BLOG TOUR REVIEW!!! Hold Back the Night by Jessica Moor

March 2020. Annie is alone in her house as the world shuts down, only the ghosts of her memories for company. But then she receives a phone call which plunges her deeper into the past.

1959. Annie and Rita are student nurses at Fairlie Hall mental hospital. Working long, gruelling hours, they soon learn that the only way to appease their terrifying matron is to follow the rules unthinkingly. But what is happening in the hospital’s hidden side wards? And at what point does following the rules turn into complicity – and betrayal?

1983. Annie is reeling from the loss of her husband and struggling to face raising her daughter alone. Following a chance encounter, she offers a sick young man a bed for the night, a good deed that soon leads to another. Before long, she finds herself entering a new life of service – her home a haven for those who are cruelly shunned. But can we ever really atone?

Jessica Moor’s debut novel, Keeper, was one of those books that lingered in the memory long after I’d turned the final page. Looking back over my review (linked above), I stand by my assertion that, although not for the faint-hearted, it was an insightful debut that was unflinching in its examination of the lived realities of domestic violence and the societal conditions that, all too often, allow it to flourish.

Moor’s third novel, Hold Back the Night, covers very different ground but is no less considered. When we first meet Annie in 1959 she is a student nurse who, as a result of her hatred of blood, has opted for a residency at Fairlie Hall mental hospital. Taught to obey without question, what Annie does once she realises exactly what ‘conditions’ are being treated at Fairlie Hall – and how they are being treated – will haunt her and her fellow student nurse Rita for the rest of their lives.

The novel’s second strand picks up in 1983 when Annie, newly widowed and mother to a teenage daughter, takes in Robbie as a lodger. Robbie, it soon becomes apparent, has ‘it’: the illness the papers keep mentioning and that seems to frighten so many people. Before long, Annie’s house has become something of a haven for young men with AIDS – and the young men themselves have become something of a haven for Annie. But in a society rife with both stigma and misinformation, it isn’t long before Annie is forced to reconnect with the memories of those long-forgotten days at Fairlie Hall.

Finally, at the height of the Covid pandemic in 2020, an elderly Annie receives a call to say that Rita has passed away. The news prompts Annie to look back over her life: the choices she’s made, the regrets she’s had, and the people who have carried her through all of it.

Hold Back the Night is a more meditative read than Keeper but also a much tauter novel. Moor’s prose isn’t sparse but it’s what I’d call spare. Each sentence feels carefully crafted. Whilst there’s always enough description to give you a sense of what’s going on, detail is never extraneous and Moor is unafraid of letting her prose rest upon moments of detail. A pile of shirts, a request for a pen, the feel of a child in the arms: these things gain weight and significance that linger and carry through Annie’s life.

Annie herself is an interesting character but not always wholly likeable. When we first meet her Annie is filled with good intentions but somewhat distanced from the realities of nursing. She wants to help people but without having to deal with any of the mess – either emotional or clinical – that comes with caring for real human beings. As she ages, Annie becomes more aware that care and love go hand-in-hand and, although her edges never entirely soften, she begins to realise that some of the choices she made were, although deemed ‘correct’ by the authorities at the time, not always wise or compassionate ones.

I had the pleasure of listening to the audiobook version of the novel and the narrator, Elizabeth Bower, does a wonderful job of conveying Annie at the three different stages on her life. She also really brings the other characters – however fleeting their appearances – to life on the page.

Given the sometimes harrowing subject matter, calling Hold Back the Night a beautiful novel feels somewhat inaccurate. Readers should be aware going in that the novel portrays the realities of mental health treatment in the 1950s, including the use of electroshock and conversion therapies. It also vividly depicts the homophobia of both the 50s and the 80s as well as the stigma, hysteria, and misinformation surrounding AIDS and, later, Covid.

But despite this it is, I think, a beautiful novel about finding connection amidst even the most challenging of circumstances. Of finding joy within darkness. And of finding forgiveness within yourself for the choices you have made and regretted. Unflinching but moving, Hold Back the Night is a novel to savour and one that is guaranteed to linger long after you turn the final page.

Hold Back the Night by Jessica Moor is published by Manilla Press and is available now from all good bookseller and online retailers including Hive, Waterstones, Bookshop.org, and Wordery.

If you can, please support a local indie bookshop by ordering from them either in person or online! Some of my favourites include Booka Bookshop, Sam Read Booksellers, Book-ish, Scarthin Books, Fox Lane Books, and Berts Books. 

My thanks go to the publisher for providing a copy of the book in return for an honest and unbiased review and Tracy from Compulsive Readers for organising and inviting me onto this blog tour. The tour continues until 17 May 2024 please do check out the other stops for reviews and more content!

Reviews on The Shelf are free, honest, and unbiased and I don’t use affiliate links on my posts. However, if you enjoy the blog, please consider buying me a coffee on Ko-Fi!

REVIEW!!! The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton

Solve the murder to save what’s left of the world.

Outside the island there is nothing: the world was destroyed by a fog that swept the planet, killing anyone it touched.

On the island: it is idyllic. One hundred and twenty-two villagers and three scientists, living in peaceful harmony. The villagers are content to fish, farm and feast, to obey their nightly curfew, to do what they’re told by the scientists.

Until, to the horror of the islanders, one of their beloved scientists is found brutally stabbed to death. And then they learn that the murder has triggered a lowering of the security system around the island, the only thing that was keeping the fog at bay. If the murder isn’t solved within 107 hours, the fog will smother the island—and everyone on it.

But the security system has also wiped everyone’s memories of exactly what happened the night before, which means that someone on the island is a murderer—and they don’t even know it.

And the clock is ticking.

