#PublicationDayBlitz The Unspeakable Acts of Zina Pavlou by Eleni Kyriacou

It's a pleasure to take part in the Publication Day Blitz The Unspeakable Acts of Zina Pavlou by Eleni Kyriacou.

 Author photo: credit - Jon Cartwright

About the Author

Eleni Kyriacou is an award-winning editor and journalist. Her writing has appeared in the Guardian, the Observer, Grazia, and Red, among others. She’s the daughter of Greek Cypriot immigrant parents, and her debut novel, She Came To Stay, was published in 2020. Her latest novel, The Unspeakable Acts of Zina Pavlou, is inspired by the true-crime story of the penultimate woman to be executed in Britain. Follow @EleniKWriter on X and elenikwriter.com.

About the book

They have told so many lies about me.

London, 1954. Zina Pavlou, a Cypriot grandmother, waits quietly in the custody of the Metropolitan police. She can't speak their language, but she understands what their wary looks mean: she has been accused of the brutal murder of her daughter-in-law.

Eva Georgiou, Greek interpreter for the Met, knows how it feels to be voiceless as an immigrant woman. While she works as Zina’s translator, her obsession with the case deepens, and so too does her bond with the accused murderer.

Zina can’t speak for herself. She can’t clear her own name. All she can do is wait for the world to decide... Is she a victim? Or is she a killer?

A compelling historical crime novel set in the Greek diaspora of 1950s London – that's inspired by a true story – The Unspeakable Acts of Zina Pavlou is perfect for fans of Erin Kelly, Sara Collins, and Jessie Burton.

Review

Both sides of the coin of justice play a role in this story. The disparity created by a lack of support for accused who are unable to communicate in the language of their chosen country, the way the press and prejudice create a specific frame of reference that has undue influence over the opinions and thereby also possibly court, judge and jury.

On the other side there is pesky legislation (depending on court and country) that often comes into play about the use of prior information that could also influence one way or the way. In this particular scenario Eva keeps pertinent information from the authorities, which could determine a different outcome for Zina, although I'm certain it is the attempt to save the woman.

She sees parallels between her own experiences and the way her mother was treated as an non-English speaking person from a foreign country. It's at the core of her interactions with Zina, despite I think knowing what the truth is - deep down she knows she is capable, but the lack of fairness and inequality towards this woman override everything else.

I really enjoyed the way the author shed a light on the way recognising systemic bias can influence the most important institutions, regardless of guilt or innocence - all deserve an equal chance in court.

It's a captivating read, a tale with a factual story at the core. The unpicking of Zina and Eva, the scrutiny of life as an immigrant and way we interact with others, especially when others look and sound different. It's a fantastic book I hope to read more by this author.

Buy The Unspeakable Acts of Zina Pavlou at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher ‏: ‎Head of Zeus -- an Aries Book; pub date 25 April 2024. Buy at Amazon com.

#Blogtour The Other Tenant by Lesley Kara

It's my turn on the Blogtour The Other Tenant by Lesley Kara, published by Bantam Press - 25th April 2024.

'From the Sunday Times bestselling author comes a gripping new thriller that asks how well you really know the people you share a home with... After all, living with strangers can be murder...'

About the Author

Lesley Kara is the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Rumour, Who Did You Tell?, The Dare and The Apartment Upstairs. The Rumour was the highest selling crime fiction debut of 2019 in the UK, and a Kindle No.1 bestseller. Lesley is an alumna of the Faber Academy 'Writing a Novel' course. She lives in Kent.

You can follow Lesley on Twitter @LesleyKara or visit her website at lesleykara.com

About the book

The Queen of the killer twist is back in this gripping closed-circle thriller about an unusual home full of strangers, with a murderer in their midst… 

Marlow has always lived in unusual places. But when she accepts a position as a live-in property guardian, she finds herself moving somewhere she swore she’d never return to. Right from the start, she knows it’s a terrible mistake. The elegant Victorian school is due to be turned into luxury apartments, but its eerie, empty corridors are full of Marlow’s worst memories.

And now something sinister is happening on the site. One of the other tenants has disappeared without warning, and Marlow suspects that the nine other guardians know far more than they’re letting on. She’s determined to find out what happened to the missing woman – but which of these strangers can she trust? And can she uncover the truth before her own past catches up with her?

Review

From a plot scenario perspective I was in two minds about the concept of being a property guardian - by the way is this a thing? The idea of living in extraordinary spaces, unusual or perhaps those reserved for the more privileged, it's intriguing. A little bit like treasure hunting, urban exploring and the appreciation of spaces.

