Today is my stop on the blog tour for The Killing Choice by Will Shindler! Thanks so much to Jenny for organising the tour and don’t forget to check out the rest of the stops!

'Leave your daughter with me, or I will kill you both’

It felt like a normal Friday evening before Karl and his daughter Leah were ambushed by a figure in a blank mask. At knife point, Karl is forced to make an impossible choice. Stay and die, or walk away from Leah and take this thug's word that they both will live.
Should Karl trust a villain and leave his daughter with a knife at her throat? Could he ever live with himself if he did?
It's not long before more seemingly unconnected and innocent people across London are offered a deal in exchange for their life. More blood is spilled, more families shattered, and more people are left to suffer with the consequences of their decisions.

DI Alex Finn and DC Mattie Paulsen must hunt for a killer that appears to have no face, no motive and no conscience before more victims are forced to make their choice.

After a very long on and off hiatus, I’m finally back to blogging and what a perfect book this is to get me started again!
I was part of the blog tour for Shindler’s debut, The Burning Men, and absolutely loved it so I had very high hopes for The Killing Choice. Shindler did not disappoint.
What really stood out to me (and so far seems to be a recurring theme when it comes to this series) is the plot. While the book is a classic police procedural at its core, the plot gives it such a unique edge. Its totally gripping, dark and so well executed too and really had me questioning myself and reflecting on what I read.
The characters are also so well-developed and honestly quite stunningly written. DI Alex Finn and DC Mattie Paulsen are of course back and as engaging as ever. While this is the second in the series and I’d totally recommend reading The Burning Men, The Killing Choice can definitely be read as a standalone and works just as well this way.
This book really has it all, suspense, emotion, twists and action and it kept me completely glued to the pages.
Overall I’m giving the Killing Choice 4 out of 5. It’s cleverly plotted, addictive and a real must-read. Book three please!

Today is my stop on the blog tour for Cover Your Tracks by Claire Askew! Thanks so much to Jenny for organising the tour and don’t forget to check out the rest of the stops!

'What if I told you,' he said, 'that I believe my mother's life to be in danger?'

Robertson Bennet returns to Edinburgh after a 25-year absence in search of his parents and his inheritance. But both have disappeared. A quick, routine police check should be enough - and Detective Inspector Helen Birch has enough on her plate trying to help her brother, Charlie, after an assault in prison. But all her instincts tell her not to let this case go. And so she digs.

George and Phamie Bennet were together for a long time. No one can ever really know the secrets kept between husband and wife. But as Birch slowly begins to unravel the truth, terrible crimes start to rise to the surface.

After reading and loving All The Hidden Truths, Claire Askew became a firm favourite author of mine. I was lucky enough to meet her at Noirwich Fest a few years ago and she was so lovely which just makes it even more exciting to see her going from strength to strength.
Askew’s books are always a showcase of her immense talent and Cover Your Tracks is no different. The engaging and entertaining writing keeps you gripped for the entirety of the book and Helen Birch is such a layered and compelling DI, making it all too easy to get lost in the pages of her journey.
The plot is taut and unpredictable, yet super believable and I can’t recommend reading this enough! Whether you’ve read the first two or not you’ll slip right in, but I can say for sure that if you haven’t read the first two, you’ll definitely be going back to do that after this!
Overall, I’m giving Cover Your Tracks 4.5 out of 5. It’s addictive, absorbing and beautifully written. I can’t wait for more from Askew!

Claire Askew is a poet, novelist and the 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. All The Hidden Truths was longlisted for two CWA Daggers: Gold (best novel) and John Creasey (best debut).
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. Cover Your Tracks is her third novel.

Today is my stop on the blog tour for Searching for Sylvie Lee by Jean Kwok! Don’t forget to check out the rest of the stops!

It begins with a mystery. Sylvie, the beautiful, brilliant, successful older daughter of the Lee family, flies to the Netherlands for one final visit with her dying grandmother - and then vanishes.
Amy, the sheltered baby of the Lee family, is too young to remember a time when her parents were newly immigrated and too poor to keep Sylvie. Seven years older, Sylvie was raised by a distant relative in a faraway, foreign place, and didn't rejoin her family in America until age nine. Timid and shy, Amy has always looked up to her sister, the fierce and fearless protector who showered her with unconditional love.
But what happened to Sylvie? Amy and her parents are distraught and desperate for answers. Sylvie has always looked out for them. Now, it's Amy's turn to help. Terrified yet determined, Amy retraces her sister's movements, flying to the last place Sylvie was seen. But instead of simple answers, she discovers something much more valuable: the truth. Sylvie, the golden girl, kept painful secrets . . . secrets that will reveal more about Amy's complicated family - and herself - than she ever could have imagined.

