#Blogtour Storm Flower by Keegan and Tristen Kozinski

 It's a pleasure to take part in the Blogtour Storm Flower by Keegan and Tristen Kozinski. Published by Crazy House Publishing, pub date 5 September 2000. Tour courtesy of Zooloo's Book Blog Tours.

About the Author

Keegan and Tristen Kozinski, and their two sisters, were homeschooled. They were encouraged to try many things, but not television, online gaming, social media, and the other various technology devices. Their mother read aloud to all of them extensively and encouraged them to read, read, read, and then read some more.  They played family boardgames at least one day a week, (playing board games with the family is still one of their favorite things to do) occasionally went to the movies, spent hours at book stores just reading, they hiked, travelled, swam, tried a variety of sports even camping, but nobody really liked it.

Keegan spent hours building k-nex, but never got into legos. He has taken online drawing classes with Glenn Vilppu and CGMA academy.

Tristen is a very hands-off beekeeper. He began playing chess while living in Mexico, and for a number of years played weekly and attended local competitions, but has since switched to other interests. As with all good education, writing is essential. They were given their fair share of opportunities to write.

They decided to become writers after a homeschool writing assignment. That assignment eventually became their first book: THE DARKNESS THAT SLEPT.  We started it at the age of thirteen—it took years to finish. We have since published a few short stories, and two other novels: THE CITY OF LOCKED DOORS, and STORMFLOWER.

They live in northern Alabama and work a real job to pay the bills. When they’re not working or writing or drawing, they enjoy boardgames and online gaming, live theater, listening to soundtracks, walking to discuss ideas, and reading.       They are not particularly fond of social media.

Tristen writes reviews for books he reads/listens to and posts them on Adventuresome Book Reviews. Keegan has done all the cover art for their books. If you would like for them to review a book contact them. Follow @TristenKozinski Visit kozinskibooks.com

About the book

THEY call and some hear.

On the ocean world Charybdis, two orphans were searching. When the corportacracy found them, they said they had no memory of their family —they lied.

Jade and Ilin Dieza were taken, raised to kill the inter-dimensional monstrosities known as revenants. They excelled at it until quiet PLANS and madness tore open a gate between dimensions and unleashed a tide of revenants. Amidst the slaughter, Ilin was dragged through to the other side of existence. Jade followed.

She returned minutes later, years older, bent under the weight of her brother’s body. Now Jade lives as a recluse, haunted by secrets, grief, and guilt. Utterly exhausted, all she wants to do is rest.

Except, a revenant speaks to her, an unnatural plague is spreading, and a friend speaks of an alien compulsion he doesn’t understand. One he must never explore, lest all that lies hidden drags him below. Thus, the second PLAN has begun, and the madness that corrupted the first has worsened.

Review

I'd like to just start off by saying that a Revenant is one thing, but one with humanoid faces and limbs at the end of whatever they use to move around (often in multiples) is just a tad much - a literal nightmare. Something about the imagery makes the thought of them even worse, perhaps not as much as having a unexpected convo with one though. That's just a whole other level.

Jade barely swims above the surface of the grief she carries around with her. The flashbacks, the memories, the fear and the guilt. Now and again a sliver opens up and she is overwhelmed by what haunts her soul. On the flip side is the Jade who answers the call and fights the unpredictable, ruthless and always voracious revenants.

It's a cracking read. A smorgasbord of sci-fi meets speculative fiction brimming with the zesty rebellious vibe of Cyberpunk plus a dab of fantastical world-building. The kind of read that connects the moral fibre of humanity, threads empathy with the fraught emptiness of civilisation built on fear, control and violence.

The question is where does Jade go from here. The choices are limited and confine her ability to live a life less on the edge. The oppression makes her heart weep, but her soul burns with rage.

Buy StormFlower at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher ‏: ‎Crazy House Publishing, pub date 5 Sept. 2000. Buy at Amazon com.

