Rosie’s Book Review Team (RBRT) – Booklist

Burke In The Peninsula by Tom Williams (192 pages)

hings getting a bit messy in Spain. Lots of irregulars. Civilians joining in the fighting. That sort of thing. Wellesley needs all the help he can get. They need a man who can pass for a Spaniard. Someone who can make himself useful with the irregulars. Someone who is prepared to fight dirty if it gets things done.

1809 and Burke has barely returned from South America when he is sent off again, this time to join the war being waged by Spanish guerrillas against the French. It’s not long before he’s fighting for his life, but which of the Spaniards can he trust?

Burke faces new adversaries and finds old allies in a dramatic tale of adventure during the Peninsular War, set against the background of the bloody battle of Talavera.

It’s real history – but not the way you learned it in school.

Genre: HistFic

Format: Mobi

Sentinel by Carl Rackman (Book #2 Voyager series) 243 pages

The Voyager story continues…

Four years have passed since Voyager One sent back chilling photos of a spaceship from deep in interstellar space.

A shocked world prepared to meet the Visitors, but terrorism, pandemics, and global political turmoil have now consumed it. Discredited as a hoax, the Visitors have faded from public attention.

But the powerful global conspiracy known as the Triumvirate is behind much of the chaos. Creating a screen of subterfuge and misdirection, they prepare a clandestine welcome for the Visitors, whose origins may be more sinister than the aliens of popular fiction.

Standing in their way are the few brave men and women who foiled the Triumvirate’s last attempt to upset the world’s fragile balance of power:

Former FBI agent Brad Barnes leads Sentinel, a private intelligence and counter-terrorism operation founded in the wake of the Triumvirate’s last deadly plot.

Alex Ephraim – the former Triumvirate assassin known as Mirage – is Sentinel’s major weapon against terror.

Matt Ramprakash, former airline pilot and now an officer of the British intelligence agency MI5, is embroiled in a deadly standoff when an airliner is hijacked.

Callie Woolf, once the project manager of the Voyager mission, struggles against the sceptical government’s bureaucracy to continue the search for the elusive Visitors as her time and funding runs out.

Sentinel is the only organisation capable of taking the fight to the Triumvirate’s door – flexible, unorthodox well-funded and free of government red tape.

But as they pursue the Triumvirate from the streets of London to the wild, deadly wastes of Antarctica, Brad will need Matt and Callie’s help to stop the Triumvirate, which has its own plans for putting Sentinel – and especially Alex – out of the picture for good…

Genre: Scifi techno thriller

Format: Mobi / e-pub

Of Magpies And Men by Ode Ray (312 pages) ARC now for Feb 2021 release)

Can any good come of longings that a person can never satisfy? If so, good for whom?

At the heart Of Magpies and Men are impossible yearnings and an illicit confession that will transform the existence of many in its path…
Two corpses wash ashore in a picturesque Italian village, the violence that put them there is bound to a long held secret and two strangers living worlds apart with seemingly nothing in common.
Benedict Grant a high achiever, wealthy Londoner, leading a lonely life.
Marie Boulanger a nurse and single mum, struggling to make ends meet in Marseille.
However, a mother’s revelation will set in motion a chain of events that will reshape their identities, stir poignant family affairs and delve into the by-products of lawless decisions.

Discover a captivating and moving story weaving mystery, drama and romance peppered with humour. A tale that will stay with you long after its final page and a twist you won’t see coming.

Genre: Mystery / family saga

Format: Mobi

Birds Don’t Fly by Sandy Day (181 pages)

Sometimes sisters and brothers don’t get along – even when they’re middle aged.

Kaffy Sullivan lives and works in the business her grandparents began in the 20th century. Reclusive and offbeat, Kaffy hopes to inherit the inn and, with the help of her sister-in-law, operate it for the rest of her life.

When an important publication makes a reservation, Kaffy is under pressure to get Sullivan House spruced up in time for the review. But Sylvia, who Kaffy depends on, has disappeared. She hasn’t shown up for work, and Kaffy’s bad-tempered brother doesn’t seem to care that his wife is missing.

