by Heather Young

SYNOPSIS

A body burns in the desert… Does the boy who found it know more than it seems?

Sal Prentiss, orphaned and burdened with a terrible secret, just wants a place to belong. Sal lives with his uncles on adesolate ranch in the hills, and finds himself at the centre of a brutal murder mystery when he discovers the body of hismaths teacher, charred almost beyond recognition, half a mile from his uncles’ compound.

In the seven months he worked at Lovelock’s middle school, the quiet and seemingly unremarkable Adam Merkel had formed a bond with Sal and was one of the few people to look out for the boy.

Nora Wheaton, the school’s social studies teacher, sensed a kindred spirit in Adam – another soul bound to Lovelock by guilt and duty. After his death, she delves into his past for clues to who killed him. For Sal’s grief seems shaded with fear, and Nora suspects he knows more than he’s telling about his teacher’s death.

MY REVIEW

I loved Heather’s debut, The Lost Girls, so snapped the publisher’s hands off when i was offered an early copy of this. Thank you Lisa at Verve Books!

The book is written in alternating chapters from Nora and Sal, with a few chapters from Jake.

Adam Merkel. Teacher. Loner. Burned to death not far from the Prentiss home at Marzen. He moved to Lovelock 7 months ago to teach maths. Unusual, as it is a small town where everyone knows everyone and new people don’t move in. Existing residents rarely away.

Sal Prentiss. Age 11, finds the body and reports it to Jake at the fire station. There  is no police station in the small town. Jake has looked out for Sal since his mother, Grace, died. Sal didn’t fit in at school and Merkel took him under his wing and they formed a bond, eating their lunch together in Merkel’s classroom and Merkel teaching Sal chess. Sal lives with his 2 uncles off the grid in state of poverty. Underfed, poorly clothed and tired looking his uncles are not taking good care of him. 

Nora is a teacher at the school and looks after her father who is an alcoholic, struggling day to day with the memory of killing his son in a car accident when they were both drunk. She resents her father for her brother’s death and is planning to get away as soon as he dies. Nora was about the closest member of staff to Adam although she didn’t really know him. After his murder she begins her own investigation into his life before he moved to the town. She uncovers a dreadful secret he is living with.

As we are taken back to before the murder, the events are pieced together with a few twists along the way until we reach the reveal at the very end of what happened that night.

A brilliantly dark but compelling page turner. Realistically written characters;  most of them not very nice people. Most of them hiding secrets. There is a drugs theme running through the book which adds to the sense of desperation. I enjoyed learning a few things from Mr Merkel, as well as a little of the history of The First People who moved to the area thousands of years ago.

This is Heather’s second book and I also thoroughly enjoyed her debut, The Lost Girls. Both are a definite recommendation.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Heather is the author of two novels. Her debut, The Lost Girls, won the Strand Award for Best First Novel and was nominated for an Edgar Award for Best First Novel. Her second novel, The Distant Dead, was nominated for an Edgar Award for Best Novel and named one of the ten best mystery/suspense books of 2020 by Booklist. A former antitrust and intellectual property litigator, she traded the legal world for the literary one and earned her MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars in 2011. She lives in Mill Valley, California, where she writes, bikes, hikes, and reads books by other people that she wishes she’d written.

by V L Valentine

SYNOPSIS
Winter 1954, and in a dilapidated apartment in Brooklyn, Sam Cooper realises that she has nothing left. Her mother is dead, she has no prospects, and she cannot afford the rent. But as she goes through her mother’s things, Sam finds a stack of hidden letters that reveal a family and an inheritance that she never knew she had, three thousand miles away in Yorkshire.

Begars Abbey is a crumbling pile, inhabited only by Lady Cooper, Sam’s ailing grandmother, and a handful of servants. Sam cannot understand why her mother kept its very existence a secret, but her newly discovered diaries offer a glimpse of a young girl growing increasingly terrified. As is Sam herself.

Built on the foundations of an old convent, Begars moves and sings with the biting wind. Her grandmother cannot speak, and a shadowy woman moves along the corridors at night. There are dark places in the hidden tunnels beneath Begars. And they will not give up their secrets easily…

MY REVIEW

What the???? OMG THAT ENDING!!!

Sam lives in Brooklyn with her mother. In a run down rented apartment block and with very little money.