I honestly don’t know how Stuart Turton does it. His debut, The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, broke the boundaries of speculative and crime fiction whilst his follow-up, The Devil and the Dark Water, mashed together historical fiction and a locked-room mystery. For his third novel, The Last Murder at the End of the World, Turton is ripping up the rulebook yet again for a futuristic dystopian jaunt that, you guessed it, features a head-scratchingly complex murder at its heart.

The Last Murder at the End of the World is set on a Greek island that has become the last bastion of humanity in a world otherwise destroyed by a deadly fog. Life on the island is seemingly idyllic. One hundred and twenty-two villagers live peacefully alongside three ‘elders’: the last scientists who once worked the research outpost that now empty beneath them. Watching over them all is our narrator, Abi, an artificial intelligence who ensures their island home stays safe.

But when Niema, the de-facto leader of the elders, is found dead, the villagers have to contend with the sudden intrusion of violence into their idyll. Niema’s death has lowered the intelligent security system that keeps the deadly fog at bay and they have 107 hours left to save what’s left of humanity. Even worse, Abi was instructed to wipe everyone’s memories of exactly what happened the night before. So someone on the island is not only a killer but they might not even know it…

Having absolutely adored Turton’s last two novels, I went into The Last Murder at the End of the World with very high expectations and I am pleased to say that I was not disappointed. Although neither science-fiction nor dystopian fiction are my usual go-to genres, I found the setting and premise utterly compelling and, as the novel drip feeds information about what led to the creation of the fog, found myself really enjoying the eco-thriller elements as well.

Although less character-driven than his last novel, I also really warmed to Emery and Clara – the mother/daughter duo who end up playing ‘detective’ to try and solve Niema’s murder before time runs out. The novel has something of an ensemble cast but certain characters – the remaining scientists Hephaestus and Thea. and Emery’s father Seth – really stood out and, for all their flaws, I found myself interested in their characters and motivations, as well as in their secrets. Emery and Clara are fantastic leads and I found myself really rooting for them as they attempted to rebuild their somewhat strained relationship whilst racing against time to save the day.

As with Turton’s previous books, The Last Murder at the End of the World makes good use of the crime genre to explore wider social issues. In this case, societal control, genetic engineering, and artificial intelligence all come in for a thorough examination. Although dealing with some weighty themes, however, the novel never felt overly moralistic. The suspense remained high throughout and, after a slightly slow start, I found myself absolutely flying through the pages.

As you can probably tell, this was another absolute winner of a book for me. With an interesting premise, compelling cast of characters, and a central mystery that provides plenty of twists, it really fulfilled its potential. Stuart Turton was already on my list of ‘must buy’ authors and with the promise of a contemporary thriller to come next, I think I can safely say I’ll be reading more of his work in the future!

The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton is published by Raven Books and is available now from all good booksellers and online retailers including Hive, Bookshop.org, Waterstones, and Wordery.

My thanks go to the publisher and to NetGalleyUK for providing an e-copy of the book in return for an honest and unbiased review.

If you can, please support a local indie bookshop by ordering from them either in person or online! Some of my favourites include Booka Bookshop, The Big Green Bookshop, Sam Read Booksellers, Book-ish, Scarthin Books, and Berts Books. 

Reviews on The Shelf are free, honest, and unbiased and I don’t use affiliate links on my posts. However, if you enjoy the blog, please consider buying me a coffee on Ko-Fi!

BLOG TOUR REVIEW!!! Last Testament in Bologna by Tom Benjamin

When an old man makes a bequest to investigate the mysterious death of his son, English detective Daniel Leicester follows a trail leading to one of Bologna’s wealthiest families – makers of some of the world’s most coveted supercars – and discovers that beneath the glitz and glamour of the Formula One circuit lurk sinister interests that may be prepared to kill to keep their secrets.

Time and tide wait for no man – or woman – and while biology obliges one of Faidate Investigations’ team to finally undergo a long-delayed operation, history catches up with another. Shadowing a suspect along one of Bologna’s blood-red porticoes or mixing with the glitterati in the paddock at Imola, the English detective comes to learn in Italy the past not only has a long tail, but its sting can be deadly.

Given that armchair travel is all I can afford at the moment (PhDs are many things but lucrative isn’t one of them), I am currently very much here for the opportunity to holiday vicariously through the pages of a good book. So I was delighted when the chance to join the blog tour for Tom Benjamin’s Last Testament in Bologna landed in my inbox.

If you’ve followed The Shelf for a while you’ll know that one of the main things I loved about Benjamin’s previous two novels (Requiem in La Rossa and Italian Rules) is their fantastic sense of place. Reading them is like taking a tour around Bologna although, given this is a detective novel, you do get to see some of the lived reality behind the historic façades. And, for Last Testament in Bologna – the fifth novel to feature English detective Daniel Leicester – we get to move beyond the city walls and explore the wider region’s connections to one of the most glamorous of international sports.

When Daniel Leicester is asked to attend the reading of Giorgio Chiesa’s will, the last thing he expects is for Faidate Investigations to be tasked with establishing the deceased man’s claim that his son was murdered by one of the biggest names in Italian motorsport. Before long, Daniel is following the winding roads into the heart of Motor Valley, and securing trackside tickets to the next Formula One Grand Prix in the process. But could the Molinari F1 team really have wanted to kill one of their most promising young drivers?

With Daniel’s father-in-law, The Comandante, incapacitated, it’s left to Daniel to take the reins of the Faidate Investigations team. In addition to their ongoing investigation, this means working out why his usually reliable junior investigator, Dolores, seems to be doing some off-the-books investigating of her own, and trying to keep his precocious teenage daughter, Rose, from wrapping his beloved Alfa around the nearest bollard.

The combination of ongoing family drama and standalone investigation is another one of the things that I love about this particular series. If you picked up Last Testament in Bologna as the first book in this series, you’d be able to follow Daniel’s investigation into the death of Fabri Chiesa without issue and would soon pick up on the salient details needed to follow the subplots involving the various members of the Faidate family.

