Today, I'm kicking off the John le Carré blog tour! I'm so excited to be taking part and even more excited to be celebrating John le Carré's wonderful achievement of becoming the living author with the greatest number of works awarded the classic status on the 27th of September, after Penguin complete a major nine-year project to publish twenty-one of his novels in Penguin Modern Classics.
Like celebrated authors Samuel Beckett, James Joyce and George Orwell, John le Carré's presence on the Penguin Modern Classics list acknowledges him not just as a writer for today but for all time.
For over half a century John le Carré has exposed and interrogated the murky world of espionage, from the Cold War to the War on Terror, creating masterpieces that have come to define the age and change the way we look at the world. A master storyteller, his books grip readers around the world — from his Cold War novels, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, to recent works The Pigeon Tunnel and A Legacy of Spies.
New to the list will be The Little Drummer Girl — a page-turning story of love and loyalty set against the backdrop of the Middle East conflict and the subject of a major six-part BBC adaptation this October. Produced by the award-winning team behind The Night Manager, The Little Drummer Girl will star Alexander Skarsgård and Florence Pugh.

With a novel like this, it’s really easy to see why le Carré’s works have become classics. Smiley’s People is written with such skill and precision that you can’t help appreciating the masterful writing as you read. The plotting is tight and intricate with just the right balance of detail and action that kept me reading on and on.
At 426 pages, it could be quite a long read for some people, but don’t let that put you off, as once you become absorbed in the book it feels like no time at all, so it’s well worth persevering if that sort of length usually scares you.
All of the characters are brilliantly drawn, they’re so human, with their personalities, quirks, strengths and weaknesses captured and explored so very well.
I also loved the fact that le Carré doesn’t give everything away too fast. He slowly builds up to the climax, maintaining the tension throughout.
Overall, I’m giving Smiley’s People 4.5 out of 5. It’s sophisticated, gripping and gritty and I’d highly recommend giving it a read.
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To celebrate John le Carré becoming the living author with the greatest number of works awarded the classic status, I have one copy of Smiley's People to give away! To enter, simply head over to my twitter account here, follow me and retweet the tweet with the above image! Best of luck, it really is a fantastic read!

​This is a fact: Ryan Summers walked into Three Rivers College and killed thirteen women, then himself.
 
But no one can say why.
 
The question is one that cries out to be answered - by Ryan's mother, Moira; by Ishbel, the mother of Abigail, the first victim; and by DI Helen Birch, put in charge of the case on her first day at her new job. But as the tabloids and the media swarm, as the families' secrets come out, as the world searches for someone to blame... the truth seems to vanish.
 
A stunningly moving novel from an exciting new voice in crime, ALL THE HIDDEN TRUTHS will cause you to question your assumptions about the people you love, and reconsider how the world reacts to tragedy.

​All the Hidden Truths is a heart-breaking and very emotional read, exploring the tragic aftermath of a school shooting and the effects it has, particularly on three women, Moira (the mother of the perpetrator), Ishbel (the mother of one of the victims) and DI Helen Birch (the lead investigator). I thought the use of the perspectives of these three women was really effective for this book as it enabled me to look at things from different points of view and really get a sense of how a tragedy like this affects a whole range of people in so many ways and how people deal with grief and guilt. It also looks at the way the public and media react to such an event, with the inclusion of tweets and emails as well as a particular journalist’s horrible behaviour and it really hits home how much influence these things can have on the wider perception of an event like this.
Not only is it a moving read, it’s also gripping and compelling and so well written.
Overall, I’m giving All the Hidden Truths 4.5 out of 5. It’s emotional, beautifully and sensitively written and truly thought provoking. It really is worth a read.
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​Claire Askew is a poet, novelist and the current Writer in Residence at the University of Edinburgh. Her debut novel in progress was the winner of the 2016 Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize, and longlisted for the 2014 Peggy Chapman-Andrews (Bridport) Novel Award. Claire holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Edinburgh and has won a variety of accolades for her work, including the Jessie Kesson Fellowship and a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award.
 
Her debut poetry collection, This changes things, was published by Bloodaxe in 2016 and shortlisted for the Edwin Morgan Poetry Award and a Saltire First Book Award. In 2016 Claire was selected as a Scottish Book Trust Reading Champion, and she works as the Scotland tutor for women's writing initiatives Write Like A Grrrl! and #GrrrlCon.

​Jean Mason has a doppelganger.
 
She's never seen her, but others* swear they have.
 
*others | noun. A peculiar collection of drug addicts, scam artists, philanthropists, philosophers and vagrants the regulars of Bellevue Square.
 
Jean lives in downtown Toronto with her husband and two kids. The proud owner of a thriving bookstore, she doesn't rattle easily not like she used to. But after two of her customers insist they've seen her double, Jean decides to investigate. Curiosity grows to obsession and soon Jean's concerns shift from the identity of the woman, to her very own.

