The Blossom Twins by Carol Wyer

About the Book

Their parents thought they were hiding…

One beautiful summer’s evening, thirteen-year-old twins Ivy and Erin Westmore snuggle down in a tent in their back garden, giggling and sharing secrets.

When their mother goes to wake the girls the next morning, their tent is empty.

The alarm is raised and Detective Natalie Ward is put onto the case. When the twins’ bodies are discovered on nearby marshland, covered with deep pink petals, an icy shiver travels down Natalie’s spine. Everything about the girls’ deaths reminds her of a horrifying case she worked on earlier in her career, which saw a killer of the worst kind placed behind bars.

The next day, that feeling is heightened when she receives a chilling note saying ‘I’m back’. Is this killer a copycat or did Natalie put the wrong person in prison all those years ago? In a small town, where no stranger goes unnoticed, what is Natalie missing?

Consumed by the case, determined to prevent more deaths, Natalie misses the fact that it is her attention the killer wants. And to get it, he has his sights set firmly on her precious daughter Leigh…

Gripping, fast-paced and nail-bitingly tense, this book will keep you flying through the pages long into the night. Perfect for fans of Angela Marsons, Rachel Abbott and Karin Slaughter. 

Title: The Blossom Twins

Author: Carol Wyer

Published By: Bookouture

Publication Date: 12th December 2019

Links: UK:  Amazon         US:   Amazon

Our Review

Don’t be fooled by the sweet title because the Blossom Twins has to be Carol Wyer’s most chilling Serial Killer Thriller to date.

Natalie Ward is haunted by an horrific crime from her past when the body of a young girl is found with huge similarities to it. The Blossom Twins’ killer was eventually caught but due to a wrong turn in the investigation he was able to kill again. Natalie being a consummate professional has carried the guilt around with her ever since.

Her personal life is shattered but she has to carry on in her job to find the killer and prevent them from striking again.

The story races along at an incredible pace as we join Natalie as she tries to solve the crime and my heart was pounding out of my chest in some parts.

The unexpected devastation hit me like a punch to the stomach and shakes Natalie to the core. I felt totally bereft at the end.

Carol Wyer is brilliant at writing utterly gripping stories, each investigation has been unique and thrillingly twisted and the insight into Natalie’s private life as she feels constant guilt for not being around for her family has been fascinating.

Another fantastic read which I devoured immediately and now I’m desperate for the next one. 

Sincerely

Book Angel x

About the Author

Winner of The People's Book Prize Award, Carol Wyer is an award-winning author and stand up comedian who writes feel-good comedies and gripping crime fiction.

A move to the 'dark side' in 2017, saw the introduction of popular DI Robyn Carter in LITTLE GIRL LOST, the #2 best-selling book on Amazon, #9 best-selling audiobook on Audible and Top 150 USA Today best-seller.

A second series featuring DI Natalie Ward quickly followed and to date her crime novels have sold over 600,000 copies and been translated for various overseas markets, including Norwegian, Italian, Turkish, Hungarian Slovak, Czech and Polish.

Carol has been interviewed on numerous radio shows discussing ''Irritable Male Syndrome' and 'Ageing Disgracefully' and on BBC Breakfast television. She has had articles published in national magazines 'Woman's Weekly' featured in 'Take A Break', 'Choice', 'Yours' and 'Woman's Own' magazines and the Huffington Post.

She currently lives on a windy hill in rural Staffordshire with her husband Mr Grumpy... who is very, very grumpy.

To learn more about Carol, go to www.carolwyer.co.uk or follow Carol on Twitter: @carolewyer.

Carol also blogs at www.carolwyer.com

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A Million Dreams by Dani Atkins

Beth Brandon always dreamed of owning a florist, but today the bouquets of peonies and bright spring flowers are failing to calm her nerves. Because today, Beth has a life-changing decision to share with her husband.