For returning fans, however, the little developments in characters and relationships from book to book are an added delight. Last Testament in Bologna really develops the character of Daniel’s partner, Dolores, by filling in a lot of her backstory. It was also nice to see Rose continue to develop into an increasingly independent young women (much to her father’s alarm!) and interesting to see Daniel fully consider his own position within the family in the absence of the Comandante. These little insights into life ‘behind the scenes’ of the Faidate team are interspersed between the action and, for me, always make Benjamin’s novels feel as if they are taking place within a living, breathing world.

Although the world of F1 is at the heart of the action, you also don’t need to be a motorsport fan to enjoy Last Testament in Bologna. As with the world of Hollywood cinema in Italian Rules, the F1 circuit mostly provides a glitzy backdrop to a tale that is centred in the more everyday foibles of the human heart. That said, Benjamin does a great job of dropping in some interesting nuggets about Motor Valley’s connection to the world of motorsport and, although I can claim only a passing knowledge of F1, I think he did a good job of conveying both the glamour and the pressure of getting to – and staying at – the top in that highly competitive world.

Overall, Last Testament in Bologna is another great entry in a crime series that has rapidly become one of my favourites. I’m always reminded of P D James and Lousie Penny when I read these books because, although not exactly ‘cosy’ in content (as with previous entries in the series, there’s some violence on the page here although, as with the Dalgleish and Gamache series’, it’s rarely graphic) there is something soothing about my annual trip to visit the Faidate family. I know that, by picking up one of these books, I’m going to get a great read. And really, what more can you ask for but that?

Last Testament in Bologna by Tom Benjamin is published by Constable (Little Brown) and is available now from all good booksellers and online retailers including Hive, Waterstones, Bookshop.org, and Wordery.

If you can, please support a local indie bookshop by ordering from them either in person or online! Some of my favourites include Booka Bookshop, Sam Read Booksellers, Book-ish, Scarthin Books, Fox Lane Books, and Berts Books. 

My thanks go to the publisher for providing a copy of the book in return for an honest and unbiased review and Anne Cater from Random Things Tours for organising and inviting me onto this blog tour. The tour continues until 16 May 2024 please do check out the other stops for reviews and more content!

Reviews on The Shelf are free, honest, and unbiased and I don’t use affiliate links on my posts. However, if you enjoy the blog, please consider buying me a coffee on Ko-Fi!

BLOG TOUR REVIEW!!! One of Us Knows by Alyssa Cole

Years after a breakdown and a diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder derailed her historical preservationist career, Kenetria Nash and her alters have been given a second chance they can’t refuse: a position as resident caretaker of a historic home. Having been dormant for years, Ken has no idea what led them to this isolated Hudson River island, but she’s determined not to ruin their opportunity.

Then a surprise visit from the home’s conservation trust just as a Nor’easter bears down on the island disrupts her newfound life, leaving Ken trapped with a group of possibly dangerous strangers—including the man who brought her life tumbling down years earlier. When he turns up dead, Ken is the prime suspect.

Caught in a web of secrets and in a race against time, Ken and her alters must band together to prove their innocence and discover the truth of Kavanaugh Island—and their own past—or they risk losing not only their future, but their life.

I’ve had a fairly patchy relationship with thrillers in recent years. Whilst I love a bit of page-turning suspense, I’ve increasingly found myself remaining distinctly un-shook by twists so-often billed as ‘shocking’. I’ve referred to this in the past as ‘thriller fatigue’ and I suspect it hails from a period in my reading life where everything I picked up was advertised as ‘perfect for fans of The Girl on the Train‘.

Now, for what it’s worth, I enjoyed both The Girl on the Train (although I will forever argue that many of the ‘girls’ in book titles of that nature should be more accurately described as ‘women’. Yes, I know The Woman on the Train is less catchy and I’m sure a ton of focus research said that was the best title, but the infantilisation of adult women will never not boil my blood) and many of the female-centred thrillers that its stratospheric success spawned. But variety is the spice of life and, for a while at least, didn’t it feel as if every other new release was attempting to mine that particular narrative vein?

Recently, however, I’ve noticed a slight shift in the genre. Sure, there are still plenty of thrillers that centre around (often unreliable) female narrators in vulnerable situations. The genre, after all, remains HUGE (according to Nielson, 40% of UK book buyers say they read crime and thriller books and, in 2022, the genre made up 12% of print book purchases, rising to nearly a fifth of audiobooks and more than a third of e-books). But following several years of heavily plot-focused page-turners, I do feel as if the genre has begun to evolve to accommodate both a wider variety of character-driven narratives and a platform for unique storytelling methods.

All of which is a very long-winded introduction to Alyssa Cole’s One of Us Knows: the subject of today’s review and a thriller that, whilst featuring a (you guessed it) unreliable female narrator in a (guessed it again) vulnerable situation, has no qualms about slowing the pace to fully explore its central characters and premise. And as for unique storytelling methods? Well, how about a story that is told by the multiple headmates who occupy the body of a woman with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)?

When Kenetria ‘Ken’ Nash winces into consciousness on the end of an old wooden dock on the Hudson, she has no idea why she is there. Ken has been dormant for six years and, in her absence, she and her headmates have apparently been kicked out of their apartment in the midst of a global pandemic. One of her alters, Della, has arranged a new job as resident caretaker of a historic home on an isolated Hudson River island. But now Della has disappeared and, when Ken and her remaining active alters see the Kavanaugh House for the first time, they’re shocked to discover that its an exact replica of the castle that they occupy in their inner world.

When a man turns up dead and they are trapped on the island with a group of possibly dangerous strangers, Ken and her alters are forced to work together to discover both their own connection to Kavanaugh Island and the truth behind the island’s haunted history.

