The Cold Cold Sea by Linda Huber

BOOK REVIEW

Cornwall, England. 

Maggie and Colin Grainger have been enjoying a holiday at Cove Cottage for two weeks with their two children, Joe & Livvy, when Livvy, three years old, disappeared under the watchful eye of both parent on the beach. The one minute she was with her mother, running off to join her dad and her brother at the rocks. The next moment she was gone. Maggie, in her state of grief, could not come to terms with the disappearance of her child and hardly had the energy left to take proper care of their son, Joe. The investigation was officially called off but the file kept open, which had Maggie in a constant fear of the telephone. She simply was not ready for the final confirmation of the inevitable.

Philip and Jennifer Marshall lived in Devon, when his grandmother in California was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He flew over to take care of her while Jennifer stayed behind. His stay in California was elongated and Jennifer decided to move into a bigger house in the meantime, being pregnant with twins - which was kept a surprise to Philip. The move proved to be difficult for their daughter Hailey, who also had to start school in the new neighborhood for the first time. A shy withdrawn child, she slowly opened up to her teacher, Katie McLure. Upon his eventual return he found changes he had to accept for the children's sake. Life was different and challenging.

That is the background of the plot that slowly turned into a chilling, heart wrenching, disturbing saga, in which grief played a pivotal role in shaping people's conduct and minds. The love of these two mothers for their children triggered the most basic instincts known to mankind and the results were devastating and shocking.

This is the second novel by Linda Huber that I read. As with the first novel, The Paradise Trees , I was immediately pulled into the suspense which grabbed hold of me in the first paragraph and never ended until the very last sentence.

The book addresses the fears of all parents, and drives the reader's emotions up and down the normality chart with ruthless intent. 

Although the story dragged a bit, it was an unbelievable intense thriller that kept me glued to the pages with no way out. The reader does not want to step aside although it was at times impossible to breath normally. I constantly, silently, cried out: "For Heaven's sake stop this! Stop this, I cannot take it anymore!" 

A brilliant, enlightened and wonderful wonderful wonderful experience. Linda Huber will fast become a must-read British author for anyone enjoying psychological thrillers. Her writing style is excellent. I cannot actually find the right words to describe it. You just know someone is playing you like a fiddle and it's not the plot or the characters. 

A review copy was provided by Legend Press via NetGalley for review. It was an amazing read. Thank you!

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BOOK BLURB
A powerful suspense thriller inspired by the author's work with neurological patients


When three-year-old Olivia disappears, her parents are overwhelmed with grief. Weeks go by and Olivia’s mother refuses to leave the cottage, staring out at the turbulent sea and praying it didn’t claim her precious daughter’s life. Not far away, another mother watches proudly as her daughter starts school. Jennifer has loved Hailey for five years, but the child is suddenly moody and difficult, and there’s a nagging worry of doubt that Jennifer cannot shake off. As she struggles to maintain control there are gaps in her story that even she can’t explain. Time is running out for Maggie at the cottage, and also for Jennifer and Hailey. No one can underestimate a mother’s love for her child, and no one can predict the lengths one will go to, to protect her family.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Linda Huber grew up in Glasgow, Scotland, where she trained as a physiotherapist. She spent ten years working with neurological patients, firstly in Glasgow and then in Switzerland. During this time she learned that different people have different ways of dealing with stressful events in their lives, and this knowledge still helps her today, in her writing.

Linda now lives in Arbon, Switzerland, where she works as a language teacher in a medieval castle on the banks of beautiful Lake Constance.

Her debut novel The Paradise Trees was published in 2013 and she has also had over 50 short stories and articles published in magazines. The Cold Cold Sea is her second novel.

Visit the author's WEBSITE
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BOOK INFORMATION
GENRES: Drama, Suspense, Thriller, Family

Murder is Bad Manners by Robin Stevens

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MY REVIEW

Well say hello to a combination of Nancy Drew, Veronica Mars and Blyton's boarding school books. Add to that a touch of Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot and you've got it made!

Only this time it is 1934. Thirteen-year-old girls Hazel Wong(from Hong Kong) and Daisy Wells (from the English upper classes) have formed their own secret club, the Wells and Wong Detective Society at the Deepdean School for Girls in England. They are quite successful in digging up secrets from everybody in school, with Daisy the number one snoop. She is the perfect English girl, highly popular, and knows everything about everyone and she's good at it.