The flip-side includes the trauma inducing deserted places, the shabby and spooky ones, but the dealbreaker for me would probably be the having to share living space with complete strangers on the spur of a moment. Frequently changing people and no control over how many or how often it may happen. Unless we are talking desperate measures, the apocalypse or a zombie invasion, I'm not sure I would ever agree to the above.

I think it's the combination of enticing and trust your gut instinct that makes the concept such a great idea, because the reader kind of knows it has the potential to go really wrong for someone - is that someone Marlow?

Marlow finds herself right back at the core of her inner trauma when her role as property guardian takes her right back to her previous life, this time with a bunch of strangers who seem curiously disinterested in the disappearance of the person she is replacing.

It's very much an atmosphere and space/place driven story, the author uses the evoked visuals to create a constant current of danger, fear and suspicion. It's a great read.

Buy The Other Tenant at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Bantam Press; pub date 25th April 2024 | Hardback | £14.99. Buy at Amazon com.

#Blogtour Five Bad Deeds by Caz Frear

It's a pleasure to take part in the Blogtour Five Bad Deeds by Caz Frear.

About the Author

Caz Frear has a first class degree in History and Politics, and spent twelve years working as a headhunter before she started writing. She hasn’t lost her enthusiasm for networking, and is a popular member of the crime fraternity. She lives in Coventry with her husband. 

Her debut, the number one bestseller Sweet Little Lies, was the winner of the Richard & Judy Search for a Bestseller Competition 2017 and went on to sell over 250,000 copies. It was followed by Stone Cold Heart and Shed No Tears, both of which feature her police detective Cat Kinsella. Five Bad Deeds is her first standalone thriller. Follow @CazziF on X

About the book

One Womans Secret, Two sides to every story, Three deadly betrayals, Four potential suspects, Five bad deeds.

Ellen Walsh has done something very, very bad. If only she knew what it was . . .

Teacher, mother, wife, and all-around good citizen Ellen is juggling non-stop commitments, from raising a teen and two toddlers to job-hunting, to finally renovating her dream home, the Meadowhouse. Amidst the chaos, an ominous note arrives in the mail declaring:

Sooner or later everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences.

Why would someone send her this note? Ellen has no clue. She's no angel - a white lie here and there, an occasional sharp tongue - but nothing to incur the wrath of an anonymous enemy.

Everyone around Ellen - her husband, her teenage daughter, her sister, her best friend, her neighbours - can guess why, though. They all know from bitter experience that while Ellen’s intentions are always good, this ultimately counts for very little when you’ve (unintentionally?) blown up someone’s life. Could the five bad deeds that come to haunt Ellen explain why things have gone so horribly wrong?

As she races to discover who’s set on destroying her life, Ellen receives more anonymous messages, each one more threatening than the last . . . and each hitting closer and closer to home and everything she cherishes.

Review

I really enjoyed the vibe of this story - deliciously wicked undertone of authenticity and lack of clarity when it comes to black or white - everyone has their own version of somewhere in between. Sharp wit, thoughtless jibes, nasty intentions - no wonder someone has had enough and wants to expose the hypocrisy.

Interestingly Ellen doesn't really evoke sympathy, empathy or much compassion. I think the majority of readers understand why Orla makes Ellen ragey, why hubby frustrates her, why the twins make her feel as if her life is a constant cycle of chaos. Her sister is somewhere between frenemy and jealous friend, her friends a necessity for appearances - actually that seems to be a lot of negativity, perhaps because it is and she is.

That's without even wandering into the murky secrets Ellen keeps locked away, not well enough it seems. Someone is out to expose her one secret at a time - she isn't the only one keeping secrets though. As the threats pile in Ellen becomes a little less cautious and a lot more willing to keep her life intact.

It's a riveting psychological thriller. The sharp-tongued and brutally honest main character resonates, mainly because life really is just a series of choices, secrets, compromises and challenges. Some of us can cope with them without doing anything drastic, other people not so much. Highly recommend.

Buy Five Bad Deeds at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Simon and Schuster Uk; pub date 11th April 2024 | Hardback £14.99. Buy at Amazon com.

#Blogtour Death in Nonna's Kitchen by Alex Coombs

It's a pleasure to take part in the Blogtour Death in Nonna's Kitchen by Alex Coombs. It's the second book in the An Old Forge Café Mystery series.

About the Author

Alex Coombs was born in Lambeth in South London and studied Arabic at Oxford and Edinburgh Universities. Murder on the Menu was his first book in the new series: the Old Forge Café Mysteries. Alex lives in the Chilterns. Follow @AlexCoombsCrime on X

About the book

When famous TV chef Matteo McLeish turns up at the Old Forge Café and offers chef Charlie Hunter a place in his kitchen for the duration of Hampden Green’s local opera festival, she thinks it’s because he rates her cooking skills. In fact it’s because he’s heard she’s good in a crisis. The wholesome star of Nonna’s Kitchen is being blackmailed by one of his team.