Izzy Vaughan thought she and her husband would stay together forever, but sometime last year, their love began to fade. They both find such joy in their young son Noah – but is he enough to keep them together?

Eight years ago, something happened to these two women. Something that is about to bring them together in a way no-one thought possible... 

Title: A Million Dreams

Author: Dani Atkins

Published By: Head of Zeus

Publication Date: 14th November 2019

Links: UK:  Amazon      US:  Amazon

Waterstones

Our Review

Omg what can I say, Dani Atkins is the Queen of the emotional dilemma.

A million dreams tells the story of Izzy and Beth, two women who are brought together under the most heart-breaking circumstances. The conflict that they face puts them both in an impossible situation and my heart went out to both of these women and the excruciating pain they both had to endure. 

The way that Beth and Liam met after a double tragedy was very sensitively written and their sense of grief was almost tangible. The slow build up of their friendship was heart-warming.

This story will break your heart into a number of pieces and some of those pieces will break even more as the story unfolds.

Dani’s writing is so pure and full of emotion that I often get goose-bumps when reading her work. The emotions I felt when reading this book were different because normally you can get angry with someone and blame them but in this instance, because of things being intertwined, every character deserved empathy.

Make sure you have a huge box of tissues when reading this book which draws upon grief, heartbreak, loss, motherhood and true love that never dies. As the story moves on I can guarantee that every one of those broken pieces of your heart will be patched together again with the fresh hope of what’s to come for Beth.

Another devastating masterpiece from Dani Atkins that will stay in your heart and mind for a very long time. 

Sincerely

Book Angel x

About the Author

Dani Atkins is an award-winning novelist. Her 2013 debut FRACTURED (published as THEN AND ALWAYS in North America) has been translated into sixteen languages and has sold more than half a million copies since first publication in the UK.

Dani is the author of four other bestselling novels (THE STORY OF US, OUR SONG, THIS LOVE and WHILE I WAS SLEEPING) and PERFECT STRANGERS, a standalone eBook novella. In 2018, THIS LOVE won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award at the RNA awards in London.

Dani lives in a small village in Hertfordshire with her husband, one Siamese cat and a very soppy Border Collie.

Follow Dani on twitter @AtkinsDani or get in touch on Facebook at www.facebook.com/daniatkinsauthor 

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Country Lovers by Fiona Walker

About the book
They say you should never go back, but glamorous Ronnie Percy did just that, to the home she ran away from with her lover.

But not everyone is finding it easy to forgive and forget.

Daughter Pax, fighting for custody of her small son as her own marriage disintegrates, is furious to have to spend New Year's Eve waiting for some stranger her mother has invited to help run the family stud farm.

Even more annoyed is the staunchly loyal stud head groom, Lester. Does Ronnie think he's lost his touch with the horses? And anyway, who is this so-called Horsemaker, Luca O'Brien? Why does he seem to be running away from something? And what is the true story of his relationship with grey stallion Beck, once destined for the Olympics, now broken and unrideable, screaming his anger from the Compton Magna stables.

Passionate, sexy, gripping, laced with her trademark wisdom and humour, this is bestselling Fiona Walker at her dazzling best.

Title: Country Lovers

Author: Fiona Walker

Published By:  Head of Zeus

Publication Date: 14th November

Pre-order links:Amazon: https://amzn.to/2ZcQhcs

Google Play: https://bit.ly/2N8sMik

Kobo: 

iBooks:

Author Q & A with Fiona Walker

Welcome to Sincerely Book Angels blog.

What was the inspiration behind Country Lovers?
Country Lovers is inspired by the wonderful characters I’ve met living in rural England, especially the horsey set. They’re a sexy and fearless bunch who make friends for life, love their dogs and know how to party.

Did you always want to be a writer?
I originally wanted to be an actress and I studied drama, but I only ever got cast as mad old women which limited my options at twenty-one.