Cracking under the pressure to get the inn ready, and more urgently, find Sylvia, Kaffy struggles through a harrowing nest of repressed memories and traumatic family rivalries.

For readers of women’s fiction and domestic thrillers, Birds Don’t Cry is a page turner that drops you directly into one family’s conflict and search for survivors.

Genre: Domestic thriller

Format: Mobi / e-pub

Prey For Me by John Casti (ARC now for Sept 15th publication) 296 pages

World renowned scientist Victor can’t resist his attraction to Alex, a brilliant financier – and his addiction to her touch drives him over the edge.

The two are thrust together as business partners in the risky world of London finance, complicating and raising the stakes of their personal game playing. As Alex’s behavior becomes increasingly violent, Victor suspects that she is behind sinister actions involving others in the firm.

Victor’s intellectual curiosities and desires are also piqued by this added dimension of mystery and danger.

Alex would play with his emotions like a well-played guitar. Then she would disappear.

Who will win this psychological game of sensuality and desire?

Genre: Dark romantic suspense

Format: Mobi / epub

One For The Money by D.B. Borton (188 pages) (ARC now for re-publication on December 1st)

Meet Cincinnati’s newest, oldest, funniest detective-in-training. After decades of marriage, motherhood, and grandmotherhood, Cat Caliban is looking for a new career. Private investigation seems a logical choice. After all, suspicion is second nature to any woman who’s raised three kids, and she has long experience of investigating domestic criminal activity. So, she sells her suburban house, buys an apartment building in a “transitional” neighborhood, and begins training to be a detective, only to discover a corpse in an upstairs apartment. What’s the connection between a dead homeless woman and the Golden Age of Hollywood silent movies? Cat must discover it before the killer strikes again.

Genre: Mystery

Format: available for request on netgalley or mobi

A Hero for Hailey (Love Will Out #1) by D.E. Haggerty (200 pages)

I do not need some man to come riding in on a stupid white horse to save me, thank you very much.
When I run into a teensy weensy bit of trouble, who should show up but Aiden – my high school nemesis. Unfortunately, Aiden doesn’t realize he’s my high school nemesis. Nope. He doesn’t even remember who I am. Gee, thanks.
Suddenly Aiden is everywhere, claiming he’ll protect me. Do I look like I need protecting? But when Aiden speaks to me in that deep, sultry savior voice, my knees wobble and I forget my name.
I better get to solving this trouble I’m in, so Aiden will move right on out of my life. Only he says he doesn’t want to move on. He wants to stick by my side forever. Not happening.
But like my pops always says Love will OUT.
A Hero for Hailey is book 1 of the romantic comedy series Love will OUT but can be read as a standalone.
This romantic comedy features a kickass PI with a chip the size of a Green Bay Packer on her shoulder, a sexy detective she wants to hate but really wants to tie to a bed and see what happens, a best friend who defines the word klutzy, and a makeshift family of former Army buddies who think telling dirty jokes is a sign of love. (Contains swearing and some sexy lines)

Genre: RomCom

Format: Mobi / epub

Gentleman Jim by Mimi Matthews (ARC now due out November 10th)

She Couldn’t Forget…

Wealthy squire’s daughter Margaret Honeywell was always meant to marry her neighbor, Frederick Burton-Smythe, but it’s bastard-born Nicholas Seaton who has her heart. Raised alongside her on her father’s estate, Nick is the rumored son of notorious highwayman Gentleman Jim. When Fred frames him for theft, Nick escapes into the night, vowing to find his legendary sire. But Nick never returns. A decade later, he’s long been presumed dead.

He Wouldn’t Forgive…

After years spent on the continent, John Beresford, Viscount St. Clare has finally come home to England. Tall, blond, and dangerous, he’s on a mission to restore his family’s honor. If he can mete out a bit of revenge along the way, so much the better. But he hasn’t reckoned for Maggie Honeywell. She’s bold and beautiful–and entirely convinced he’s someone else.