When her mother, Vera, dies, Sam begins looking through their apartment for things her mother may have hidden including the box of ‘fake’ jewels she often hid from Sam. Sam is surprised to find a box of letters. It looks like a letter was sent to her mum from a firm of solicitors in England every year, dating back to before Sam was born. 

Sam contacts the solicitor and although they try to convince her not to come, they send her the funds to enable her travel to England. She wishes to visit the house her mother was brought up in and where her grandmother still lives. Her mother had never once mentioned her life before Sam was born.

Sam has a lot of questions she wants answers to. Why had her mother left England when she was only 17? Was her family rich? If so why had Sam and her mother lived like paupers all Sam’s life?

On her arrival in York, Alec, one of the solicitors, takes her to Begars Abbey although it is obvious he detests the place. The snow is coming down heavily and when they approach the house Sam sees a woman walking towards the car. 

Only there was no woman.

The spooky atmosphere continues throughout the book as Sam sees and hears strange things in the house. 

The house is barely habitable. There is no heating and the telephone is not working. There are only a few people now living there. The old housekeeper Mrs Pritchett who appears to be losing her mind, Lady Cooper, Sam’s grandmother, wheelchair bound and unable to speak. A young maid, Ivy and a night nurse, Nesta.

When Sam finds some old diaries hidden in her mother’s old bedroom, she begins to  explore the house, a former nunnery, and piece together the secrets the family are keeping and the reason for her mother’s abrupt departure and years of silence.

She finds a hidden room which was described in Vera’s diary as the chamber used by the prioress. There is access to the very spooky crypt beneath the house, through a hidden panel behind an old tapestry. Where is the ‘cell’ Vera talked about?  Did her grandmother really keep children imprisoned in this cell?

The tension builds and builds as bit by bit Sam unravels the clues to the past found in the diaries.

This haunting tale is a must read. But not in the dark!

I loved the way the tension built and those revelations at the end! I was glued to the pages. Fabulous well developed characters which jumped off the page.  Just brilliant!

Thank you so much Viper Books for letting me take part in the blog tour for this deliciously gothic ghosty tale.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

V.L. Valentine is a senior science editor at National Public Radio in Washington, D.C., where she has led award-winning coverage of global disease outbreaks including the coronavirus, Ebola and the Zika virus. She has a master’s in the history of medicine from University College London and her non-fiction work has been published by NPR, The New York Times, The Smithsonian Channel and Science Magazine. Her debut novel, The Plague Letters, was published in 2021.

by Brian Price

Publication Date: 12/4/22

Publisher: Hobeck Books

382 gripping pages!

SYNOPSIS

DC Mel Cotton is back with a brand new case, the murder of Duncan Bennett. But who would want an unassuming warehouse worker dead?

The case soon becomes far more complex and dangerous, with terrorists, a paedophile network and a hitman in town. And against a background of rising hatred and violence, one woman pursues her deadly revenge.

Mel and her colleagues face their greatest challenge yet. Mel’s own courage will be tested to the limits. No-one is safe.

MY REVIEW

I am posting my review today as part of the blog tour.

The book begins with a prologue, and I do love a prologue, which sets the scene for the book. We begin in 2010 where Jeannie begins her plan to seek revenge against 2 brothers for her sisters death

We move forward 10 years to 2020 and Jeannie has put her plan into action.

At the same time, a man from her workplace is found murdered. DI Emma Thorpe begins an investigation into his death, but has no idea how complicated this investigation will become.

There are many crimes and threads throughout this story, and they do not initially appear to be related, but by the end of the book everything is tied up neatly.

I found this an extremely well planned police procedural. It is not a book which can be read in a hurry as there is a lot to take on board. The book covers many topics including far right groups, terrorism, murder, a hitman, bomb making, child abuse, drug trafficking, money laundering the list goes on and shows how crimes can all be related.

I enjoyed the book and would definitely recommend it to readers who like to get stuck into a complex thriller.

by Anna Enquist

Translated by Eileen Stevens

SYNOPSIS

n internationally bestselling, award-winning novel peering deep into the passions, losses, and reveries of the wife of eighteenth-century explorer Captain James Cook.

After twelve years of marriage to English explorer James Cook, Elizabeth has yet to spend an entire year with her husband. In their house by the Thames, she moves to the rhythms of her life as a society wife, but there is so much more to her than meets the eye. She has the fortitude to manage the house and garden, raise their children, and face unbearable sorrow by herself—in fact, she is sometimes in thrall to her own independence.