What other jobs have you had?
I’m very lucky to have been a full-time author since I was twenty-three, although I worked briefly in advertising after leaving university (and I had a host of strange student jobs before that, from serving medieval banquets dressed as a buxom wench, making Don Johnson’s off-menu sandwiches in a golf club, and selling novelty corgi snow globes outside Windsor Castle.)

How did it feel when your first novel was published? Slightly surreal and disbelieving, as well as utterly over the moon. I still do twenty-six years later.

Can you please tell us a little about your publishing story.
I used to read prolifically, and when I ran out of things to read that ticked my boxes, I decided to write instead. I wrote my first full-length novel, French Relations, in 1993, and I was one of very rare fairy tale ‘Slush Pile’ success stories: an agent spotted its potential straight away, signed me up and sold it over a weekend. I still pinch myself.

What other books have you written?
I’ve written eighteen novels. The others are: French Relations, Kiss Chase, Well Groomed, Between Males, Snap Happy, Lucy Talk, Lots of Love, Tongue in Cheek, Four Play, Love Hunt, Kiss and Tell, The Love Letter, The Summer Wedding, The Country Escape, The Woman Who Fell in Love for a Week, The Weekends of You and Me and The Country Set

Have you ever had writer's block?
I’ve never had total writer’s block – as in not being able to write anything at all - but I have had phases of being crippled with self-doubt, firmly believing every word is rubbish and desperately wanting to do something else for a living to spare the paying public the agony of reading it.

If so how did you overcome it? I read. The sheer joy of reading always makes me want to do it again (especially, I have to secretly admit, if you find yourself wanting to hurl the book across the room because you’d have ended it differently).

What motivates you to keep writing? Being the family breadwinner is a pretty strong motivating factor, along with not being qualified to do anything else for a living (although I’m now the right age to play mad old ladies, so if all else fails I might get my big acting break at last…). Mainly, I wrote because I love doing it.

Where is your favourite place to write? (can we please have a picture):

I’ve written all over the place: kitchen table, spare bedroom, attic, garage garden shed. I’m very spoiled at the moment because I’ve just moved to a new ‘office’ in our cottage in what was the annexe. It’s by far the biggest writing corner I’ve had and currently very tidy. That won’t last… 

Do your characters moods ever affect your mood and vice versa?
Maybe it’s because of my love of theatre, but I do find myself acting out the characters in real life, so their moods certainly can affect mine. But I do try to make all my characters sympathetic, even the rogues. And nobody kills anyone.

What three pieces of advice would you give to an aspiring writer? Get it finished. There are too many half-finished books left in drawers. Keep going right to the end, because that’s where the work really begins.

Edit it at least twice. I first read a physical print-out and cover it in pen marks and notes, changing the order of things, adding scene ideas. Then, once those ideas are incorporated, I send the file to my Kindle and spot lots of other little things like word repetition and continuity bloops.

Keep every scene you cut out in a scrapbook file for a future book. You may never re-use it, but it makes it easier to cut it out of the original if you don’t think it’s going to waste.

Which authors inspire you? I grew up reading an eclectic mix nabbed from my parents’ shelves, all of whom are huge inspirations: Angela Carter, Beryl Bainbridge, Wendy Perriam and Jilly Cooper (whose early books I adored with a passion). Modern authors I enjoy include Lianne Moriarty, Ali Smith and Kate Atkinson. And I am in awe of good script-writers – Victoria Wood remains my heroine, also Carla Laine and more recently Sharon Horgan and Phoebe Waller-Bridge.

What are you reading at the moment? I’m reading Nina Stibbe’s Paradise Lodge, a wittily nostalgic novel about a teenager working in an old people’s home in the ’seventies. My description doesn’t do it justice because it’s great fun.

If your book was made into a film what song would you choose for the opening credits? Black Horse and the Cherry Tree by K T Tunstall.

Who would you choose to play your favourite character in the film of your book?
My daydream casting for Pax Forsyth would be Lily Cole: she’s bright and funny, can nail that rebellious British spirit and has the hair.