#Blogtour The Flames of Justice by Janey Clarke

 It's a pleasure to take part in the Blogtour The Flames of Justice: The Devil's Mountain by Janey Clarke. Tour courtesy of Zooloos Book Blog Tours.

About the Author

Janey Clarke writes charming, witty, cosy mysteries. From septuagenarian shenanigans in Cornwall to the intrigue of Regency-era whodunits and now to her newest venture into the rugged drama of the Wild West. 

When not plotting her next twist or researching historical details, she can be found exploring the stunning Jurassic Coast in Dorset with her loyal spaniel by her side. With a passion for tea, old books, and well-timed humour, Janey Clarke creates stories she hopes will whisk readers away to delightful worlds where solving a mystery is always the order of the day. And always solved by a feisty heroine! Visit her at www.janeyclarke.com to learn more about her books. Follow @janeyclarke on X or visit janeyclarke.com

About the book

In the rugged heart of the Devil’s Mountains, danger lies in every shadow, and courage is tested at every turn. Josh and Amy find themselves thrust into a treacherous web of conspiracy and survival when a perilous rescue mission delivers cryptic papers into their hands. These documents expose a confederate plot led by the infamous Jesse James, marking them as targets of mysterious black-clad figures who demand their silence—or their lives.

Shadowhawk, a sinister and vengeful figure, terrorizes local homesteads, leaving cryptic biblical verses promising judgment in his wake. Meanwhile, a relentless stalker hunts Josh, and a devastating grasshopper swarm threatens their land and livelihood.

Amidst the chaos, their feelings for each other grow, but that vulnerability could be their greatest risk! With government intrigue, ruthless bandits, and ancient prophecies closing in, Josh and Amy must summon every ounce of strength and courage to navigate the mounting dangers. As the shadows of the past and present close in, they race against time to uncover the truth, secure the treasure, and carve out a future—before the untamed West claims them all.

Review

This is the third book in the The Devil’s Mountain Dames series. It can be read as a standalone, but for continuity it would be a good idea to read the first two books. The pre-existing storylines are easy to pick up, whilst new ones are evolving. 

In a town called Nowhere there seems to be a lot going on and it appears to attract a variety of people, including infamous gangs, people with secrets and the trail of Jesuit gold. A slow-burning potential relationship adds to the atmosphere of the series - we are all rooting for them!

One of those is the mystery of Josh, who has no clue what his story is, just that he appears to be the target of some interesting people, and when I say interesting I mean dangerous. What kind of secrets is Josh carrying around with him in that deep dark space called brain?

It fits nicely into the cosy Western genre. Keeping the read pleasurable whilst giving an idea of historical context and simultaneously creating a series full of memorable characters the reader is happy to follow.

Buy The Flames of Justice at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher ‏ : ‎ Blossom Spring Publishing, pub date: ‎16 April 2025. Buy at Amazon com.

#Blogtour The Wish by Heather Morris

It's a pleasure to take part in the Blogtour The Wish by Heather Morris. Published by Zaffre Books on 11th of September 2025. Tour run courtesy of Random Things Tours.

About the Author

Heather Morris is an international no.1 bestseller and has sold over 19 million copies worldwide. This brand-new novel is a fresh direction for Heather but speaks to all the themes that readers know and love her for: hope in the darkest of places, family, love and courage.

Born in New Zealand, Heather Morris is passionate about stories of survival, resilience and hope. In 2003, while working in a large public hospital in Melbourne, Heather was introduced to an elderly gentleman who 'might just have a story worth telling'. The day she met Lale Sokolov changed both their lives. Lale's story formed the basis for The Tattooist of Auschwitz and the follow-up novel, Cilka's Journey. 

In 2021 she published the phenomenal conclusion to the Tattooist trilogy, Three Sisters, after being asked to tell the story of three Holocaust survivors who knew Lale from their time in Auschwitz Birkenau. Together, her novels have sold more than 18 million copies worldwide. Sisters Under the Rising Sun, a heart-wrenching novel based upon the experiences of women in Japanese POW camps, was published in 2023 to great acclaim. Heather's first contemporary novel, The Wish, will be published in September 2025. 