As she prepares for another homecoming, Elizabeth looks forward to James’s triumphant return and the work she will undertake reading and editing his voluminous journals. But will the private life she’s been leading in his absence distract her from her role in aid of her husband’s grand ambitions? Can James find the compassion to support her as their family faces unimaginable loss, or must she endure life alone as he sails off toward another adventure?

An intimate and sharply observed novel, The Homecoming is as revelatory as James Cook’s exploration of distant frontiers and as richly rewarding as Elizabeth’s love for her family. With courage and strength, through recollection and imagination, author Anna Enquist brilliantly narrates Elizabeth’s compelling record of her life, painting a psychological portrait of an independent woman ahead of her time and closely acquainted with history.

MY REVIEW

A gripping read. 

Narrated by Elizabeth Cook, we find she has had a difficult life, bringing her children up whilst James is off on his many voyages of discovery sailing the world, charting and naming new countries and picking up foreign items such as materials and plants to bring back to England.

As was quite usual for the time, she lost two babies in infancy which was very sad and then her 4 year old daughter is killed outside their home when Elizabeth isn’t watching her. She is devastated by the loss of her daughter and blames herself. When James returns from his latest voyage he tries to console her by telling her ‘disasters happen. You can’t always anticipate them’ as he has been trying to believe himself having lost 30 men on his latest voyage, blaming himself for an illness picked up when he decided to stop at Batavia.

They have two older sons, both preparing to go to naval college and follow in their fathers footsteps as there is no other option for them.

With the birth of a new baby boy, James tells Elizabeth he will stay at home, but the sea beckons and he finds himself agreeing to one last voyage to explore and chart the northern hemisphere. 

Elizabeth believes he will change his mind at the last minute as her plans are to have him stay at home with his family now he is getting older and not in the best health. 

Sadly this change of mind has devastating consequences.

Elizabeth comes across as a strong woman but does lose her way when her daughter is killed. She had a difficult life, one mirrored by many women who’s husbands went on the voyages with her husband.

The book was well written and translated and I thoroughly enjoyed it. 

I was particularly interested in reading about James and Elizabeth Cook having visited the James Cook museum frequently when I was young as it was just up the road from my nan’s house in Middlesbrough where Cook was born.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Anna Enquist studied piano at the academy of music in The Hague and psychology at Leiden University. She is the author of the novels The Masterpiece; The Secret, winner of the 1997 Dutch Book of the Year awarded by the public; The Ice Carriers; Counterpoint; Quartet; and the international bestseller The Homecoming, which received the Prix du Livre Corderie Royale-Hermione for its French translation. Anna is also the author of A Leap, a collection of dramatic monologues, as well as numerous poetry collections, including Soldiers’ Songs, for which she was awarded the C. Buddingh’ Prize; A New Goodbye; and Hunting Scenes, winner of the Lucy B. and C.W. van der Hoogt Prize.

by Phaedra Patrick

SYNOPSIS

It’s never too late to start a new chapter…

The utterly charming and feel-good new novel from the bestselling author of The Secrets of Sunshine and The Library of Lost and Found. 

Liv Green loves losing herself in a good book. But her everyday reality is less romantic, cleaning houses for people who barely give her the time of day. So when she lands a job housekeeping for her personal hero and mega-bestselling author Essie Starling, she can’t believe her luck.

When Essie dies unexpectedly, Liv is left with a life-changing last wish: to complete Essie’s final novel. To do so, change-averse Liv will have to step away from the fictitious worlds in her head, and into Essie’s shoes. As she begins to write, she uncovers a surprising connection between the two women – and a secret that will change Liv’s life forever…

MY REVIEW

What a pleasure to be joining the blog tour for this wonderful book. It appears to be a book about a reclusive author, Essie Starling, who hasn’t been seen in public for a decade, and her cleaner, Liv but it is so much deeper than it first appears.

Liv, has been a huge fan and has been reading Essie’s books for 30 years. Essie has written 19 so far all centred around her protagonist Georgia Rory. This strong female fictional character has been an inspiration to Liv, as well as Essie’s many fans, helping them through difficult times in their lives. 

Liv has always wanted to write but has put it to the back of her mind. Her father had been an English teacher and always encouraged her writing. Sadly he died in a freak accident many years ago. As a busy mum Liv had her family to bring up and had multiple cleaning jobs to help make ends meet. She left school at 16 to help her widowed mother and has always felt she is looked down on.