To say that One of Us Knows is a cerebral book is probably to undersell it but what I mean by that is that this is a thriller that very much concerns itself with the mind. Specifically, it concerns itself with Kenetria’s mind. Large parts of the novel take place in the ‘inner world’ that Ken shares with her headmates and, as the book progresses, we get sections narrated by most of the active alters. This does take a little getting used to, especially in the novel’s opening sections, but Alyssa Cole does a great job of distinguishing between the narrative voices of the various headmates and there’s plenty of signposting to help you work out who is speaking at any given time.

I’m no psychologist so I have no idea how accurate Cole’s portrayal of DID is but I did feel like I gained an understanding of the condition’s complexities through the writing, and I appreciated that Ken’s condition was established at the outset of the novel rather than being used as a plot device. Instead the focus is upon how Ken manages her ‘system’ and how, with Della’s disappearance from it, she needs to work with her alters to re-establish their various roles within it.

As the book progresses, we also get to find out more about the trauma that resulted in Kenetria’s development of DID. Although Cole doesn’t dwell on that trauma too much, content warnings do apply for mentions of sexual violence, self harm, confinement, racism, ableism, misogyny, gaslighting, death, and violence. And whilst it didn’t bother me personally, there’s also a hefty amount of swearing.

The exploration of Kenetria’s inner world runs alongside a more conventional ‘locked room’ (or, in this case, locked island) plot that has distinct When There Were None vibes. I don’t want to say too much about the specifics of either plot, or how they interconnect, because the twists are absolute doozies but I will say that personally I found the inner plot to be the more compelling. The interactions between Ken and her various alters was, for me, both the major driver of the narrative and what made One of Us Knows really stand out. Ken and her alters each have their own distinct voices and I really enjoyed seeing the interactions between the headmates and learning more about the development and organisation of their inner world.

This is the first of Cole’s novels that I have read but, on the basis of One of Us Knows, I’d be very interested in reading more of her work. In addition to creating compelling characters, she handles discussions surrounding race, class, privilege, justice and, of course, the treatment of mental illness with sensitivity, and incorporates hefty themes into the novel without impacting upon either narrative pacing or characterisation.

Overall, One of Us Knows made for a compelling and unique thriller. The various plot strands and multiple narrators are well handled whilst the slower pace gave more time for the establishment of both the multiple narrators that co-exist within Kenetria’s inner world and the characters she is interacting with outside of it. With shades of contemporary gothic in the setting – and a hint of horror in the ghostly subplot – Alyssa Cole is clearly unafraid of flexing the boundaries of the thriller genre and I very much look forward to exploring both her backlist and whatever she publishes next!

One of Us Knows by Alyssa Cole is published by Harper360 and is available now from all good booksellers and online retailers including Hive, Waterstones, Bookshop.org, and Wordery.

If you can, please support a local indie bookshop by ordering from them either in person or online! Some of my favourites include Booka Bookshop, Sam Read Booksellers, Book-ish, Scarthin Books, Fox Lane Books, and Berts Books. 

My thanks go to the publisher for providing a copy of the book in return for an honest and unbiased review and Anne Cater from Random Things Tours for organising and inviting me onto this blog tour. The tour continues until 09 May 2024 please do check out the other stops for reviews and more content!

Reviews on The Shelf are free, honest, and unbiased and I don’t use affiliate links on my posts. However, if you enjoy the blog, please consider buying me a coffee on Ko-Fi!

BLOG TOUR REVIEW!!! Thirty Days of Darkness by Jenny Lund Madsen (Translated by Megan Turney)

Copenhagen author Hannah is the darling of the literary community and her novels have achieved massive critical acclaim. But nobody actually reads them, and frustrated by writer’ s block, Hannah has the feeling that she’ s doing something wrong.

When she expresses her contempt for genre fiction, Hanna is publicly challenged to write a crime novel in thirty days. Scared that she will lose face, she accepts, and her editor sends her to Húsafjöður – a quiet, tight-knit village in Iceland, filled with colourful local characters – for inspiration.

But two days after her arrival, the body of a fisherman’ s young son is pulled from the water…and what begins as a search for plot material quickly turns into a messy and dangerous investigation that threatens to uncover secrets that put everything at risk…including Hannah.

PhD life sometimes means that I have to pass up on book reviewing opportunities no matter how appealing they sound. When Jenny Lund Madsen’s Thirty Days of Darkness was published in hardback last year, I buried under a small mountain of marking and had to resist joining the blog tour despite the tantalising premise.

With the PhD nearing submission, things are no less frantic now but I have, apparently, reached the limits of my self-control and so gleefully signed up for the tour to celebrate the paperback publication of Madsen’s English-language debut. And I am SO glad that I did take the time out to read Thirty Days of Darkness because its brand of darkly comic satire was, apparently, just what I needed whilst mid-thesis edits and I gobbled the book up in a matter of days.

Thirty Days of Darkness introduces readers to ascerbic Danish author Hannah Krause-Bendix. Although a darling of the Copenhagen literary scene, Hannah knows full well that she writes the sort of books that are talked about more than they are read. Even worse, writing her latest novel has given her a distinct case of writer’s block, a messed-up sleep schedule, and a worrying alcohol dependency.

When Hannah expresses her contempt for genre fiction at a book fair, she is challenged to write a crime novel in thirty days and packed off to the remote Icelandic village of Húsafjöður to seek inspiration in the near-perpetual darkness and tight-knit community. What neither Hannah nor her editor expect, however, is for a body to be pulled from the water a mere two days after Hannah’s arrival. And once it becomes apparent that Thor’s death is no accident, Hannah’s search for a plot rapidly becomes a hunt for a killer.