What initially intrigued me about this book was the idea of someone having a doppelgänger and I couldn’t wait to see how Redhill explored this.
At first, the book took me a little longer to get into than I’d expected, but once I was hooked, I found the story totally gripping and I was compelled to read on and on. I had so many questions and I never knew what was coming next, it was a real roller-coaster ride, and one I thoroughly enjoyed.
There’s so much more to this than just the doppelgänger theme though, later in the book, much darker themes are explored and they can be quite unsettling, although I still couldn’t help but turn the pages.
I think it was the characters that really brought things to life for me though, each one feels real and Jean in particular is such an interesting character to read.
Overall, I’m giving Bellevue Square 4 out of 5. It’s compelling, unsettling, and totally unique. If you fancy reading something memorable and really different from the norm, give this a try.

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This book was provided free in exchange for an honest review.
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​Michael Redhill is an American-born Canadian poet, playwright and novelist. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Redhill was raised in the metropolitan Toronto, Ontario area.

Today is my stop on the blog tour for The Guilty Dead by P.J. Tracy! Thanks so much to Katie for organising the tour.
Don't forget to check out the other stops too!

​Gregory Norwood, wealthy businessman and close friend of Minnesota's leading candidate for Governor, is found dead on the first anniversary of his son's drug overdose. It seems clear to Detectives Gino and Magozzi that grief drove him to suicide.
 
Until they realise the left-handed man seems to have used his right hand to pull the trigger.
 
And they find the second body.
 
As the seemingly open-and-shut case becomes a murder enquiry, the detectives begin to delve into the dark secrets of one of the city's most powerful families. It seems the murders are not the first in the Norwoods' tragic story - and they won't be the last . . .

​The ninth in a series of thrillers by mother and daughter duo P.J. Tracy and the first written by just Traci after her mother sadly passed away, The Guilty Dead is an absolutely cracking read which had me hooked the whole way through.
It’s the first of this series that I’ve read, and I’m certainly going to go back and read the others. If you haven’t read any of this series previously either, I’d recommend reading the books in order from the beginning if you can, because although I thought the characters were well developed and established and the main story was completely contained in this book, I think I would’ve got even more from the story if I’d been able to watch the characters progress and grow right from the start and I think there were a few little references which I might’ve missed.
The plot was well thought out and felt very topical and relevant to today whilst the more serious moments were well balanced with moments of humour between the characters which I greatly appreciated. The author is also masterful in the way she reveals information gradually to build up the tension until the very end.
Overall, I'm giving The Guilty Dead 4.5 out of 5 stars. It's a thrilling story, which is packed with action and some brilliant unexpected twists.
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​P. J. Tracy was the pseudonym for the mother-and-daughter writing team of P. J. and Traci Lambrecht. Together P. J. and Traci were authors of the bestselling thrillers Want to Play? (a Richard and Judy Book Club pick), Live Bait, Dead Run, Snow Blind, Play to Kill, Two Evils, Cold Kill and Nothing Stays Buried. P. J. passed away in 2016, but Traci is continuing the series with The Guilty Dead.

On the day the government decrees that women are no longer allowed more than 100 words daily, Dr.Jean McClellan is in denial--this can't happen here. Not in America. Not to her. This is just the beginning. Soon women can no longer hold jobs. Girls are no longer taught to read or write. Females no longer have a voice. Before, the average person spoke sixteen thousand words a day, but now women only have one hundred to make themselves heard. But this is not the end. For herself, her daughter, and every woman silenced, Jean will reclaim her voice.
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​In keeping with the theme of this book, I've set myself the challenge of writing this review in 100 words! It's going to be quite difficult as there's lots to say about Vox, but here goes:
 
Having not read many dystopian thrillers in the past, I was really excited to give Vox a read. I was drawn in by the unique and interesting premise and kept there by Dalcher's skilled and intelligent writing. 
I raced through the short chapters very quickly, staying gripped throughout as the author explored speech and communication and the implications there would be in a world where a woman is limited to just 100 words a day.
Overall, I'm giving Vox 4 out of 5, it's thought-provoking, thrilling and really intelligently written. It's a thoughtful and important read, not to be missed. 
[100 Words]
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​Christina Dalcher earned her doctorate in theoretical linguistics from Georgetown University. She specializes in the phonetics of sound change in Italian and British dialects and has taught at several universities.
 
Her short stories and flash fiction appear in over one hundred journals worldwide. Recognitions include the Bath Flash Award's Short List, nominations for The Pushcart Prize, and multiple other awards. She teaches flash fiction as a member of the faculty at The Muse Writers Center in Norfolk, Virginia.
 
VOX is her first novel.