One day whilst cleaning, Liz finds a dog eared manuscript of book 20 which has not been published. In fact it hasn’t even been finished. The last few books have not been as good and Liv wonders if Essie had fallen out of love with writing about Georgia. 

When Essie suddenly and unexpectedly dies, Liv finds she has left a note with her solicitor saying she wants Liv to finish her last book. And she wants her death to be kept secret until it is published. Can Liv do that? 

When mooching around the empty apartment, Liv finds a little green box underneath Elspeth‘s pillow and inside is a pair of cufflinks shaped like bees. Who were they for? Who was the secret love of Essie’s life? 

The story toddles along nicely with Liz struggling to finish the book, at the same time questioning her own life and relationship with her husband.

Then boom! A huge revelation happens! Then the book takes a completely different direction.

I enjoyed this book very much. Tugged at the heart strings and oh yes there were tears! 

I was frantically turning the pages towards the end as I couldn’t wait to find out whether Liz would finish the book and also find Essie’s one true love. 

I thought Liz’s character was very well written. She reflected how many women feel after years of ‘just’ being a mum and wife and almost losing their own identity and dreams. Plus the looming despair of the empty nest. Also it touched on society’s tendency to look down on people with what appear to some as ‘menial’ jobs, but these people are actually the backbone of society. 

Thank you HQ for my spot on the tour and my NetGalley copy of the book

by Lizzie Damilola Blackburn

My rating 4 🌟🌟🌟🌟

Due out 31/3/22 in HB and ebook

Published by Viking – an imprint of Penguin Random Hoise

SYNOPSIS

Yinka wants to find love. Her mum wants to find it for her.

She also has too many aunties who frequently pray for her delivery from singledom, a preference for chicken and chips over traditional Nigerian food, and a bum she’s sure is far too small as a result. Oh, and the fact that she’s a thirty-one-year-old South-Londoner who doesn’t believe in sex before marriage is a bit of an obstacle too…

When her cousin gets engaged, Yinka commences ‘Operation Find A Date for Rachel’s Wedding’. Armed with a totally flawless, incredibly specific plan, will Yinka find herself a huzband?

What if the thing she really needs to find is herself?

MY REVIEW

I am posting my review today for my spot on the blog tour.

It was such a pleasure to get to know Yinka. This book was funny, sad but overall a lesson in how to love yourself just as you are and not to change who you are for anyone.

Yinka has been dumped by her long time boyfriend and now she has a problem. Her cousin is getting married in a few months and Yinka needs a boyfriend to take! Her mother and aunties are constantly pressuring her to find a ’huzband’ after all she is 31 now!

To add to her problems she has just been made redundant but accidentally told her mother she has been promoted. How hard can it be to find another job? after all Yinka has an Oxford degree!

Yinka goes on a number of disastrous dates. Sadly, she feels she is too Black for anyone to fall for her. Her ex comes back from America on a visit with his new lighter skinned fiancee. One of her potential dates even said to her he prefers lighter coloured girls. And to add to her negative opinion of herself she has a J shaped bum!

Yinka feels even her friends are starting to turn against her.

In order to find love, she feels she will have to change, all she has to do is love herself exactly as she is. Will she ever realise that?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lizzie Damilola Blackburn, born and raised in London, is a British-Nigerian writer who has been at the receiving end of the question in the title of her novel many times, and now lives with her husband in Milton Keynes, England

by Jesse Sutanto

MY RATING 5 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Publication date 29/3/22

SYNOPSIS

The aunties are back, fiercer than ever and ready to handle any catastrophe–even the mafia–in this delightful and hilarious sequel by Jesse Q. Sutanto, author of Dial A for Aunties.

Meddy Chan has been to countless weddings, but she never imagined how her own would turn out. Now the day has arrived, and she can’t wait to marry her college sweetheart, Nathan. Instead of having Ma and the aunts cater to her wedding, Meddy wants them to enjoy the day as guests. As a compromise, they find the perfect wedding vendors: a Chinese-Indonesian family-run company just like theirs. Meddy is hesitant at first, but she hits it off right away with the wedding photographer, Staphanie, who reminds Meddy of herself, down to the unfortunately misspelled name.Meddy realizes that is where their similarities end, however, when she overhears Staphanie talking about taking out a target. Horrified, Meddy can’t believe Staphanie and her family aren’t just like her own, they are The Family–actual mafia, and they’re using Meddy’s wedding as a chance to conduct shady business. Her aunties and mother won’t let Meddy’s wedding ceremony become a murder scene–over their dead bodies–and will do whatever it takes to save her special day, even if it means taking on the mafia.

