stranger who will turn his world upside down with revelations about his own origins and that of one other whose fates are linked.
What he discovers will lead him into darkness and the battle for his very soul will begin…

My Review -  Gary Sherwin's first published book and I get to read and review it. Won at a book party, the first thing that attracted me was the cover, a bit of an attention grabber, I must say and what a lovely colour. This was going to be amazing and so I tucked into it pretty quickly.

Not knowing anything about the book, being a first, I had no expectations apart from knowing it was a horror. It soon transpired that it was a Sci Fi ultimately. That's fine too as I do like some Sci Fi.
The story took off right from the start and the chapters were short so as I turned the page (sounds better than swiped) I wanted to carry on with the next page straight away. There is an immense amount of characters that flit about back and forth that I did get a little confused who was who and felt somewhat overwhelmed at times. Maybe I should have had a notebook beside me? Still, on I went and was enjoying it very much. The story developing, I was ah - ing and oo - ing every so often.
I did find it jumped in rather quickly and developed at fast speed. It charged along like commentator at the Grand National and it wasn't going to slow down for me!
I would have liked it to have moved at a slower pace and watch the characters lives evolve to where the story was going for the reader. I don't feel I knew how or why or what had happened and although I was piecing it together as I was going along, it would have been better with more of a run up, a history. I didn't feel there was anything within the characters that I could connect to. With more given, the connection may have been there.
Three quarters of the way in and take note, this was all over two-three days, I got to the 'horror' part.Very, very mild and not particularly scary. Any of you that like Sci Fi but are not horror fans, give it a go, you will be fine, trust me......or not! Haha.
All in all, a very good debut book and I gave it 3 and half stars for a first book, the content and plot. There is a few small errors along the way which Gary appreciated me telling him about. Naughty proof reader missed them but it didn't deter from the story at all.
I would be very interested to see how the writing and story develops in books two and three.

3.5 stars given.

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

Read from May 16th 2017 - May 23rd 2017.

Published June 14th 2011 by Razorbill.

Format    Paperback - 288 pages.

Synopsis -Taken from Goodreads - You can't stop the future. You can't rewind the past. The only way to learn the secret. . . is to press play.
Clay Jensen doesn't want anything to do with the tapes Hannah Baker made. Hannah is dead. Her secrets should be buried with her.
Then Hannah's voice tells Clay that his name is on her tapes-- and that he is, in some way, responsible for her death.
All through the night, Clay keeps listening. He follows Hannah's recorded words throughout his small town. . .
. . .and what he discovers changes his life forever.

Review - This is one of those rare time's when I think the series was many times better than the book and I think I would have said that even if I'd watched the series after reading the book. I felt the book lacked the depth it needed for the subject matter.The characters all came across very bland.Actually, no, they all seemed to show similar emotion throughout.It didn't change.Reminded me of when I started reading as a youngster and the teacher said to put some emotion and expression in your read.It isn't the the the the all in one monotone. This is a Young Adult book which didn't go into as much depth or detail as a book targetted for adults but still, it was very flat.I really can't understand the banning of this book in some places as I can't see where it would give youngsters idea's or thoughts and for a youngster to get that from it, I believe there has to be some underlying issue there anyway to get to that extreme. Another issue I had with the book is the format with Hannah's tapes in italics and Clay's world in standard type.It flitted between the two quite often.Not being very well defined, I had to read parts twice to realise I'd read Clays story as Hannah and vice versa.When you are getting into your book reading trance, you don't want to have to be concentrating too hard on whose line it is. However, I did enjoy the book.Very different layout to the series.Even lacking the emotion, it was an inviting read.It didn't blow me away unlike the series so if you are expecting it to be like that with all the hype surrounding it, I think you need to re-think it before you read but it was an enjoyable read, if I can say that. 3 stars given.

Over My Shoulder by Patricia Dixon

Read from July 12th 2017 - July 26th 2017.

Published May 19th 2017 by Highfield Press

Format    Kindle - 454 pages

Synopsis -Taken from Goodreads - This is a love story with a difference. A dark romance which tells of a nice young girl who met a very bad man. Sounds simple? Not really. By the time the girl realised the depths of his wicked soul and a wiser, braver young woman was about to emerge, it was too late. His twisted roots had wrapped around her life, spreading rapidly, taking a firm hold of her confused head and fragile heart. There was to be no escape from the tangled mess unless it was on his terms and even then, once she was free and her life rolled precariously on, the seeds he had sown remained embedded deep within. When she least expected it he would return and make good his promise, exact revenge and ensure she paid any price he felt owed.

