#Blogtour A Rebel's History of Mars by Nadia Afifi

It's a pleasure to take part in the Blogtour A Rebel's History of Mars by Nadia Afifi, published by Flame Tree Press 15th July 2025. Blogtour courtesy of Random Things Tours.

About the Author

Nadia Afifi is the author of The Sentient and numerous science fiction short stories. Her debut novel was lauded as ‘staggering and un-put-downable’ in a starred Publishers Weekly review and recommended by Booklist for ‘readers who love a thrilling narrative and welcome moral and philosophical questions in their science fiction.’ Analog Magazine describes her as ‘a brand-new voice in our field, and one you should become familiar with.’ The Sentient is the first novel in a near-future series about a controversial cloning project, human consciousness and a high-stakes conflict between religious fundamentalism and science. Her short fiction has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (‘The Bahrain Underground Bazaar’) and Abyss & Apex (‘Exhibit K’).

Nadia grew up in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, where she read every book she could get her hands on, but currently calls Denver, Colorado home. She is a member of the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writer’s organization. Her background as an Arab American who lived overseas has inspired her fiction writing, particularly her passion for exploring complex social, political and cultural issues through a futuristic lens.

When she isn’t writing, she spends her time practicing (and falling off) the lyra (aerial hoops), hiking through Colorado’s many trails, jogging through Denver’s streets and working on the most challenging jigsaw puzzles she can find. She also loves dogs, travel and cooking. Follow her latest musings and adventures on her website nadiaafifi.com, Twitter @nadoodles or Instagram nadiawritesscifi.

About the book

Kezza, an aerialist in the Martian circus, can never return to Earth – but she can assassinate the man she blames for her grim life on the red planet. Her murderous plans take an unexpected turn, however, when she uncovers a sinister secret. 

A thousand years into the future, Azad lives a safe but controlled life on the beautiful desert planet of Nabatea. His world is upended when he joins a crew of space-traveling historians seeking to learn the true reason that their ancestors left Mars. 

Separated by time and space, Kezza and Azad’s stories collide in the Martian desert.

Review

Space-traveling historians, now there's a career I could get behind. History is almost always written by the victors and in non-fictional case the chisel, quill, pen is often swung by those who lived or live in the comfort of our patriarchal systems. The truth becomes a rare commodity, perhaps because truth is never quite objective. What if you were able to follow the path of any beginning or change in the course in history and determine which event, person or sequence of decisions led to a particular crossroads?

Afifi has a particular knack for creating an intricate map of societal complexities, the flaws of humankind and the way the shape and reshape with similar consequences and results over and over again. Would knowing the unfiltered facts of our past that led us to this filtered and confined space in time change us and our choices in any way or would it be the spark of an awakening and rebellion.

I loved the flawless and smooth flow of this story. Sci-fi can sometimes create it's own collisions and jagged bumps in the narrative, mainly because the genre has a beyond fictional aspect to it as it wanders firmly into domains of a futuristic and speculative nature. There are no guidelines, although I would certainly suggest there is an element suggested speculation garnered through our present existence.

The story also weaves the essence of humanity, it whatever construct or evolved shape that may look like, into the fabric. With a pinch of sarcasm and cynical wit which defines the interactions between the memorable characters, the combination of history meets sci-fi as the decay of society caused by control and the assumed piety of sanctimonious leaders regurgitates itself in a different version ad infinitum with similar results, is a jolly good read.

Keep an eye on this author, definitely one to watch. 

Buy A Rebel's History of Mars at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Flame Tree Press, pub date 15th July 2025. Buy at Amazon com. Buy via Bookshop org. Buy via Flame Tree Press

#Blogtour Counting Down To You by Sarah J. Harris

 
It's a pleasure to take part in the Blogtour Counting Down to You by Sarah J. Harris, published by Lake Union Publishing 15th July 2025. Tour organised courtesy of #RandomThingsTour.

About the Author

Sarah J. Harris is an award-winning author and freelance education journalist who regularly writes for national newspapers. Meet Me on the Bridge, published by Lake Union, was an Amazon ebook bestseller in the UK and US.

Her debut novel, The Colour of Bee Larkham’s Murder, won the Breakthrough Author award from Books Are My Bag and was a Richard and Judy pick. She also published One Ordinary Day At A Time with HarperCollins.

The author writes YA thrillers as Sarah Wishart, including The Murder Hypothesis and Four Good Liars, which was shortlisted for the North East Book Awards.