The first thing that readers should probably be aware of going into Thirty Days of Darkness is that Hannah is thoroughly unlikeable as a character. Bitter, pretentious, and convinced of her own self-importance, she is – at the start of the novel – a hot mess of red wine and self-loathing. Normally, this would put me off a book entirely but, surprisingly, I found myself rooting for Hannah as the book progressed.

Partly this is because Jenny Lund Madsen delights in putting Hannah and her various neuroses through the proverbial wringer, exposing her novel’s ‘heroine’ to all her flaws, often in the most humiliating way possible. From falling off horses in front of her literary rival to throwing up in front of her (extremely patient) host, Hannah is going to have to go to some very low places to come back, but come back she does and, as she gradually takes down all the walls and descends from the pedestal she’s put herself on, her icy exterior begins to thaw. I’m still not sure that she’s ‘likeable’ but, by the end of the novel, I definitely felt that I understood her a little more and that she had developed as a person in interesting ways.

Hannah’s acidic personality is also balanced out by the characters around her. Húsafjöður is populated with a rather eccentric cast of characters and there is a wry knowingness to Madsen’s evocation of the ‘small Scandinavian town that is just begging for a murder to happen in it’. Thirty Days of Darkness plays with several crime genre and Scandi noir tropes, twisting expectations and sending regular knowing winks in the direction of the reader throughout. Satire’s reliance upon wordplay can make translation a challenge but Megan Turney has done a stellar job of conveying Madsen’s sarcastic wit.

As for the crime itself, well it’s suitably twisty and delightfully dark. Hannah is a delightfully inept investigator but, beneath the humour, there is a thrilling tale of secrets along with some genuinely thought-provoking musings about the ethical relationship between crime fiction and its real-life ‘inspirations’.

Thirty Days of Darkness is a challenging book to categorise. Readers expecting a run-of-the-mill Scandi Noir thriller are likely to be somewhat confused by the novel’s meta elements whilst those looking solely for satire could find the crime elements a little dark. Which is not to say the book isn’t great because it is. I thoroughly enjoyed it, despite it not being entirely what I expected. Although distinctly darker in tone, it reminded me of Anthony Horowitz’s Magpie Murders and his recent fourth-wall breaking ‘Hawthorne and Horowitz’ series, and also has shades of Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen’s The Rabbit Back Literature Society. For TV fans, there are definite shades of Twin Peaks and Fargo here too.

All in all, Thirty Days of Darkness confounded my expectations in all the best ways. It made me root for a thoroughly unlikeable heroine and laugh at the most inappropriate moments, all while keeping the pages turning. It’s unlike anything else I’ve read this year, something I think Hannah Krause-Bendix herself would probably be quite proud of!

Thirty Days of Darkness by Jenny Lund Madsen (translated by Megan Turney) is published in paperback by Orenda Books on 09 May 2024 and is available from all good booksellers and online retailers including Hive, Waterstones, Bookshop.org, and Wordery.

If you can, please support a local indie bookshop by ordering from them either in person or online! Some of my favourites include Booka Bookshop, Sam Read Booksellers, Book-ish, Scarthin Books, Fox Lane Books, and Berts Books. 

My thanks go to the publisher for providing a copy of the book in return for an honest and unbiased review and Anne Cater from Random Things Tours for organising and inviting me onto this blog tour. The tour continues until 17 May 2024 please do check out the other stops for reviews and more content!

Reviews on The Shelf are free, honest, and unbiased and I don’t use affiliate links on my posts. However, if you enjoy the blog, please consider buying me a coffee on Ko-Fi!

BLOG TOUR REVIEW!!! The Night in Question by Susan Fletcher

Florrie Butterfield – eighty-seven, one-legged and of a cheerful disposition – knows she has had the most of her life. There can’t, she believes, be any more adventures or surprises in a residential home.

Yet one midsummer’s evening, there’s an accident at Babbington Hall – so shocking and strange that Florrie is suspicious: is this really an accident? Or is she being lied to? Is she, in fact, living alongside a would-be murderer?

As she turns detective to try and find out the truth, Florrie is forced to look back on her own life, with all its passions and regrets; she must confront her own bloody secret – and, at last, confess. Above all, Florrie learns – through the help of her new friend, Stanhope – that when it comes to living the life you’ve always dreamed of, it’s never too late.

Very occasionally, a book comes along that just makes me happy. And I love them but I find them SO hard to review because all I want to do is go around pressing the book into people’s hands and muttering inanely about how it gave me all the warm-fuzzies and they should go read it right this minute, thank you very much. This happened with The Trouble with Goats and Sheep and Three Things About Elsie by Joanna Cannon, with Dear Mrs Bird by A J Pearce, and with The Lido by Libby Page and now it has happened again with The Night in Question by Susan Fletcher. Here: this book gave me all the warm-fuzzies, you should go and read it right this minute, thank you very much.

Seriously though, reading this book felt like being given a hug. Which isn’t to say that it’s a novel of fluff and marshmallows. Eighty-seven-year-old Florence ‘Florrie’ Butterfield might be one of the cheeriest characters I’ve had the pleasure of spending 400 pages in the company of but her life isn’t without its trials and tribulations. For starters, a moment of clumsiness involving a pan of mulled wine has led to the amputation of her leg and a rather sudden move to an assisted living facility called Babbington Hall. Which isn’t too bad in and of itself except that there have been two ‘incidents’ at Babbington in the space of a few weeks and Florrie is beginning to suspect neither of them are entirely accidental.

Did Arthur Potts really trip and fall so suddenly? And why would manageress Renata Green – who only that morning had professed to Florrie that she was in love – suddenly throw herself out of a third-floor window? Florrie might be kindly but she’s no secret to the mysteries of the human heart and, as she begins to investigate, she traces over the incidents in her own life – and the secrets that she has kept – that have led her to Babbington Hall. Before working out what really happened to Arthur and Renata, Florrie will have revisited the loves and losses of her long and eventful life. And, eventually, she’ll have to revisit the scars on her hands, the London business, and the long reach of the past.