Set in Manchester in the early nineties, Over My Shoulder is an intricate tale of blinkered love and obsession. This gripping psycho-sexual thriller with criminal undertones tracks the life of a young woman, from her carefree mid-twenties right up to present day.
Freya falls under the spell of controlling and manipulative Kane and soon, her life changes beyond her wildest imagination. When the luxurious life she craves gradually becomes intolerable, escape is out of reach.
This is a disturbing story of an affluent life, cleverly camouflaging the sinister underworld which funds it. And just when you think it is all over, there is a twist.
When will it end, can it end?

Review - If I could give this book further stars, I would.Patricia Dixon has excelled.This book deserves more than the words I can even describe it by but I shall indeed try.
This book is written in first person, I know some people find that difficult to read so lets get that out of the way now. In this book, it works and I can't for the life of me see how Patricia could have written it in third person anyway. It was written almost like a personal diary where the person is telling the story but then talking to the actual reader which gave it a slightly different feel and setup.This was the first time I had experienced this when reading a book and yes, I enjoyed it.It showed smooth change overs back and forth so as a reader you didn't feel lost.
I quickly took the role of a counsellor or a police lady with a clip board sitting in front of Freya in a little plain room.This was how I imagined and the best part of first person reading.You can be in that story especially when as I have said, the character turns to talk to the reader.

I think Patricia swallowed a thesaurus as she was writing this masterpiece.The words that popped up every so often through out were great, such as metamorphosis, irascible and burgeoning. What? What's that about? luckily, I do know most and reading it on kindle did honour me with a dictionary for the ones I fell foul of. Phew, so there's no excuse.There aren't many and my word, they are such good words, they just seemed to pop out of nowhere.
This book, I'm sure held some mystical powers.A drug that made me want to read on and on and on.
It wasn't dull and wasn't full of violence but as the book went on, you knew exactly how dark it was getting.It was almost like it was in two halves and started off as a beautiful love/romance (I thought, hmm this may not be for me, a chic lit style thing going on here)but developing into a heart pounding, nail biting, and yes it did turn me into a cannibal of myself at about 3am, leg jiffling scary thriller!

With the plot, Patricia wrote with empathy and sympathetically. This is a very hard, deep topic to start writing about and you do need to get it right.I don't know because I didn't ask her but felt she had done an amount of research prior to writing this story.I don't feel she could have written it without.
How can you get your readers to feel what you want them to feel if you as an author do not or have not tried to feel what you want them to feel yourself is something I heard very recently.I thought about this when reading Over My Shoulder and I do honestly feel that Patricia through whatever way she did it researched this subject and put herself right in the thick of the feel of her writing. She really plunged all she had held back into this book.
She made me, as a reader feel.Made me feel anxiety and butterflies flying around in my stomach.

The book was packed.Packed from start to finish, packed with scenario's and lots of little adjoining stories that connected to the main quite nicely.
I do wonder whether Patricia herself is aware how much anxiety she gave to her readers, then the calm, the anxiety, the calm.Like waves.

I do have a negative.My negative would be that I felt Freya was way too strong throughout.She had elements of 'weakness', but she just seemed extremely strong all the way. With the manipulation and put downs, in reality, I do not feel she would be as strong as she was portrayed by the end or at least have some elements of low self esteem that wasn't shown.This, however is just my own opinion.

The story had a few places where I actually thought, reading on kindle it must be the end, but happily for me it wasn't. I really wasn't prepared for what came after but was so glad of it. The author really did squeeze out every drop.

I don't do sad books, books that are about domestic violence or child abuse, animal abuse etc because I fail to see why anyone can find pleasure from reading about these things especially when you feel that sadness, that pain BUT this book wasn't written in that way.Obviously there is some but enough and written well.

I found this most excellent work which I most certainly will read again.In fact, I can safely say, I think it is so far one of my top three reads this year.






I gave this top book 5 stars of course ;-).