Tempted by an improbably large pay cheque and the boost to to her CV, Charlie accepts his offer. Does the threat lie close to home, or back in Italy with Matteo’s culinary roots? And can Charlie find the blackmailer before she’s swept up in an avalanche of death and scandal?

Review

At first Charlie thinks Matteo the celebrity TV chef wants her for her kitchen talents, but it turns out her sleuthing skills are a much higher priority for him. Oh well, as long as everyone thinks Matteo has picked her to be part of his skilled staff, because she is an excellent chef, that's all that matters, right? Charlie doesn't take appearances that seriously, she does however put her restaurant first - always.

Matteo expects Charlie to find a blackmailer, a snake hidden among his own team. Someone intent on destroying his reputation and that of his loved one. At least it seems as if that is all that is at stake, until death comes knocking and that changes everything.

Although the cast of characters from the first book come into play, they do stand in the shadow of Matteo and his team of kitchen experts a wee bit. I'd love to see a little more of some of the characters who had quite comical moments before, although Charlie is definitely the one at the centre of everything. 

I can envision this as screen series, with plenty of food and dessert shots for the foodies of course, but it definitely has a quaint cosy mystery element to it, despite the fact it does wander into more subjects at times. This is the second book in the series, but it can absolutely be read as a standalone book. 

Buy Death in Nonna's Kitchen at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: No Exit Press; pub date 11 April 2024 - £9.99. Buy at Amazon com.

#Blogtour The Secret Keepers by Tilly Bagshawe

It's a pleasure to take part in the Blogtour The Secret Keepers by Tilly Bagshawe.

About the Author

Tilly Bagshawe is the internationally bestselling author of nineteen previous novels and has written for newspapers and magazines including the Sunday Times, Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph. She lives in London with her husband and 4 children. She is available for interview and to write features. 

About the book

Sweeping from the French Riviera to the wind-blown Cornish cliffs, this is a spellbinding novel about the fates and fortunes of the Challant family – and the devastating secrets that echo through the years . . 

The beautiful bastide at Beaulieu-sur-Mer has always been an idyllic retreat for the Challant family, a place of glorious memories and sun-drenched summers. But the summer of 1928 changes everything. 

One humid, stormy night, a young local boy suffers a fatal accident in the bastide’s grounds – and the suspicious circumstances around his death sets off a chain of whispers in the town on the Riviera. 

For the Challant children, they have no choice but to move on and leave those terrible events in the past. But through the years of loves and losses, marriages and betrayals, the Challants’ lives will always be tainted by that night. And it’s only by unlocking devastating family secrets that they’ll finally be set free…

Review

The Challant children are wedged between a mother who secretly despises herself and her husband for not being able to live the life she wants. Her soul wants to be the artist, and yet she is as caged as the birds she treasures in her remarkable aviary. Her husband rules the roost with a patriarchal sense of superiority. 

As the reader moves from the adult children in the future back to important periods in their past, it becomes clear that a tragic event has not only triggered a lifetime of fears and insecurities, but perhaps also determined the paths the children have taken. The adults they grow into, the baggage they carry and the secrets they keep - it has the potential to destroy them.

I think Bagshawe deviates from her usual popular recipe with this book - it has more of a family and tortured emotional bond meets the demands of unresolved trauma vibe. Evolving from the physical to the fraught webs of the kind of relationships that weave webs of invisible patterns across both decades and people.

It's contemporary fiction with a steadfast hold in the past. A story driven by past fears, trauma, conflicted feelings of guilt, and at the core of it all is a tragic mystery.

Buy The Secret Keepers at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Harper Collins; pub date 11th April 2024 | PBO | Audio | Ebook | £8.99. Buy at Amazon com.

#Blogtour Leave No Trace by Jo Callaghan

It's a pleasure to take part on the Blogtour Leave No Trace by Jo Callaghan .Two detectives - One human, One AI. And the hunt for an undetectable killer... 