About the book

From the international No. 1 bestselling author Heather Morris comes a heartbreaking contemporary novel of a dying teenager's final wish, a lonely young man's journey towards connection, and the unexpected friendship they find together. Perfect for fans of Jojo Moyes, Jodi Picoult, and John Green. 

Jesse is 15. She loves her friends, her little brother and her parents - even when they're arguing, which feels like constantly these days. But most of all, she loves playing video games. Even from her hospital bed. 

Alex is 29. He doesn't love a lot of things. To be honest, he's not really sure he knows how to. His desk at work, as VR games designer, is empty, much like his life feels sometimes. 

Then Jesse makes a wish. A simple one: a video experience made of her life, something to be there, just in case she isn't. One loving teenager. One lonely adult. Which one will get the happy ending?

Review

In a way the grief of a sudden death differs from one after a prolonged illness. The illness in itself becomes part of a strange grieving process with the possibility of saying goodbye. This story encapsulates the many ripples a tragic death can cause, especially when the dying person is a child or young person. It's perhaps the biggest tragedy, when a short life comes to an end. No time to experience life, to encounter different versions of themselves and the constant reminder of a ticking clock.

The moments experiencing life without the medical constraints and limitations of physical illness are perhaps the most tragic. Conversations with the universe, the sea, the world around her. The sea and waves that speak to Jesse all elements of a freedom and a future she craves.

The essence of the story is more about the way human connections can bring forth a strength, resilience and power that is undeniably an element specific to our race. Sometimes we are powerless in the face of tragedy, how we continue and how we face life afterwards is an individual journey that becomes easier when the path travelled is a shared one.

Morris is quite adept at pulling heartstrings and creating a story that remains with us in more ways than one.

Buy The Wish at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Published by Zaffre in Hardback, eBook, and Audio pub date 11th September 2025. Buy at Amazon com. Buy via Bookshop org.

#Blogtour The Story of Jenny Greenteeth: By one who knew her by David Renton

It's a pleasure to take part in the Blogtour The Story of Jenny Greenteeth: By one who knew her by David Renton. Published by Hegemon Press, published 27th August 2025. Tour courtesy of Random Things tours.

About the Author

David Renton is a historian and barrister. He writes for magazines and newspapers in Britain and the US including the London Review of Books,The Guardian, rs21 and Tempest. This is his first novel.

About the book

Niamh is studying in London when the boy she loves dies suddenly. She blames herself for his death and can find little relief from guilt, not with her friends, nor in drunken evenings with her landlady Vron. Her life begins to look up when she encounters a woman who lives alone on a north London canal. When her new friend demands that they go to war against all violent men, Niamh must ask herself whether she is ready for that fight.

Review

Niamh's story walks hand-in-hand with that of Jenny Greenteeth. It's a clever reimagining of a folktale (origins in Lancashire) of a malevolent water hag. It's an interesting way of focusing on the demonisation of women, especially when they don't fit into society or conform and obey to the wishes of those around them.

What are witches, but misunderstood healers or women with a talent for natural medicine to support the people around them. What is folklore on women, but an attempt to justify why they were targeted, isolated and killed, by those who are always on the longer end of the justice stick.

Niamh is struggling with the aftermath of being the target of a vile gossip, a young man she was interested in seems to be the main source. It's a tragedy when something happens to him - courtesy of mysterious bedraggled figure in the water. It takes a bit but eventually the injustice Niamh experiences evolves into said lack of justice creating a path of reoccurring injustices, violence and bad choices.

Troubled girls become troubled women and sometimes they evolve into women who make sure they are listened to and noted. Anger carried like an invisible ball - an ever increasing ball of fury. Some act, others don't. Systemic violence carried from century to century, victims silenced with falsehoods and narratives that create perpetrators out of victims. Blame is a curious game.