What is your next book about?
It’s a sequel to Country Lovers, with many familiar characters returning to join forced in a battle against big threats both to the village’s future and to that of one of its greatest love stories.

Thank you so much for joining us on our blog today and good luck with the book.
Sincerely

Book Angel x

About the Author

Fiona Walker is the author of eighteen novels, from tales of flat-shares and clubbing in nineties London to today’s romping, rural romances set amid shires, spires and stiles. In a career spanning over two decades, she’s grown up alongside her readers, never losing her wickedly well-observed take on life, lust and the British in love. She lives in Warwickshire, sharing a slice of Shakespeare Country with her partner, their two daughters and a menagerie of animals. fionawalker.com @fionawalkeruk facebook.com/fiona.walker.16568
Follow Fiona:
Twitter: @fionawalkeruk

Facebook: @fionawalkeruk

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Love Songs for Sceptics by Christina Pishiris

About the Book
My brother’s getting married in a few weeks and asked for help picking a song for his first dance. I suggested Kiss’s ‘Love’s a Slap in the Face’.

It didn’t go down well.

When she was a teenager, Zoë Frixos fell in love with Simon Baxter, her best friend and the boy next door. But his family moved to America before she could tell him how she felt and, like a scratched record, she’s never quite moved on. Now, almost twenty years later, Simon is heading back to London, newly single and as charming as ever . . .

But as obstacles continue to get in her way – Simon’s perfect ex-girlfriend, her brother’s big(ish) fat(ish) Greek wedding, and an obnoxious publicist determined to run Zoë – Zoë begins to wonder whether, after all these years, she and Simon just aren’t meant to be.

What if, despite what all the songs and movies say, you're first love isn't always all it's cracked up to be? What if, instead Zoë and Simon are forever destined to shuffle around their feelings for each other, never quite getting the steps right . . .

With a smart, relatable central character and razor-sharp wit, Love Songs for Sceptics is perfect for fans of Mhairi McFarlane, Lucy Vine and Lindsey Kelk. 

Title: Love Songs For Sceptics

Author: Christina Pishiris

Published By: Simon & Schuster

Publication Date: 28th November 2019

Links: UK:  Amazon     

Pre-Order Waterstones


My Love Song for Sceptics

I'm probably not the best person to ask about this because on our wedding day we never really thought about a song for our first dance as most of our favourites were quite upbeat apart from The Smiths which my husband was very much into at the time but I thought were far too miserable for a wedding. Anyway we ended up letting the DJ choose and were very happy to dance along to 'Nothing Compares to You' by Sinead O'Conner. She has a wonderful voice and I quite liked being told that nothing compared to me. It was only a few days later that a friend asked me why I had chosen a break up song for our first dance!! It honestly hadn't even occurred to me to take the song so literally and I had thoroughly enjoyed it, also we've been married thirty years next year so maybe it was our good luck charm.

So I have scoured my brain and the internet for a suitable song for the fabulous book by Christina Pishiris, Love Songs for Sceptics and then I came across the perfect one. ‘I Love to Hate You’ by Erasure, a band that saw me through my teenage years and still has me singing full blast if I ever hear one of their songs. I chose this because it’s so insulting but still sung in a joyful catchy way that you couldn't help but join in. 

Love Songs for Sceptics is such a unique concept for a book and I really can't wait to get stuck in to it.

Sincerely

Book Angel x

About the Author

Christina was born in London to Greek Cypriot parents, who used to bribe her to go to family weddings by promising that George Michael might be there. To deal with the inevitable disappointment, she began making up stories on napkins and has been writing ever since.

Her debut novel, Love Songs for Sceptics, a romcom set in the world of music journalism, will be published by Simon & Schuster in November 2019. Come and say hello on Twitter: @ChristinaPi or on Facebook: @ChristinaPishirisAuthor

For more info, visit: www.christinapishiris.com