Sarah grew up in the West Midlands, and studied English at Nottingham University before gaining a postgraduate diploma in journalism at Cardiff University.

She is a black belt in karate and a green belt in kickboxing. She lives in London with her husband and two sons. Follow @sarahsky23 on X

About the book

From the bestselling author of Meet Me on the Bridge comes a moving, feel-good novel that shows it’s never too late to look for happiness, perfect for fans of Holly Miller, Cesca Major and Rosie Walsh.

Sophie can see how long people have left to live. Her first love Adam is back. And he has just 24 days to go.

Ever since the accident that changed Sophie’s life, she sees numbers everywhere. From the leaves on a tree to the volume of a puddle, everything has its number. And every person she meets? Their number is counting down the number of days they have left.

Despite being lonely, Sophie has decided she’s not dating anyone with a number smaller than 20,000 days: 55 years together should be plenty. Which is fine, until Adam—her first love and most definitely the one that got away—suddenly reappears. And his number? Just 24 days…

Sophie has tried and failed to save lots of people in the past; she thought she couldn’t alter fate, no matter how hard she tried. But the way Adam looks at her makes her feel alive again for the first time in years. She questions everything, and a spark is lit. Could true love be powerful enough to rewrite the future? Maybe some rules are meant to be broken, and perhaps Adam is the one who will show her that not every ending is set in stone…

Review

Sarah spends a lot of her time living in a constant state of what happens next if I do or don't intervene. Her ability to see lifespans has a lot of negative consequences for her, despite her obsession with changing the inevitable. So what happens when love invites itself back inside her life and her obsession is torn between living in the here and now or the reality of death at her door everywhere she looks?

I really enjoyed the concept, it has a mathematical theory meets magical realism in number-space synaesthesia kind of way. I also welcomed the fact the author didn't feel it necessary to change the interesting concept to suit the needs of a romance driven read. Instead the concept evolves with the story, and in a way that allows for magical realism to walk hand-in-hand with reality.

It also plays a little bit with a butterflyesque effect Sophie's gift or affliction brings with it. Does trying to change the inevitable with sheer force or the elimination of possible threats change the outcome, slow the outcome, speed it up or make the event more severe? If that is the case, then why try to change the outcome at all. Does it throw up a question of morality if Sophie just leaves people to their end, regardless of what that end may look like?

It was an intriguing combination of contemporary romance read with a side dish of maths or rather a portion of individual doomsday counters. It does make you wonder whether the knowledge of expected time available would change the way people interact with others and indeed with themselves, it certainly does for Sarah.

Buy Counting Down To You at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Buy at Amazon com.  Buy via Bookshop org.

#Blogtour The Planet Spins On Its Axis, Regardless by Kavita A. Jindal

It's an absolute pleasure to take part in the Blogtour The Planet Spins On Its Own Axis, Regardless by Kavita A. Jindal. Published by Serving House Books 7th April 2025. Tour by Kenyon Author Services.

About the Author

Kavita A. Jindal is an award-winning fiction writer, poet and essayist. Her novel Manual For A Decent Life, published by Linen Press in the U.K., won the Eastern Eye Award for Literature (2020) and was shortlisted for the Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize (2022). Her poetry publications include Raincheck Renewed and Patina. Her short stories and poems have appeared in anthologies and literary journals worldwide and been broadcast on BBC Radio 4, Zee TV UK and European radio stations. Selected poems have been translated into Arabic, German, Italian, Punjabi, Romanian, Spanish and Ukrainian. 

Reviewers have said of her writing: "witty and wry, with a steely heart" and of the novel "the book's boldness, beauty and courage are utterly seductive." Kavita previously served as Senior Editor at Asia Literary Review and is the co-founder of The Whole Kahani collective for British-Asian writers. She enjoys collaborating with other artists across a range of projects. Visit https://kavitajindal.com/ to learn more about Kavita. Or follow @writerkavita on X

About the book

Meet the inventor of pre-conception contracts. The foodie high roller. The menopausal student shamans. The young window cleaner. The aspiring philosopher. The people taking it one-day-at-a-time.

These astute and prescient stories zigzag from England to India, from Europe to Hong Kong, and from the past to the future. As they traverse youthfulness to late life and everything in between, fault lines trip the characters, revealing rifts and the gift for resolutions.

Review

I've said this before, short stories are a fine art and not every writer has the knack. It's not the same as poetry, which is a subjective expression of the written art or whichever way it is presented to the audience. Being able to capture a whole story within a few pages is a skill, especially when they leave you asking for more, for another page, chapter or brief look in the window.