'The hotly anticipated follow-up to Sunday Times bestseller In The Blink of an Eye, one of the most talked about and original debuts of 2023'

About the Author

Jo Callaghan works fulltime as a senior strategist, where she has carried out research into the future impact of AI and genomics on the workforce. After losing her husband to cancer in 2019 when she was just forty-nine, she started writing In the Blink of an Eye, her debut crime novel, which explores learning to live with loss and what it means to be human. In 

The Blink of an Eye was selected for BBC 2’s ‘Between the Covers’ in Spring 2023, and Jo was a featured debut at Harrogate Crime Festival and Bloody Scotland Festival. She lives with her two children in the Midlands. Leave No Trace is her second novel. Follow @JoCallaghanKat on X

About the book

One detective driven by instinct, the other by logic. It will take both to find a killer who knows the true meaning of fear . . . 

When the body of a man is found crucified at the top of Mount Judd, AIDE Lock – the world’s first AI Detective – and DCS Kat Frank are thrust into the spotlight as they are given their first live case. But with the discovery of another man’s body – also crucified – it appears that their killer is only just getting started...  

The police issue a controversial warning to local men to be vigilant: do not walk home alone at night, do not leave a pub with a stranger… The Future Policing Unit is thrust into a hostile media frenzy as they desperately search for connections between the victims. But time is running out for them to join the dots, so they must combine their human instinct and algorithms to catch the killer before the strike again.  

For if Kat and Lock know anything, it’s that killers rarely stop – until they are made to. 

Review

This is the second book in the Kat and Lock series, where AI Detective Lock and Detective Kat Frank deal with their first live case - a heinous murder with disturbing details. Can their combined talents help them find a vicious killer who has only just started their reign of terror. Logic, pattern recognition and facts vs hands-on experience and the human factor, a win - win combo, right?

Kudos for using this threat to men and the recommendations or safety strategies they are asked to put in place, which in turn highlights the reality of dangers women live with daily and the strategies they have to use all the time.

Not going to lie - I find this futuristic concept of police and detective work quite fascinating. Perhaps more so because the author presents the limitations, the scrutiny, the criticism and equally also the positive aspects of this kind of technological advancement. I'm hoping we also get an similar adversary with less positive intentions, but that might create an irreversible question mark above Lock and the existence of AI technology in a human driven field of work. Can fact or should fact and patterns always supersede the element of humanity and compassion?

After the great success of the first book in the series, it was great to see the second live up to the hype. I think it has so much potential going forward, ergo let's have more please.

Buy Leave No Trace at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Simon and Schuster Uk, pub date 28 March 2024 | Hardback | £16.99. Buy at Amazon com.

#Blogtour Clickbait by L. C. North

It's a pleasure to take part on the Blogtour Clickbait by L. C. North.

About the Author

L.C. North studied psychology at university before pursuing a career in Public Relations. Her book club thrillers - The Ugly Truth and Clickbait - combine her love of psychology and her fascination with the celebrities in the public eye. When she's not writing, she co-hosts the crime thriller podcast, In Suspense. She lives on the Suffolk borders with her family.

L.C. North is the pen name of Lauren North. Readers can follow @Lauren_C_North on X and Facebook @LaurenNorthAuthor.

About the book

'We're not famous anymore. We're notorious.' - For over a decade, the Lancasters were celebrity royalty, with millions tuning in every week to watch their reality show, Living with the Lancasters.

But then an old video emerges of one of their legendary parties. Suddenly, they're in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons: witnesses swore they'd seen missing teenager Bradley Wilcox leaving the Lancaster family home on the night of the party, but the video tells a different story.

Now true crime investigator and YouTuber Tom Isaac is on the case. He's determined to find out what really happened to Bradley - he just needs to read between the Lancasters' lies . . .

Because when the cameras are always rolling, it won't be long until someone cracks.

Review

The Lancasters are notorious or rather they have created a version of themselves that has become so, which people want to see and buy into. When things go a little quieter a convenient scandal, mystery or controversial topic catapults them back into the limelight. True crime investigator Tom aka a Tubie detective decides he is going to bring the truth to the people, well what functions as the truth nowadays, which is at the core of this story.

With a storytelling style that has a Hallett and Wesolowski vibe to it - modern communication, social media and the new version of fame meets infamy, makes this crime thriller not only a must read, but also a read that is a sign of the times.

Tapping into the melding of black and white into a vast variety of what right or wrong may or may not be. Guilt becomes obsolete when the court of mass opinion matters more. Equally the mass opinion is merely about popularity, clicks, likes and how much money you can earn at the end of the day. 

North definitely hits the right notes and captures the nature of the beast. There is definitely a correlation between creating false narratives and drama to gain traction on social media and in the news, then to rinse and repeat ad infinitum - controversy and scandal sells. News as we know it no longer exists, facts have become secondary to the opinions of everyone, including so-called journalists.

Buy Clickbait at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Bantam, pub date 11th April 2024 - Hardback | £14.99. Buy at Amazon com.