Ed & Lily

 

Ed & Lily tells the love story of Ed & Lily.

The story opens with Lily, feeling rather queasy. It's a couple of days before Christmas and she's about to leave the offices of the ecologically aware charity where she works. 

She has something important that she needs to tell Ed, her partner. But she knows full well that she has left it way too late to tell him.

Everyone knows that the relationship between them was fine. Better than fine, even! They all knew it was safe and rock-solid. Only, maybe it wasn't as sound a ship as everyone was thinking?

36 hours later they planned to be together to spend a wonderful holiday in Iceland for a truly fantastic and white Christmas break.

A visit to a pharmacy on the way to the train station (she needed peace of mind of the kind only readily available via pharmacies) was a disaster as she had left her bank card on the counter and was, as a result, unable to buy her ticket at Cardiff Central Station to London Paddington, because when she quickly made her way to the pharmacy, it was closed and the shutters down.

She decided to take the bus to London's Victoria Coach Station, instead. Even though the journey would be almost twice as long, she felt she had no other choice.

She spoke with Ed who, again, questioned why it was that she seemed to like making things more complicated? After all, he always could book train tickets for her?

But there were things happening with, or to, Lily that Ed didn't know about. Or was he trying desperately hard not to know about those things?

The fact that work had taken her away from the capital of England to the capital city of Wales had certainly complicated matters.

Is their relationship doomed? Wrecked beyond compare?

Then her charity work takes her to Serbia where she has to deal with the sad plight of sundry refugees from new violent hotspots.

Can she find time for Ed? And if she does, will Ed still be there for her?

This is a very finely crafted romance for our modern, highspeed lives.

It's published by The Book Guild at £8.99 and is written by Sofia Due.

Bleak Encounter at the Cape

Bleak Encounter at the Cape is a thriller novel from author Richard Trahair.

A Coastwatch volunteer makes a dramatic find. He discovers a corpse on the rocky shore.

He and his equally resourceful wife decide to investigate the mysterious death themselves. After all, what's the worst that can happen?

Quite a good deal as it happens.

For soon the couple themselves to be trapped in a burgeoning international conspiracy of threats and intimidation that put the lives of a great many people at risk.

The police become involved as the couple make their way across Europe as far as Lake Geneva in Switzerland and back home again to Cornwall for a dramatic and shocking conclusion back on the coast of West Cornwall.

Will they survive? Will the guilty be brought to justice?

It's an exciting novel and I hope to see more books from Richard who makes good use of his intimate knowledge of Cornwall for the backdrop of this novel.

It's published by The Book Guild at £8.99.  

I am updating this review to point out that the author is donating profits from book sales to the National Coastwatch Institution. For details of this highly valuable organisation please visit https://www.nci.org.uk/

Fractures, Dreams and Second Chances

Fractures, Dreams and Second Chances is a fictional novel, but which is based on the life experiences of the author, Stephen Anthony Brotherton.

It tells the story of Freddie whose life was fractured by family tragedy.

Freddie meets Jo-Jo, a woman of determination and strong will. She knows what she wants out of life, she has her goals and aspirations.

However, like Freddie her life has also received fractures and circumstances forced the two young lovers to part.

The book tells their stories as individuals and also as a couple. It covers their teen romance, what happens to them after they part and their eventual attempts to rekindle their youthful first love after a separation of in excess of three decades.

The author uses their love story to reflect upon deep topics such as the possible impact of traumas that occur early in life.

It's published by The Book Guild at £9.99.

Family Reunited

Family Reunited is a new novel from the author of Fireworks to Thailand, J. R. Bonham.

It's a gripping family drama it tells the story of how Jan eventually plucks up the courage to leave her vile and abusive husband, Geoff after their 25 year marriage.

After she leaves Geoff she meets the man who she feels is her soulmate, Mike, who she marries. And with whom she has a happy second marriage.

Unfortunately her adult children, Louise and Steven blame Jane for, as they perceive it, breaking up their 'happy' home.