Jindal has that gift. It's almost as if the mind's eye can see the narrator drawing listeners in as they spin the yarns full of experiences, reflections, moments of emotional turmoil. Soundbites of stories become tongue lashings of awakenings. Shout the warning, scream about the injustice, whisper the concern, think the unthinkable or indeed close the eyes and ears to the truth and reality that surrounds you.

I really enjoyed the variation and the way something so innocent turns into a story of misogyny, oppression, abuse and the futility of lack of control over our existence. Then equally those moments of uprising, of choice, self-exploration and discovery.

This would be the part where I mention one or two of my favourites, but I have to admit I would find it hard to highlight one above the other, because they are all very good. They also leave a lasting impact. I did wonder whether the stories are purposely written in a way that results in a variety of interpretations, depending on the background, gender, and experiences of the reader. I can imagine that Tipping Point would result in an interesting group conversation, as would Where He Lives.

I highly recommend this selection of short stories and indeed the work of the author.

Buy The Planet Spins on its Axis, Regardless at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Buy at Amazon com.

The book is published by Serving House Books in the USA - https://servinghousebooks.com/theplanetspins/

Their Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/servinghousebooks/

#Blogtour The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak

The 40 Rules of Love has sold over 500,000 copies internationally and is one of Elif's most successful novels, a standout backlist title. Redesigned with a beautiful new package along with the rest of her backlist to tie in with the paperback publication of her latest novel There are Rivers in the Sky.

It's a pleasure to take part in the Blogtour The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak, published 3rd July 2025 by Penguin Uk.

About the Author

Elif Shafak is an award-winning British Turkish novelist, whose work has been translated into fifty-six languages. The author of nineteen books, thirteen of which are novels, she is a bestselling author in many countries around the world. Shafak's last novel, The Island of Missing Trees, was a top ten Sunday Times bestseller, and was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and the Women's Prize for Fiction. Her novel 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the RSL Ondaatje Prize. There Are Rivers in the Sky is her latest novel. Follow @Elif_Safak on X

About the book

Ela Rubinstein has a husband, three teenage children, and a pleasant home. Everything that should make her confident and fulfi led. Yet there is an emptiness at the heart of Ela's life - an emptiness once fi led by love.

So when Ela reads a manuscript about the thirteenth-century Sufi poet Rumi and his mentor Shams of Tabriz, and his forty rules of life and love, she is ready to look at her life anew. Compeled to embrace change, she embarks on a journey to meet the mysterious author. It is a quest infused with Sufi mysticism and verse, taking Ela and us into a faraway world where faith and doubt are heartbreakingly explored. The Forty Rules of Love is a mesmerising tale of discovery, language, truth and, of course, love itself.

Review

I think there was a side note of unfulfilled and unhappy people, especially women, who are susceptible to anything that looks like a solution to their problems It makes them vulnerable to persuasion and concepts that suggest a happier life, a better body, someone who loves and desires them.

It's easy to get swept away by the idea of something more when life has become a series of repetitive actions, emotional necessities and overall nothing more than societal expectations and daily routines.

It's an exploration of faith, spirituality and love - the Sufi concept or path of love. Whilst I admire the prose and the deep meaningful rules, I think it's a fallacy to believe that a life without love is of no account. The assumption that everyone encounters a love or love in general, is a gross overestimation of how everyone experiences life and relationships with the people around them.

It's novel of dual paths, that of Ela and then that of Rumi and Shams. Despite being centuries apart the three collide in thoughts, shared pathways and steering the course of their lives. The story lives a little in a hype bubble of its own creation.

Buy The Forty Rules of Love at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Penguin Uk, pub date 3rd July 2025. Buy at Amazon com.

#Blogtour The Burial Witch by Cari Thomas

It's a pleasure to take part in the Blogtour The Burial Witch; a Threadneedle Novella by Cari Thomas, published by Harper Voyager 5th of June 2025.

If you've read Threadneedle and Shadowstitch, The Burial Witch fits between the two previous books, along with The Hedge Witch - it's novella length.

About the Author

Cari Thomas has always loved magic, inspired by her upbringing among the woods and myths of Wales’s Wye Valley. She studied English and Creative Writing at Warwick University and Magazine Journalism at The Cardiff School of Journalism. Her first job was at teen Sugar magazine, where she ran the book club and quickly realised she wanted to be the one writing the books instead. 