Hazel Wong is her side-kick, initially the quiet, polite one, meticulously clean and precise in everything she did. Until she discovered the secret to melt into the mass of girls in the school. Sloppiness and less-clean appearances were expected. It was the secret of the rich girls in school. Never show wealth! Whatever you were, never strive to be the brightest girl in class either! Mediocrity is the name of the game. Fake it. Act. Be good at it. Hazel was not only extremely intelligent, she also turned out to be the second best pretender in school. Daisy was the best. And that is the reason why they became the best of friends.

Prestige, honor, and tradition draw the best of the best to the school. Teachers were strictly selected for positions at the school. It was just the perfect set-up. Life was perfect.

But then Miss Bell was no longer at the school. She resigned, was the official announcement. Hazel knew better. She found Miss Bell's body in the gym, went for help, and when she returned, the body was gone!

The Wells and Wong Detective Society had suddenly their work cut out for them and they had to act fast to prevent the murderer from getting away with it. But oh dear, for every murder there is a murderer, and more skeletons appear out of nowhere in the closets! What to do!? 

COMMENTS: Hazel Wong is the young narrator of the tale and never ceases to keep up the lively, vivid energy of two thirteen-year-old girls. There's nothing childish about the story. The prose is funny, witty, innocent, wise. I constantly smiled and sniggered for the actions of these two ambitious girls and their dorm mates. 

I loved this whodunit. The drama managed to keep me totally immersed in the atmosphere of the time, the labyrinth of suspects, the guessing of motives and the neverending suspense.

The other reason why I loved this book, is because I attended a similar girls school. I felt so at home in the halls and dorms of the age old buildings and its occupiers. I totally identified with the characters. It was a superb trip down memory lane. Even the church pipe organ in the hall of Deepdean School for Girls was familiar. 

Overall I am of the opinion that this book is just as enjoyable for grown-ups as it is for teenage girls. Well-written, well-plotted and well-done.

The ARC was made available by Simon & Schuster through edelweiss.abovethetreeline.com for review.

Thank you for the opportunity. What a delight!

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BOOK BLURB
Deepdean School for Girls, 1934. When Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong set up their very own deadly secret detective agency, they struggle to find any truly exciting mysteries to investigate. (Unless you count the case of Lavinia's missing tie. Which they don't, really.)

But then Hazel discovers the Science Mistress, Miss Bell, lying dead in the Gym. She thinks it must all have been a terrible accident - but when she and Daisy return five minutes later, the body has disappeared. Now the girls know a murder must have taken place . . . and there's more than one person at Deepdean with a motive.

Now Hazel and Daisy not only have a murder to solve: they have to prove a murder happened in the first place. Determined to get to the bottom of the crime before the killer strikes again (and before the police can get there first, naturally), Hazel and Daisy must hunt for evidence, spy on their suspects and use all the cunning, scheming and intuition they can muster. But will they succeed? And can their friendship stand the test?

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robin Stevens was given her first Agatha Christie novel when she was twelve, and she’s been obsessed ever since. During her BA at Warwick University she took a crime fiction course, and her MA dissertation was on the golden age of the English detective novel. She wrote the first draft of Murder Is Bad Manners while working at Blackwell’s Bookstore in Oxford, drawing on her own boarding school experiences at Cheltenham Ladies’ College to create Hazel and Daisy’s world. Robin is now the editorial graduate trainee at Orion Children’s Books in London. Originally born in California, she holds dual UK/US nationality.


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BOOK INFORMATION

OTHER TITLES for this book: Murder Is Most Unladylike
Genres: Murder mystery, drama, Young Readers, Girls School, 
Age Range: 10 and up 
Grade Level: 5 and up
Formats: Hardcover
Number of pages: Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers 
Publication date: April 21, 2015
Edition Language: English
ISBN-10: 148142212X

ISBN-13: 978-1481422123

The Pitman's Daughter by Marjorie DeLuca

REVIEW

Rita was born and bred in Crag street, where "everything was bare and exposed. Life was raw and tough and, God knows, she’d tried hard to smooth out the rough edges she’d been left with."