She's been totally estranged from her children and hasn't ever been able to meet her five grandchildren. 

Sadly, she becomes a widow and Jan's sense of loss is crippling in its intensity following 22 years of a loving, blissful marriage.

Louise, Jan's daughter, then dies which unleashes a tsunami of grief that further destroys the family.

Charlotte, Louise's daughter plunges into grief and takes on the persona of a 'wild child' to mask her sorrow. She is only 15 and when she falls pregnant she is thrown out of the family home.

Jan feels that enough is enough and she steps forward to try to bring her shattered family back together again. But how can she accomplish this? Will they listen to her ideas? acquiesce to her proposals to get everything back on track and to heal the family at long last?

It's published by The Book Guild at £8.99.

The Fall Out

The Fall Out is a novel by D J Arthur.

Anita and Marilyn are an inseparable pair of women. Even though they have very different characters. 

Anita weds David and David's best friend, John, also falls for Marylin and they also marry. The lives of both couples become entwined.

John is a freelance writer and receives a surprise commission from an old friend to write for his firmly anti-EU publication The Swiftian.

He agrees to accept the job and begins to dig deep into matters regarding the EU.

However at the same time Anita receives a promotion to a full-time position in Brussels and David, which rather shocked everyone, is chosen as a Conservative Party candidate for Benfleet.

As John digs deeper and deeper into the EU the position that Anita has taken reveals itself as extremely Eurocentric. David must fight his party or his wife in order to remain true to himself.

However, Marylin has some secrets of her own that seem to be on the point of once again coming to the surface. Whilst the marriage of Anita and David seems to be heading to an unhappy conclusion.

What, exactly, will happen to the two couples?

It's published by The Book Guild at £9.99. 

Stormfront

Stormfront is a new detective thriller from R. S. Sutton.

It features impecunious private detective Valerie Stone who owns a valuable old watch and a vintage jaguar.

She's already aware that she consumes far too many French cigarettes lives on a houseboat moored on the Thames. She has male admirers that she manages to keep at arms length.

A very lucrative insurance investigation job comes along which will keep her and her assistant Jane afloat for a while longer. Just have to pad the expenses out a bit, OK?

It was a simple job. Body found on the south coast. Just compile a report, take the insurance company's money and... things never go quite as smoothly as hoped.

Jane finds that a secretive, covert organisation also has an interest in the dead body and they blackmail her.

Some people will not say anything, other people are feeding misinformation to Jane and suddenly Valerie, Jane and others around her find themselves deep inside a storm. A very foul storm, indeed.

This is a good detective thriller, which also contains a good deal of pathos.

I hope we will read more novels featuring Valerie Stone and Jane in the future.

It's published by The Book Guild at £8.99.

Down in the Country

Down in the Country is a Carlow Valley Mystery.

It's another novel from James Bowring featuring his character ex-DI Clive Walsingham.

The perfectly normal life of a married couple is brought to an abrupt and upsetting end. Discovering the naked corpse of a woman murdered by strangulation in your garden will do that.

Acting Police Inspector Beauregard has never been in charge of a murder investigation and he struggles with the whole concept of why the woman was murdered and why she was left in that particular garden.

He seeks out the assistance of ex-detective inspector Clive Walsingham. Clive is now a hotelier in Carlow Valley, but when he receives the request to help Inspector Beauregard, he leaps at the opportunity. 

Intriguing facts of the history of the dead woman's past come to light and suspicion falls upon a local businessman who has a reputation for being less than scrupulous. 

But  Inspector Beauregard has to leave the case in abeyance as he is called upon to investigate the unexpected disappearance of Lord Westleigh's daughter. This leaves Clive continuing the investigation with the "support" of a Detective Constable who is somewhat abrasive. 

So, what happens? Why was the woman murdered? Why was she murdered? And who was the real killer?

And why does Clive get the feeling that his own life is now in danger? And what link is there to his own hotel?

This is another great detective thriller featuring ex-DI Clive Walsingham.

It's published by The Book Guild at £9.99.