It's an intriguing and captivating image of the way society treats women, whilst simultaneously drawing on similarities in the past.

Buy The Story of Jenny Greenteeth at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: ‎ Hegemon Press, publication date 27 Aug. 2025. Buy at Amazon com.

#Blogtour The Swimmer of Auschwitz by Renaud Leblond

The Swimmer of Auschwitz - The Incredible True Story of the Olympic Hero Who Swam For His Life by Renaud Leblond. Published by Monoray, 14th August 2025. Blogtour courtesy of Random Things Tours.

About the Author

Alfred Nakache (1915-1983) was a Jewish French swimmer and water polo player. A member of the French team for the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympic Games, he also swam in the first post-war Summer Olympics in London in 1948. He is one of only two Jewish athletes to have competed in the Olympics after surviving the Holocaust.

Editor and writer, Renaud Leblond is the author of several books of history and investigation, including "Main basse sur le génome" (Anne Carrière, 2008), "Le Pouvoir des sectes" (Le Chêne, 2009) and "le Journal de Jules Rimet" (First Éditions, 2014). Passionate about sports, he founded the Jules Rimet Sports Literature Prize in 2012.

About the book

The extraordinary story of Olympian who was imprisoned in Auschwitz and survived to tell his story.

Alfred Nakache, a Jewish child from Constantine, never imagined that he would one day swim for France at the Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936, nor than he would achieve a world record, as he did in 1941. As a child he was petrified of the water and yet, somehow, through sheer willpower and determination, he rose to become one of the very best swimmers in the world. That was until 1943, when he was banned from the pool and in the same year, deported and sent to Auschwitz.

Not knowing if he would ever see his wife and daughter again, Alfred battled on, through the humiliation and the pain, even defying the guards by swimming in the water reserves of Auschwitz. Somehow - miraculously - he survived, swimming every day until the end of his life.

The Swimmer of Auschwitz is the unique, true story of a forgotten hero, told with remarkable power and simplicity.

Review

This story highlights the hypocrisy of nations, especially Germany, willing to reward their highly skilled people for sports, science, the arts and perhaps the worst of all the brave who served in previous wars for their countries. None of them were spared, and whilst one life isn't worth more than another, it is particularly concerning how one of us suddenly became one of them, the them becoming a scapegoat and target for everything wrong in the world.

Alfred Nakache was a highly regarded world record achieving Olympian. He swam and won for his country. The same country didn't think twice about carting Alfred, his family and many others off to the most convenient concentration camp. His skill, which ironically was once connected with his greatest fear, becomes the core of his survival. 

He is one of only two Jewish athletes who competed in the Olympics before and after the Holocaust. I think that in itself would have been incredibly difficult, painful and equally satisfying in a 'you will not and have not broken me' kind of way.

I maintain, and always shall, that books like these will always be important. Eye witness accounts, stories of survivors - remembering the often forgotten, nameless, displaced, disappeared, murdered, tortured, annihilated and those who emerged traumatised and alive from the well-planned genocide.

It's a fascinating and often painful read, which flits from past childhood, adulthood, pre and post Holocaust and the duration of Nakache's life in hell. Kudos to the author for adding where they are now or what happened to them notes at the end of the book.

Buy The Swimmer of Auschwitz at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Monoray; pub date 14 August 2025. Buy at Amazon com. 

#Blogtour The Unravelling of Julia by Lisa Scottoline

It's a pleasure to take part in the Blogtour The Unravelling of Julia by Lisa Scottoline. Published by No Exit Press, pub date 14th August 2025. Blogtour courtesy of Random Things Tours.