The pitmen and their extended families called it home, but for most of them it felt more like a poverty trap they could not escape from. Coal mining defined everything they did or had. Black soot and dust colored their lives and stories. But Rita knew she would get away, and so did George. Despite the poverty and hardships, change was waiting to happen that would leave no one untouched. However, love was not easy to come by, but it did change everything when it happened. Sadly, it also did not happen for everyone who deserved it.

Comments: This book can be viewed as a blend of romance and historical fiction with a touch of excellence in detail that winds through the narrative from the beginning to end. The characters are authentic. It took a while to get into the story, but when it happened, reality lost out to this nostalgic tale about the inhabitants of Crag street in this small mining village in England.

Rita was one determined young lady who had to prove her ambitious dreams of escaping the circumstances and people she so despised. Nothing and no one in Crag street could ever make her happy. All she ever dreamed of was not only to get away, but also move as far away as possible. In this amazingly multileveled tale, her journey started out as the learning curve of a ten year-old girl, on her way into adulthood where she must find herself and learn unintentional, unplanned lessons on her way in searching for love and security. Some of those lessons were not supposed to be learnt by innocent young girls, but which, in the end, defined her in ways she never thought possible as an adult. It was only when she was forced to come full circle that she finally understood the real meaning of the brightly flowering lobelias and daisies in the coal miner gardens. But she first had to live out her aspirations, to understand where the strength of her own roots lay hidden and what really determined the core of her happiness.

What a thoroughly enjoyable read. It is once again one of those books that takes the reader into the intimate world of people and history that nobody, except the inhabitants, would have known otherwise. Detailed, descriptive, and fascinating, but also informative and well presented. 

The tale is rich, heartwarming, endearing, passionate, compassionate, sad, hopeful, beautiful. A brilliant piece of writing by a highly skilled author. 

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AMAZON BLURB
Rita Hawkins fought all her life to escape from Crag Street, the grimy street of colliery houses where gossip reigned, tuberculosis killed, and mining families slaved to make ends meet. There she met George, the last surviving son of a poor mining family forced against his wishes to start work as a miner. Her life becomes inextricably tied up with his but love eludes them, though events in their lives constantly throw them together. George the high-minded idealist gets caught up with the miner's union, while cold, hard cash drives Rita, the pragmatist, towards independence and success in business. Their relationship is complicated by the tragic Maggie, abused mother of seven children and Ella, the childless street gossip with her nose in everyone's business. 
Years later, when Crag Street is torn down and rebuilt in a museum, Rita receives an invitation from George to attend the Grand Opening. The visit forces her to face painful memories about George, Maggie and Ella and to revisit the tragic incidents of the last days she spent on Crag Street. 

 

A vivid tale of love and loss, joy and tragedy, The Pitman's Daughter spans five decades and portrays the colorful tapestry of life in a Durham colliery village. Filled with unforgettable characters it is also a story of ambition and identity that shows no matter how hard we try, we can't escape our past since it shapes us into the person we become.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Marjorie DeLuca spent her childhood in the ancient cathedral city of Durham in North-Eastern England. She attended the University of London, became a teacher, and then immigrated to Canada where she lives with her husband, two children and a crazy dog named Bella. There she also studied writing under her mentor, Pulitzer Prize winning author, Carol Shields. Though she loves writing sci-fi for teens, she’s also just completed two historical novels due out in the next few months

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BOOK INFORMATION
Genres: british-novels, canadian-authors, community, coal mine history, family, historical-fiction, relationships, reviewed, romance, England, Marjorie De Luca
Number of Pages: 350
Formats: Kindle | Paperback| Nook
Publishing Date: August 27th 2013
Publishers: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
ASIN: B00ETYRX3A

• ISBN-13: 9781492162063

Edition language: English
Purchase Links: Amazon USA  | Amazon UK | Barnes & Noble

  

Daughter of the God-King by Anne Cleeland - Regency series #2

Genres: Historical romance, thriller, mystery 

Formats: Paperback(368 pages), Kindle(368 pages) Nook

ISBN: 140227985X (ISBN13: 9781402279850) seriesRegency #2

Edition language: English
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark

Publication date: 2013 November, 5th

Purchase links: Amazon, Barnes & Noble

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AMAZON BOOK BLURB: 

Miss Hattie Blackhouse has never been close to her parents...and no wonder, since the Blackhouses are renowned scholars who spend most of their time excavating ancient tombs in Egypt. But news of their disappearance forces Hattie to leave England and embark on a voyage that will reveal the long-buried secrets of her past. An encrypted senet board and a gold medallion lead Hattie on a perilous quest to track down her missing parents—and discover why people associated with the Blackhouses continue to turn up dead. What she uncovers is a secret that could alter the course of history...