Florrie was, for me, the beating heart of The Night in Question. She’s full of life and her gentle, soothing voice smoothly moved me between the past and the present of the narrative. Florrie’s story is not told quickly – for all that the plot and setting invite Thursday Murder Club comparisons, The Night in Question is a more sedate and contemplative beast – but it was, for me, no less compelling. As the story unfolded, I found myself wanting to know more about Florrie and the fascinating life she had led just as much as I wanted to know what had really happened to Arthur and Renata.

Which is not to say that I didn’t want to know what happened to Arthur and Renata. The residents of Babbington Hall are a motley crew and meeting them was one of the novel’s other delights. From the gossipy Ellwood sisters, whose room is conveniently located right next to the Hall’s reception area, to quietly decent Stanhope Jones, who soon becomes Florrie’s investigative partner, Babbington Hall is full of character. Florrie’s past is similarly populated and I soon felt as if I knew Pinky Underwood, Victor Plumley, and Middle Morag almost as well as Florrie did.

The Night in Question is difficult to categorise. It’s beautifully written and reflective but I wouldn’t say it’s a literary novel. It centres on the saga of a life and a family but isn’t a family saga. It undoubtedly features at least one crime but I don’t think it quite fits the crime fiction bill either. And its warm and cosy and filled with heart but also touches on distressing topics including grief, terminal illness, homophobia, PTSD, medical trauma, war, injury, disability, ageism, mortality, and forced adoption.

Which returns me to my original feelings. The Night in Question gave me all the warm-fuzzies. If you like the sound of that, you should go and read it right this minute. Thank you very much.

The Night in Question by Susan Fletcher is published by Bantam Press and is available now from all good booksellers and online retailers including Hive, Waterstones, Bookshop.org, and Wordery.

If you can, please support a local indie bookshop by ordering from them either in person or online! Some of my favourites include Booka Bookshop, Sam Read Booksellers, Book-ish, Scarthin Books, Fox Lane Books, and Berts Books. 

My thanks go to the publisher for providing a copy of the book in return for an honest and unbiased review and Anne Cater from Random Things Tours for organising and inviting me onto this blog tour. The tour continues until 08 May 2024 please do check out the other stops for reviews and more content!

Reviews on The Shelf are free, honest, and unbiased and I don’t use affiliate links on my posts. However, if you enjoy the blog, please consider buying me a coffee on Ko-Fi!

BLOG TOUR SPOTLIGHT!!! Guns and Almond Milk by Mustafa Marwan

I’m delighted to be back with another Write Reads blog tour today and this time I’m spotlighting a literary thriller set in the UK and Yemen.

About the Book

Meet Luke Archer, a British Egyptian doctor who struggles to be from two worlds at the same time. He’s working in one of the world’s most dangerous hospitals in Yemen.

When rebel forces take over the city, a group of Western mercenaries take refuge inside the hospital and Luke and his team find themselves in the middle of a deadly clash. To make matters worse, leading the mercenaries is an unwelcome figure from Luke’s past.

After years saving the lives of others, Luke needs to face the demons of his past in order to save his own.

Set in the UK and Yemen, Guns and Almond Milk is a literary thriller that deals with identity, diversity and old coins of arguable value. It’s The Sympathizer mixed with M.A.S.H by the way of Ramy.

About the Author

Mustafa Marwan is an Egyptian writer, aid worker and trainer.

He has over a decade of humanitarian experience in more than a dozen conflict zones around the world—including most Arab Spring countries at the heights, and lows, of their uprisings.

His Page Turner Award finalist debut, Guns and Almond Milk, was published on 20 February 2024 from Interlink and is distributed by Simon & Schuster.

Mustafa likes neo-noir, dark humour and books that strike the magical balance between the literary and the commercial.

Find Out More!

You can find out more about Mustafa and his work by visiting his website, and by following him on Twitter/X @mustafamarwan. You can also follow Simon and Schuster on Twitter/X @simonschusterUK.

Guns and Almond Milk by Mustafa Marwan is published by Simon and Schuster and is available now from all good booksellers and online retailers including Hive, Waterstones, Bookshop.org, and Wordery.

My thanks go to The Write Reads for organising and inviting me onto this blog tour! Follow the hashtag #TheWriteReads and @The_WriteReads for more reviews and spotlights.

Reviews and features on The Shelf are free, honest, and unbiased and I don’t use affiliate links on my posts. However, if you enjoy the blog, please consider buying me a coffee on Ko-Fi!

ULTIMATE BLOG TOUR REVIEW!!! Red Runs the Witch’s Thread by Victoria Williamson

Paisley, Scotland, 1697. Thirty-five people accused of witchcraft. Seven condemned to death. Six strangled and burned at the stake. All accused by eleven-year-old Christian Shaw.

Bargarran House, 1722. Christian Shaw returns home, spending every waking hour perfecting the thread bleaching process that will revive her family’s fortune. If only she can make it white enough, perhaps her past sins will be purified too. But dark forces are at work. As the twenty-fifth anniversary of the witch burnings approaches, ravens circle Bargarran House, their wild cries stirring memories and triggering visions.

As Christian’s mind begins to unravel, her states of delusion threaten the safety of all those who cross her path. In the end she must make a terrible her mind or her soul? Poverty and madness, or a devil’s bargain for the bleaching process that will make her the most successful businesswoman Paisley has ever seen?

Her fate hangs by a thread. Which will she choose?

One of the best things about being a book blogger is discovering ‘new to you’ authors and Victoria Williamson is rapidly becoming one of my favourite discoveries!