About the Author

Lisa Scottoline is a #1 bestselling and Edgar Award-winning author of 33 novels. Lisa has been President of Mystery Writers of America and she reviews fiction and non-fiction for the New York Times, Washington Post, and the Philadelphia Inquirer. She has over 30 million copies of her books in print and is published in over 35 countries. She lives with an array of disobedient pets, and wouldn't have it any other way. Follow @lisascottoline on X

About the book

When Julia’s husband is brutally murdered in a random attack, her life unravels in ways she never could have foreseen. Haunted by his death and spiralling into despair, Julia seeks refuge in a secluded Italian villa she has mysteriously inherited from a stranger. But her sanctuary becomes a prison as she uncovers disturbing connections to her own past – and faces chilling threats that may not be imaginary.

Caught between a heritage she doesn’t understand and a darkness she can’t escape, Julia must confront secrets that could cost her what little she has left. The Unravelling of Julia is a gripping, atmospheric tale of grief, memory, and a descent into psychological terror that will keep readers turning pages deep into the night.

Review

If you take the astrology aspect and the way Julia becomes almost obsessive in her interpretation of horoscopes and messages, it's quite easy to follow how such open and leading statements could be perceived as personal by the reader. In this case Julia makes connections and creates patterns that are a self-fulfilling prophecy. Her natural instincts on the night her husband was murdered become predictive in nature, because the astrology supports her bias and messaging.

It's not a leap to say that someone in the throws of guilt and grief could find themselves in a vulnerable position, perhaps also equally unable to see clearly through a forest of sudden new acquisitions and acquaintances. Wealth, property in Italy and a mysterious benefactor to boot.

At first Julia is drawn in by the mystery, but soon things take a more sinister turn when the property overseas appears to come with built in ghosts and night terrors, and the nearby townspeople have a dislike for anyone associated with Julia's strange benefactor.

It's mystery built on top of a house of grief and a lifetime of questions about identity. The lengths people will go to eradicate any risk to their own agenda.

Buy The Unravelling of Julia at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Bedford Square Publisher - No Exit Press, pub date 14 August 2025. Buy at Amazon com. 

#Blogtour A Murder in Paris by Matthew Blake

It's a pleasure to take part in the Blogtour A Murder in Paris by Matthew Blake. Published by HarperCollins, pub date 3rd July 2025. Tour hosted by Random Things Tours.

About the Author

Matthew Blake is the No.1 international bestselling author of Anna O. Before writing fiction, he worked as a researcher and speechwriter in Westminster. He studied English at Durham University and Merton College, Oxford and now lives in London. Follow @Matthew__Blake on X

About the book

Imagine the past returning to you in fragments. A hotel room, a pillow, a lifeless body. Your ordinary, innocent life upended by one flash of memory. You can’t remember what led to the crime.

All you know is that you must return to the scene, to the clues that lie waiting in Room 11. But this is a mystery that goes far beyond that room, that night, that murder. Are you ready to unlock the truth?

Review

Although the historical aspect of this fictional plot is at the core of this read, it is always a important reminder that we only ever know parents and grandparents from personal experience and their past is often a sealed door. Grandparents who have lived through the most traumatic events of the 20th century often kept their memories and experiences before, during and after the war hidden away from family and the world.

Survival can equal becoming the perpetrator or the collaborator, becoming part of the institution, which means betraying the innocent. The question is what happens when you are no longer safe on the side of oppressor? 

Olivia knows her grandmother is becoming more forgetful, but she certainly doesn't expect the famous French reclusive painter to spiral herself into a potential murder suspect. The past and present meld together to become a doubtful jumbo of facts, false memories and perhaps something else entirely. 

Trauma, memories and flashbacks are past companions that have lived dormant, but now they are awake and grasping for connections. Is Olivia's grandmother really capable of killing someone? Is she really who she says she is - is her entire life a lie?

It's a poignant and riveting read, and if this is your first by Blake, then I also highly recommend reading Anna O.

Buy A Murder in Paris at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: HarperCollins, pub date 3rd July 2025. Buy at Amazon com. Bookshop org. Buy via HarperCollins.