I was extremely intrigued by the synopsis for Searching for Sylvie Lee and although unsure of what exactly to expect, I was looking forward to this different approach to my usual genre. I immediately fell in love with the way Kwok writes, the whole book is so beautifully written. It strikes the perfect balance of page-turning suspense and heartbreakingly moving moments which makes it utterly compelling.
The portrayal of this immigrant family was thoughtful and sensitive, while the themes that arose from this were deftly explored. I found the ideas around family to be particularly thought-provoking and the book left me reflecting on what it means to truly know someone.
The central mystery was clever and gripping and although I worked out some elements, it didn’t take away from the overall experience of reading this book and I was hooked until the end.
Overall, I’m giving Searching for Sylvie Lee 4.5 out of 5. It’s poignant, suspenseful and so very powerful. An absolute must-read.

Jean Kwok is a New York Times and international bestselling, award-winning author. She has been selected for numerous honours, including the Sunday Times Short Story Award shortlist. She immigrated from Hong Kong to Brooklyn when she was five, and worked in a Chinatown clothing factory for much of her childhood.

In November 2009, her older brother Kwan, a highly successful MIT graduate who had encouraged Jean to write since childhood, disappeared, failing to come home for Thanksgiving. Inspired by Jean’s own story and those of thousands of immigrants like her, Searching for Sylvie Lee was born out of her love for her brilliant brother.

Jean is trilingual, fluent in Dutch, Chinese, and English, and studied Latin for seven years. She lives in the Netherlands with her husband, two sons and four cats.

Today is my stop on the blog tour for Conviction by Denise Mina! Don’t forget to check out the rest of the stops!

It’s just a normal morning when Anna's husband announces that he's leaving her for her best friend and taking their two daughters with him.
With her safe, comfortable world shattered, Anna distracts herself with someone else's story: a true-crime podcast. That is until she recognises the name of one of the victims and becomes convinced that only she knows what really happened.
With nothing left to lose, she throws herself into investigating the case. But little does she know, Anna's past and present lives are about to collide, sending everything she has worked so hard to achieve into freefall.

After seeing Denise Mina at the London Book Fair and thinking she was brilliant, I was very excited to be invited on to the blog tour! Mina has a long list of books to her name, but somehow I’d missed giving them a read, so Conviction was the first book of hers that I’d read. It was definitely an amazing introduction to her work and I could instantly see why she’s had the success that she’s had!
I absolutely loved Conviction, it’s totally compelling and the mixture of intense thrills, twists and dark humour make for an utterly captivating and unmissable novel. The plot is unpredictable and suspenseful and I found myself completely gripped by the mystery. There wasn’t a single moment where I could even consider stopping reading.
The characters are brilliantly drawn, and what really topped things off for me was the bang up to date feel of the book, it’s totally fresh and modern and this really made the book what it is.
Overall, I’m giving Conviction 4.5 out of 5. It’s addictive, dark and extremely pacey. I can’t wait to catch up on all of the books that I’ve missed!

Today is my stop on the Blog Tour for The Estate by Liza Costello! Don’t forget to check out the rest of the stops!

There's no place like home...and Beth hopes there never will be again.

Beth never had a settled home as a child, but that's all behind her now. She's fine. Great. Settled in her single life. Until friends start peeling away, moving on to careers and family, leaving her feeling impatient and angry. When she bumps into Jason at a party, she spots the opportunity for her own fresh start - to turn her back on a reckless life of drinking and missed deadlines. She can build a new life, too...can't she? When she discovers that Jason has the opportunity to house-sit a new build out of town, she glimpses her chance. There's only one catch - Jason needs to stay in town for the sake of his new job. But Beth can keep their dreams alive on her own, can't she?

As her drinking worsens, and new friends turn out to be prospective enemies, her sense of reality begins to unravel. As Beth comes to confront the mysteries of her own past, she moves closer to understanding the desperate crime at the heart of the estate. But first she must learn who is behind the strange attacks on her new home. And is Jason who she thought he was? Can she even trust him?

Due to earlier starts, I’ve recently been driving a lot more on my commute rather than taking the train, and The Estate came along at the perfect time, receiving the ‘honour’ of being the first audiobook that I listened to during my commute!! This improved my drives to say the least! The only downside was that it had me so gripped, I often struggled to get out of the car upon reaching my destination!
I found Beth to be an extremely interesting central character and enjoyed the way that the narrative switched between the past and the present to reveal what had gone on at The Estate and to subtly create a sense of foreboding regarding the state that Beth was currently in.
I really didn’t know which, if any, of the characters that I could trust and found myself constantly questioning everything that I read. While I guessed a small part of the plot in terms of the cause of Beth’s troubles, the dark and twisty atmosphere kept me hooked and dying to find out the full story. Which in the end turned out to be satisfyingly explained and still had a few surprises in store.
Additionally, I thought that the narrator did a fantastic job. Not only could I always tell who was speaking, sometimes due to the most subtle differences in her voice, but also the way she read really added to the atmosphere.
Overall, I’m giving The Estate 4 out of 5. It’s gripping, eerie and super intense. I thoroughly enjoyed it.