She went on to work at a creative agency, spending her spare time researching magic and accumulating an unusual collection of occult books. She wrote her first novel, Threadneedle, while living in London, wandering the city and weaving it with all the magic she wished it contained. She now lives in Monmouthshire with her husband and son, who bears the appropriately Celtic name of Taliesin. Follow @carithomas_auth on X

About the book

“The unopenable box. A mythical object that appears in fairy tales and folklore across all cultures around the world. Sometimes the box can only be opened by the right person at the right time, such a rightful heir, and in other tales it is considered a warning. A test given to the protagonist who are typically forbidden from opening the box. When they eventually succumb, what they unleash cannot be put back in.”

We follow Miranda Richardson, a highly strung, highly driven member of the covens who discovers a mysterious, unopenable box in her parent’s loft.

Taking place between events in Threadneedle and Shadowstitch, this is a perfect magical read for fans of the series, collectors and all dreamers.

Review 

The Language of Magic world has been opened up to include novellas, which allows both author and reader to experience characters individually. The magical worldbuilding began with the popular Threadneedle book. In a way it reflects the hive of magic, the coven and the connections, whether they be great or small, and how the entirety can be explored even when following the smallest link.

I love that aspect of the series, and that it is written with an emphasis on younger readers, yet also leaves space for the older readers who enjoy a great magical yarn.

In this novella length story we learn more about Miranda and her struggle to align the magical secrets she encounters with the devout rigidity of the religious dogma she and her family follow. The imbalance and anxiety she experiences when the taught evil reveals itself as something curious and non-threatening. It makes her question herself, what she believes and the family history.

I found that core element interesting, however the short read is heavily laden with preachy pious dialogue and interactions. The magic was never given a chance to emerge, shine and enchant. Instead it's an angsty, dark, fearful chapter in an otherwise adventure laden magical series. I won't even start with the other aspects of Miranda's arc that could have been written in a better way.

For me this was a case of 'what it says on the box doesn't reflect actual contents of said box' and perhaps what it said on the box is was what it should have been. Not sure how this has passed editorial - just from a worldbuilding, plot and character arc perspective - and the sensitivity reading, without setting off a few alarm bells.

I'd go as far as to say, whilst I have highly recommended the previous Threadneedle - The Language of Magic books and adventures, including buying them for younger readers as gifts, I would hesitate to recommend this one. 

The cover art and design of this book series is par excellence though - they are beautiful, they would look great in a clothbound version.

Buy The Burial Witch at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: HarperVoyager; pub date 5th June 2025. Buy at Amazon.com.

#Blogtour The Children of Hiroshima by Sadako Teiko Okuda

It's a pleasure to take part in the Blogtour The Children of Hiroshima: The True Story of How I Searched for my Family in the Ruins of the City by Sadako Teiko Okuda. Published by Monoray, 8th of May 2025.

About the Author

Born in Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan, in 1914, Okuda was teaching sewing on a small island some 35 miles off Hiroshima when the atomic bomb was dropped in 1945. Even from that distance, both her sight and hearing on her right side were permanently damaged. From 1960 and until her retirement, she taught home economics at a non-traditional high school in Yamagata Prefecture, Japan.

About the book

‘The little boy did not cry or speak. He just stood there and stared at me intensely. With great effort I stood up and tested to see if I could walk with my injured foot. When I did, he came to stand even closer to me and, without saying a word, grabbed my little finger very tightly.’

Sadako Teiko Okuda was living in Osaki-shimo, an island off the mainland of Japan, when the bomb hit Hiroshima on the 6th of August 1945. There was a blinding flash and the window next to Sadako smashed, a shard of glass leaving a painful burn on her neck. Soon, news came that her niece and nephew who lived in Hiroshima were missing. There was only one thing she could do - leave the relative safety of the island and set off into the city to find them.

Over the following seven days Sadako roamed the ruins of the city, desperately searching for her family and coming across dozens of displaced children. With only water and a little medicine, she provided care, compassion and tenderness in the face of unprecedented tragedy. And in turn, they helped her to find hope in the very darkest of times. 

Told simply and powerfully in daily diary entries, The Children of Hiroshima is an extraordinary and deeply moving human story of loss, innocence and hope.

Review

A story retold using snippets from diary entries, memories noted, painful reminders, but equally an important historical reference from an eyewitness that needs to be remembered. These brief moments and encounters only graze the cusp of the tragedy and trauma Sadako must have seen and experienced. Indeed instead of drawing the focus to the physical horror there is an emphasis on human connection, the fragility of said connections and how one moment can make a difference.