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REVIEW:

Hathor Blackouse, also called Hattie, was the daughter of two famous archaeologists. She lived a quiet life in Cornwell, England, well taken-care of, well-loved by her governesses, Miss Swansea, and had a best friend Robbie. The Blackhouse-couple were always somewhere in Egypt on a dig, being away for months on end. She did not see them often.

Being a fiery filly, passionately outspoken, and not afraid of anything, Hattie concocted a plan to marry Robbie, but it did not work at all. In fact, she was left without a governess, who got married instead of her! It lead to the appointment of a new one, although Hattie was well beyond the age of needing one. But her parents were busy people. They did not even notice, or so Hattie thought. 

Bing became her next companion. One, who would eventually climb wisteria vines with her, teach her how to shoot and generally became much more than just an employee of the family. But before that would happen, Robbie embarked on more important matters to Europe. Hattie needed a plan B.

Napoleon The Great had just been defeated and banned to the island of Malta. The Congress of Vienna was held (1815) to re-establish the boundaries and political morphology of Europe after the mighty Napoleon's crusades. Egypt's Valley of the Kings became a hotbed of greed, of fame and lost fortune, of history and its damnations. European philanthropists, supported by wealthy sponsors, were looting the graves of the kings, amid a dangerous resentment smoldering in the Egyptian psyche. France and England were the forerunners, often than not resorting to murder and mayhem to score the most from the findings. Napoleon planned an escape. There were traitors and bandits among the high and the mighty. It became almost impossible to trust anyone. 

In her pursuit to marry Robbie, the adventure-loving, risk-taking Hattie and her fellow partner in these pursuits, Bing, left for Paris in the hope of finding Robbie. Thus began a journey that would lead to a lot more than discovering her parents missing and everyone around them barely civil about the issue. There were secrets scattered everywhere she went, obscuring her path to finding her parents and the truth. 

Hattie's entire life, and who she thought she was, would be shakin and rocked to its very core. She would soon learn that she was regarded as the daughter of the god-king, for some a reincarnation of Seti I's daughter, and named after the Goddess of Fertility. Her parents were archaeologists after all. 

But her arrival in Egypt, in search of her parents, would stir hills of angry ants and would become an adventure she would hardly survive if it wasn't for her temper, resilience and her companion Bing. It did serve a purpose to hold a priest at gunpoint, forcing him to conduct a secret ceremony, as well!

But Hattie would also learn the truth in Bing's words, ' we each make our own way; one's heritage matter not next to one's legacy'.

Daughter of the God-King is a historical romance which I would rather classify as a historical romantic adventure, if it was possible. Never a dull moment, and a surprising twist lies hidden behind the meaning of the 'god-king' in an excellent constructed tale. As a historical romance it works one hundred percent. All the elements are present to make it much more than just a love story. It becomes a murder mystery, a drama, a 'what-if'- fantasy par excellence. It is a feel-good masterpiece.

Reviewed for The Kindle Book Review Team

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Anne Cleeland holds a degree in English from UCLA as well as a degree in law from Pepperdine University, and is a member of the California State Bar.

She writes a historical fiction series set in the Regency period as well as a contemporary mystery series set in New Scotland Yard. A member of the Historical Novel Society and Mystery Writers of America, she lives in California and has four children.

She grew up on Balboa Island, in sunny California but said she always dreamed of cool, mysterious England. She admits being  a passionate Anglophile with Irish forefathers.

"I've been writing for a living for a long time [as an attorney], but I always wrote, no adverbs or adjectives, very dry. So I guess there was a creative writer dying to get out.

There are two ways people write. There are plotters who plot everything before they put a word to the page. Then there are seat-of-the-pants writers where you just sort of go and that's me. I just start writing scenes and sometimes they're out of order. I write the first draft and there's a lot of loose ends where the plot can go and then once I sort of muddle my way through and I know what the storyline is I go back to the beginning and I pump up the parts that are the real story and I leave out the parts that turn out to not be important to the story. That's the only way I can do it. About 80 percent of the time I have no idea what's going to happen in the next chapter."

Information sources: annecleeland.com / ocregister