MY REVIEW

Dial A For Aunties was my favourite book of 2021 so I was very excited to get my hands on an advance copy of the second book and find out what Meddy and her hilarious Aunties get up to next.

I was not disappointed! Four Aunties and a Wedding is another rip-roaring laugh out loud comedy from the hugely talented Jesse Sutanto.

You would think one disastrous wedding, complete with a dead body, is enough bad luck for any family.

You would be wrong! In the second book of the totally brilliant Aunties series, Meddy and her aunties find out they have inadvertently employed a mafia family to be the wedding coordinators. And it appears they have plans to murder someone at Meddy and Nathan’s wedding!

And Meddy thought her biggest problem was the neon purple outfits with the fascinators, each topped by a posed Komodo dragon, all her aunties would be wearing!

I would recommend that you read Dial A for Aunties before this second book although it can be read as a stand alone.

Totally hilarious. The larger than life Aunties with their big personalities just jump off the page.

Very very highly recommended.

Thank you HQ for my spot on the tour and my advance Ebook.

by Katie Fforde

SYNOPSIS

1963, a chateau in Provence.

It’s late afternoon when Alexandra arrives, and the chateau before her is old, substantial and its four large towers seem to grow out of the soil. It is, she thinks, reassuring in its permanence and solidity.

Less reassuring are the three silent, rather hostile children waiting for her inside. They are to be her charges for a month: a boy and two girls badly in need of some love, attention, and an English education.

Fresh from London and a recent cookery course, Alexandra has always loved a challenge and feels equipped to deal with most things life throws her.

What she is a good deal less sure about is whether she’ll be able to cope with their father – an impossibly good-looking, entirely unsuitable French count with whom she is trying very hard not to fall in love . . .

MY REVIEW 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Thank you so much Sarah Harwood at Harwood PR for sending me a copy of the book to review.

A big slice of romantic escapism!

Alexandra is on her way from London to finishing school in Switzerland when she stops off in Paris for 24 hours. Whilst sightseeing she meets Donna. Alexandra comes to Donna’s rescue as her bag of shopping splits and she helps her to carry the escaped vegetables! Little does Alexandra know this small Good Samaritan act will change the trajectory of her life.

Having decided, at Donna’s insistence, to spend a little longer than the planned 24 hours in Paris, Donna tells her about a job in Paris an acquaintance is looking to fill. When she goes for the interview she has to lie about her age as it is for a nanny position to three children and she is only 20! The only nannying experience she has had is that of her own nannies who brought her up after her parents died.

The job turns out to be in Provence, in a chateau and somehow Alexandra gets the job and finds herself face to face with three children, 2 of which definitely do not want a nanny! Think Sound of Music. Alexandra manages to settle into life in her temporary position at the château. Then Antoine, the children’s father, returns from a business trip and it is love at first sight for Alexandra. 

Oh and Alexandra is an heiress to a fortune which she will receive when she turns 25. Or when she marries if before then.

A wonderful cast of colourful characters all so brilliantly written. Loved them all, even the evil ones! 

Out now from Century Books.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Katie Fforde lives in the beautiful Cotswold countryside with her family, and is a true country girl at heart. Each of her books explores a different profession or background and her research has helped her bring these to life. She’s been a porter in an auction house, tried her hand at pottery, refurbished furniture, delved behind the scenes of a dating website, and she’s even been on a Ray Mears survival course. She loves being a writer; to her there isn’t a more satisfying and pleasing thing to do. She particularly enjoys writing love stories. She believes falling in love is the best thing in the world, and she wants all her characters to experience it, and her readers to share their stories. 

To find out more about Katie Fforde step into her world at http://www.katiefforde.com, visit her on Facebook and follow her on Twitter @KatieFforde.

by Sarah Steele

5/5 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

SYNOPSIS

‘My darling girl, I need you to find someone for me . . .’

France, 1942. At the end of the day, the schoolteacher releases her pupils. She checks they have their identity passes, and warns them not to stop until the German guards have let them through the barrier that separates occupied France from Free France. As the little ones fly across the border and into their mothers’ arms, she breathes a sigh of relief. No one is safe now. Not even the children.

Berkshire, present day. A letter left to her by her beloved late grandmother Gigi takes Hannah Stone on a journey deep into the heart of the Dordogne landscape. As she begins to unravel a forgotten history of wartime bravery and sacrifice, she discovers the heartrending secret that binds her grandmother to a village schoolteacher, the remarkable Lucie Laval . . .