Best known for her young adult fiction, Red Runs the Witch’s Thread is Victoria’s second adult novella. Like her first – The Haunting Scent of Poppies – Red Runs the Witch’s Thread is a chilling tale with more than a hint of the supernatural.

Set over two time periods, Red Runs the Witch’s Thread follows Christian Shaw as she attempts to perfect a new thread-dying process. From the outset, it is clear that all is not well with Christian. She is plagued by strange visions filled with the colour red. And above Bargarran House, the ever-present ravens are increasing their watchful presence.

It soon becomes apparent that Christian’s visions are a link to her past. To the fateful days after her youngest sister was born: when the red rag tied to the bed signalled the end of Christian’s childhood and a condemned woman’s curse rang out from the Gallows Green. Try as she might to hide it, the ghosts of Christian’s past are coming back to haunt her. And if she doesn’t confront them, they might take her family’s future with them to the grave.

Based upon the real-life witch trials that took place in Paisley in 1697, Red Runs the Witch’s Thread conveys a chilling period when poverty and curiosity could lead to suspicion and rumour was enough to condemn. Although heavily fictionalised, Victoria Williamson has clearly done her research into the tragic history of the Scottish witch trials and the novella has a fantastic sense of both time and place.

My only critique of the novella is Christian herself. The mistress of Bargarran House is a hard woman to like and, whilst I could empathise with elements of her childish confusion, the consequences of that were so horrific that any sympathy I had for her vanished fairly rapidly. Whilst a reason is suggested for Christian’s behaviour, this was rather opaque and I was left uncertain of the exact motivations for her actions in places.

My dislike of the main character did not stop me enjoying the novella’s invocation of seventeenth-century Scotland, however. I was fascinated to learn more about the thread-dying process and thought the novella weaved together history and fiction really well.

Overall, Red Runs the Witch’s Thread is another fantastic read from Victoria Williamson and one that fans of gothic storytelling are sure to enjoy.

Red Runs the Witch’s Thread by Victoria Williamson is published by Silver Thistle Press and is available now in paperback and on Kindle from Amazon.

If you can, please support a local indie bookshop by ordering from them either in person or online! Some of my favourites include Booka Bookshop, Sam Read Booksellers, Book-ish, Scarthin Books, Fox Lane Books, and Berts Books. 

My thanks go to the publisher for providing a copy of the book in return for an honest and unbiased review and to The Write Reads for organising and inviting me onto this blog tour. The tour continues until 19 April 2024 so please do check out the other stops using the #TheWriteReads #UltimateBlogTour for more reviews and content!

Reviews on The Shelf are free, honest, and unbiased and I don’t use affiliate links on my posts. However, if you enjoy the blog, please consider buying me a coffee on Ko-Fi!

BOOK TAG!!! The Quarter Year Crisis Book Tag

It’s been a while since I did a book tag so I was delighted when BooksAre42 tagged me in the Quarter Year Crisis Book tag. This tag seemed like a great opportunity to check in on my reading for 2024, and to tell you a little bit about some of the other things that have been part of my reading life this year. This tag was created by Roisin’s Reading over on BookTube.

I’m not going to formally tag anyone in this post but, if you read this and would like to have a go at this tag, I’ll post a clean copy of the questions at the end of this post. Please do tag me (and the original tag creator) if you decide to take on the tag as I’d love to read your responses!

Now, let’s get to having that Quarter Year Crisis shall we?

How many books have you read so far?

I’ve read 21 books so far in 2024. This is considerably less than I’d read at the same point last year but I’m not too surprised about that. I’m in the final stages of my PhD in English Literature so I’m currently preparing my thesis for submission, alongside several part-time job roles. Two of my part-time roles involve teaching so, between that and the PhD, I’ve been doing a lot of reading for work and considerably less reading for pleasure. So what I should probably say is that, given I don’t usually track the academic texts and obscure bits of eighteenth-century literature that I read for ‘work’ on Goodreads, I’ve read 21 books purely for entertainment this year. And I’ll take that as a win given everything else that’s going on!

Have you found a book that you think might be a 2024 favourite?

Yes! My first read of the year was Starling House by Alix E. Harrow and I really enjoyed its blend of gothic mystery and ‘two-halves-of-a-whole-idiot-catch-feelings’ romance. I’m keen to read more books by this author so I have The Ten Thousand Doors of January on my shelf and am hoping to get to it in the not-too-distant future. I’d also welcome book recommendations for readalikes so if anyone has them, please do drop them in the comments below!

I’m also currently reading The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton and think it might be another contender. I loved both Stuart’s previous books – The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle and The Devil and the Dark Water – and, by what I’ve read so far, this is going to be another ingeniously plotted mystery with a unique twist. Expect a full review in the near future.

Any least favourite book of the year?

I don’t really go in for least favourites. Although there have been books that didn’t wholly fulfil my expectations, I generally give myself permission to DNF books that I’m not enjoying.

That said, there have been one or two books that have been ‘right book, wrong time’ books this year. The PhD isn’t leaving a huge amount of brain space and, as a result, my tolerance for literary fiction has definitely reduced. I’ve attempted to read both The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell and The Fraud by Zadie Smith this year but have found myself returning them to the shelf unfinished. I’m sure they’ll both prove to be excellent reads once I’ve got the brain capacity to fully enjoy them but that time is likely to be after the thesis has been submitted!

Most read genre?

It will come as no surprise to anyone who regularly reads this blog that my most read genre of the year is mystery. It’s my go-to comfort genre, especially when I need to just switch off and relax. My most recent mystery read was A Very Lively Murder by Katy Watson, which I thoroughly enjoyed!

A book that surprised me?