To comfort, care and lay aside personal priorities - finding her relatives - to ensure strangers feel safer in their last minutes or hours. It speaks volumes of the compassion Sadako exhibited, but in equal measures of the lack of hope, the senseless destruction and the magnitude a nuclear event has on humanity.

Not spoken about as frequently as the Holocaust, however the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945 are not only one of the biggest tragedies of that time period, but also one that should also be noted as a key warning.

There is no real way to reconstruct, evaluate and recount the actual devastation that was caused by the nuclear bombs the US dropped on Japan. Without a doubt there is no way to justify what in reality was a test in real time on real victims or that the perceived threat justified dropping not one but two bombs of that magnitude.

The decades of destructive aftermath, consequences on an entire population. The result being the surrender of the Japanese and yet the taste of something akin to a war crime lingers. There is simply no justification then or now for using nuclear weapons. This was eighty years ago, one can only imagine the horror of a 21st century evolved nuclear event. Our political leaders and self-appointed dangerous dictators at the end of the switch, they are a danger to us all.

This book is not only a story that should be remembered, it's also a reminder of how violence and destruction is committed with such ease and a lack of foresight, especially when the perpetrator/s have zero repercussions and their country is so far away that they never encounter or suffer from the aftermath of these decisions.

Buy The Children of Hiroshima at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Monoray; pub date 8th May 2025 |  Paperback |  £8.99. Buy at Amazon.com.

#Blogtour The Library of Lost Dollhouses by Elise Hooper

It's a pleasure to take part in the Blogtour The Library of Lost Dollhouses by Elise Hooper - published by William Morrow 22nd May 2025.

About the Author

A native New Englander, Elise Hooper spent several years writing for television and online news outlets before getting an MA and teaching high-school literature and history.

Her debut novel, The Other Alcott, was a nominee for the 2017 Washington Book Award. More novels—Learning to See, Fast Girls, and Angels of the Pacific—followed, all centered on the lives of extraordinary but overlooked historical women. Hooper now lives in Seattle with her husband and two teenage daughters.

About the book

When a young librarian discovers historic dollhouses in a hidden room, she embarks on an unexpected journey that reveals surprising secrets about the lost miniatures.

Tildy Barrows, Head Curator of a beautiful archival library in San Francisco, is meticulously dedicated to the century’s worth of inventory housed in her beloved Beaux Art building. She loves the calm and order in the shelves of books and walls of art. But Tildy’s life takes an unexpected turn when she, first, learns the library is on the verge of bankruptcy and, second, discovers two exquisite never-before seen dollhouses.

After finding clues hidden within these remarkable miniatures, Tildy sets out to decipher the secret history of the dollhouses, aiming to salvage her cherished library in the process. Her journey introduces her to a world of ambitious and gifted women in Belle Époque Paris, a group of scarred World War I veterans in the English countryside, and Walt Disney’s bustling Burbank studio in the 1950s. As Tildy unravels the mystery, she finds not only inspiring, hidden history, but also a future for herself—and an astonishing familial revelation.

Spanning the course of a century, The Library of Lost Dollhouses is a warm, bright, and captivating story of secrets and love that embraces the importance of illuminating overlooked women.

Review

Imagine stumbling across a secret room full of history and one that inadvertently reveals secrets about your own family history and past. It's not something Tildy expects to come across, but in the end she welcomes the accidental opening of hidden doors.

Behind this particular hidden door are exquisite dollhouses filled with secrets, miniatures and stories. In a way the houses are individual stills of a life lived, a library of a different sort. A visual representation of secrets, a way to speak without saying a word, but right there in plain sight.

At times it felt as if the story was pulling in multiple directions and no real consensus on which direction to take, the result being a lack of connection or perhaps an inability to create one that results in the reader really establishing a concrete link. The miniatures and dollhouses are a fascinating topic, especially when historical links are drawn into the story. The fact history washes out, erases with impunity, the presence and actions of women who contributed to the world we live in, regardless of which skill, action or in what capacity - it's something we need reminding of and of said women.

It's more of a comfortable genre mixing read, it lacks the strong direction and identity to be more than that, which is fine. There is a large demographic for uncomplicated and comfortable. 

Buy The Library of Lost Dollhouses at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks - Harper 360, pub date 22 May 2025. Buy at Amazon com.