MY REVIEW

A beautiful dual timeline story following Hannah and her search for information on her grandmother’s life, living in a French village during the Second World War.

The present time 

Hannah is looking through a drawer in her father’s bedroom when she finds an old faded letter addressed to her. It is from her beloved late grandmother, Gigi, asking Hannah to find Lucie Laval and ‘tell her I am sorry’. The letter explains where Lucie lived, in the French village of Saint-Michel-sur-Dordogne. Hannah decides she will travel to the village to try to find out what happened to Lucie and what her grandmother was sorry for.

The second timeline is set in 1942, in the village in France. The German demarcation line ran right through the centre of the village meaning half of the village was under German control and the other half French. The children had to cross the line each day to go to school, and they had to have papers with them to allow them to cross each way. We meet Lucie who was the school teacher and find out about her selfless bravery. We also meet other villagers and come to realise many have their secrets and we should not judge people without knowing the reasons they are doing what they are doing.

The story moves back and forth between the timelines as we follow Hannah in her search to fill in the gaps of what she knows. The 1942 story unfolds as Hannah finds out more about her Grandmother. Hannah is also helping the museum put together a more complete picture of the village during the war.

I scooted through this gorgeous book which does tug at the heart strings but is also very uplifting. It is clear the author has undertaken a lot of research. She has written what to me reads as an authentic account of life during the war in a French village, with some villagers joining the Resistance and others trying to save themselves by embracing the German occupation. 

And those cherry bakes had my mouth watering! 

A gorgeous read which is going to stay in my heart for a long time.

Due out 17th March. 

Thank you very much Rosie at Headline for my place on the Blog Tour and for my copy of the book.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sarah Steele trained as a classical pianist and violinist before joining the world of publishing as an editorial assistant at Hodder and Stoughton. She was for many years a freelance editor, and now lives in the vibrant Gloucestershire town of Stroud. Her debut novel The Missing Pieces of Nancy Moon was published by Headline.

SYNOPSIS

Paris, 1750.

In the midst of an icy winter, as birds fall frozen from the sky, chambermaid Madeleine Chastel arrives at the home of the city’s celebrated clockmaker and his clever, unworldly daughter. 

Madeleine is hiding a dark past, and a dangerous purpose: to discover the truth of the clockmaker’s experiments and record his every move, in exchange for her own chance of freedom.

For as children quietly vanish from the Parisian streets, rumours are swirling that the clockmaker’s intricate mechanical creations, bejewelled birds and silver spiders, are more than they seem.

And soon Madeleine fears that she has stumbled upon an even greater conspiracy. One which might reach to the very heart of Versailles…

A intoxicating story of obsession, illusion and the price of freedom.

MY REVIEW

A creepy, gothic, engrossing historical fiction masterpiece! And I’m glad I loved it so much as I preordered the beautiful Waterstones special edition before I read my advance copy.

I was completely immersed in the life of Madeline, the sights, sounds and pretty disgusting smells of Paris during the 18th century and the reign of King Louis XV.

The story is written from the points of view of three ladies from very different backgrounds.

The main narrator is Madeleine, a young prostitute who’s madam is her actual cruel money focussed mother. Madeline is told she must undertake an undercover mission to pretend to be a maid to enable her spy on a talenttted clockmaker and automata maker, Dr Reinhart. Rumours are circulating that he is undertaking unnatural experiments and the police want to know exactly what he is doing. Is he actually doing the unthinkable and taking his knowledge of automatons so far as to try to reanimate the dead?

The second narrator is Veronique, Dr Reinhart’s daughter. Recently returned home from her depressing years being schooled at a convent. Veronique, at her fathers behest, has been studying the human body and organs. She is desperate to become his apprentice.

The third narrator is Jeanne, Madame de Pompadour, the King’s mistress. She feels her useful time is coming to an end as the King tires of her and she is desperate to stay in the court. She needs to find a way to protect her place despite people within the Palace trying to remove her.

Three ladies whose lives, though highly unlikely, become intertwined.

From the gutters of the backstreets of Paris to the Palace and the King himself, this is an extraordinary imagined story based around many true facts, of the fascination of automata at the time and how far the creators go to make their designs as lifelike as possible. 

Thank you to Orion books for my advance copy of the book via NetGalley and my spot on the blog tour.