Honestly, Starling House was a real surprise. I don’t always get on with fantasy novels so I was a bit suspicious about whether I’d gel with a book that had such strong magical realist elements. It’s definitely a book that has made me rethink my reading relationship to fantasy and magical realism as a genre.

A book that has come out in 2024 that I haven’t yet read?

As usual, the pace of my book acquisition has vastly outpaced the pace of my reading in 2024! There are several 2024 releases on my TBR pile including The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey, The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown, The Beholders by Hester Musson, A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizal, and The Book Forger by Joseph Hone.

One goal you made that you’re succeeding at?

Completing my PhD?! Honestly, although I’m reading less I’m also putting myself under less pressure to read when I’m not feeling it. Not only does this mean I’ve been able to spend time on some other long-neglected hobbies (namely working through my gaming backlog) but I think I’m enjoying the time that I spend with the books I do read more. So I guess I’m succeeding at the goal of being a little kinder in my reading life.

One goal that you need to focus on?

I stopped setting formal reading goals a couple of years ago. I set an annual Goodreads goal (52 books) but, beyond that, I find them something of a deterrent to a healthy reading practice. So in that spirit, my goal is simply to keep reading!

The Questions!

• How many books have you read so far?
• Have you found a book that you think might be a 2024 favourite?
• Any least favourite book of the year?
• Most read genre?
• A book that surprised me?
• A book that has come out in 2024 that I haven’t yet read?
• One goal you made that you’re succeeding at?
• One goal that you need to focus on?

All of the books mentioned in this post can be purchased from your nearest bookseller or online retailer. If you can, please support a local indie bookshop by ordering from them either in person or online! Some of my favourites include Booka Bookshop, The Big Green Bookshop, Sam Read Booksellers, Book-ish, Scarthin Books, and Berts Books. 

Reviews on The Shelf are free, honest, and unbiased and I don’t use affiliate links on my posts. However, if you enjoy the blog, please consider buying me a coffee on Ko-Fi!

REVIEW!!! A Very Lively Murder by Katy Watson

Ex-child star Posy Starling is finally filming her dream role – Dahlia Lively in The Lady Detective movie. But things take a nightmare turn when a prop weapon is replaced with the real thing – with almost fatal consequences for her fellow Dahlia, Rosalind King. There’s something very wrong on the set of The Lady Detective – which means it’s time to call in Caro Hooper, so the three Dahlias can investigate.

In between filming scenes, signing autographs for locals, photoshoots in London, talk show appearances and jetting off to France for an impromptu party, the three Dahlias do what they do best – surreptitiously sleuth. And very soon the evidence starts to point towards one particular co-star…

But before they can prove it, another murder rocks the production. And this time, with a storm raging, the river flooded and the bridge washed out, there are no police to rely on so it’s up to the three Dahlias to stop a murderer in their tracks… before another victim is claimed.

Having thoroughly enjoyed the first Three Dahlias mystery when I read it on holiday last year, I was excited to pick up A Very Lively Murder, the second book in the series.

After unmasking a murderer at Aldermere the previous summer, filming has finally begun on The Lady Detective: the movie that promises to re-start former child star Posy Starling’s career. But when an attempt is made upon the life of her fellow Dahlia, Rosalind King, Posy once again finds herself needing to inhabit the role of the Lady Detective in real life as well as on screen.

Calling once again upon the aid of their third Dahlia, Caro Hooper, the three Dahlias begin to investigate the threats upon Rosalind’s life. But before long, one of Posy and Rosalind’s co-stars is dead and the threats are the least of their worries…

Alongside the various day jobs, I’m currently in the middle of preparing my PhD for submission and my reading life has, understandably, taken a bit of a hit as a result. I have to do a lot of reading for work and, I won’t lie, its been infinitely more tempting to pick up a controller or a remote than a book in my downtime over the last few months. So it is a testament to A Very Lively Murder that I was utterly compelled by the narrative, finishing the book over the course of a weekend.

As with The Three Dahlias, the dynamic between the three leads is extremely enjoyable, with each of the them bringing their own skills, experiences, and vulnerabilities to the investigation. Although the central mystery is standalone, it was also nice to see some returning characters from the first book in the series, and to get a little more background and character development to the Dahlias themselves.

A Very Lively Murder sees Posy wrestling with taking on the mantle of Dahlia Lively (whilst also wrestling with her burgeoning relationship with co-star Kit Lewis), Rosalind rekindling an old friendship with the potential to become something more, and Caro trying to find out what comes next now that her own Dahlia Lively days – at least on screen – are behind her.

These personal subplots combine with a hefty dose of red herrings and unexpected twists to keep the pages turning. I also really loved the way in which the book dealt with the double standards of the film industry from the perspective of three women at very different stages of life. Whilst remaining firmly within the ‘cosy’ sub-genre, readers should also be advised that the mystery does touch on some difficult topics including sexual assault, suicide, stalking, obsession, and infidelity.

Overall, however, this is a well-crafted, pacy read packed with misdirection and mystery, and with just a dash of humour thrown in to keep the mood light. It made for perfect ‘get-away-from-the-PhD’ reading and, on the space of this entry, I very much look forward to seeing what the three Dahlia’s get up to next!

A Very Lively Murder by Katy Watson is published by Constable and is available now from all good bookseller and online retailers including Hive, Bookshop.org, Waterstones, and Wordery. My thanks go to the publisher and to NetGalley UK for providing an e-copy of the book in return for an honest and unbiased review.

If you can, please support a local indie bookshop by ordering from them either in person or online! Some of my favourites include Booka Bookshop, The Big Green Bookshop, Sam Read Booksellers, Book-ish, Scarthin Books, and Berts Books. 

Reviews on The Shelf are free, honest, and unbiased and I don’t use affiliate links on my posts. However, if you enjoy the blog, please consider buying me a coffee on Ko-Fi!