As danger closes in, St. Clare is torn between love and vengeance. Will he sacrifice one to gain other? Or, with a little daring, will he find a way to have them both?

Genre: Historical Romance

Format: Mobi

Knight in Paper Armor by Nicholas Conley (ARC now for Sept 15th publication) 393 pages

Billy Jakobek has always been different. Born with strange and powerful psychic abilities, he has grown up in the laboratories of Thorne Century, a ruthless megacorporation that economically, socially, and politically dominates American society. Every day, Billy absorbs the emotional energies, dreams, and traumas of everyone he meets—from his grandmother’s memories of the Holocaust, to the terror his sheer existence inflicts upon his captors—and he yearns to break free, so he can use his powers to help others.

Natalia Gonzalez, a rebellious artist and daughter of Guatemalan immigrants, lives in Heaven’s Hole, an industrial town built inside a meteor crater, where the poverty-stricken population struggles to survive the nightmarish working conditions of the local Thorne Century factory. Natalia takes care of her ailing mother, her grandmother, and her two younger brothers, and while she dreams of escape, she knows she cannot leave her family behind.

When Billy is transferred to Heaven’s Hole, his chance encounter with Natalia sends shockwaves rippling across the blighted landscape. The two outsiders are pitted against the all-powerful monopoly, while Billy experiences visions of an otherworldly figure known as the Shape, which prophesizes an apocalyptic future that could decimate the world they know.

Genre: Dystopia

Format: Mobi or e-pub

The Inconvenient Need to Belong by Paula Smedley (296 pages)

In the summer of 1953, twenty-year-old Alfie steals away from his troubled childhood home in London to start a new life in Exeter. His own life. And at first it’s everything he ever dreamed it would be. For the first time in his life Alfie feels like he belongs.

Today, in a care home in the Midlands, eighty-six-year-old Alfie is struggling to come to terms with his dark past.

Alfie’s story is one of regret, the mistakes we make, and the secrets even the most unassuming of us can hold. But it is also a story about family, friendship, the things we should treasure and protect, and how the choices we make can shape our lives and the lives of others.

Genre: Light fiction

Format: Mobi / e-pub

Dark Oaks by Charlie Vincent (154 pages)

New Year’s Eve. The turn of the millennium. A tragic accident results in the death of Charles’s parents, his sister-in-law, and her unborn child. His army officer brother, Robert, is the only survivor.
Unable to come to terms with the loss, Charles moves abroad and tries to forget the past.
Twenty-two years later, things start to go badly wrong for him. Two of his friends go missing, his boat is stolen, and his bank account is emptied. Scared and unsure of what to do, Charles returns to England to ask Robert for help.
As the two brothers begin investigating who is behind the crimes, they uncover evidence that somebody out there has been masterminding the death of their entire bloodline over the course of decades, and they are next in line.
Can Charles and Robert bring their nemesis out of the shadows and fight back, or are they doomed to follow the same fate as the rest of their family?

Genre: Thriller

Format: Mobi

Diamonds Of Deception by H.C. Hannah (370 pages)

September 1995. A woman’s body is found on the beach of an exclusive Caribbean resort, brutally murdered. A ten million dollar diamond necklace mysteriously disappears and the guests at the resort are evacuated as Hurricane Luis advances from the Atlantic. One of the guests is fifteen year old Alicia Clayton. Evidence from the crime scene is swept away by the hurricane and the body goes missing on the way to the mortuary. The perfect murder. No one is convicted. The case is never closed. The killer walks free.Twenty years later, a diamond necklace shows up at a Hatton Garden jewellery store. It bears a striking resemblance to the original necklace. Alicia, now an investigative journalist, is compelled to return to the abandoned resort and the scene of the murder. Someone is using her to lure the killer out into the open…

Genre: Mystery

Format: Gifted copies from AmazonUK

A Year in the Life of Leah Brand by Lucinda E. Clarke (313 pages)

Leah’s nightmare began the day the dog died.

A few years earlier a fatal car crash took the lives of Leah’s beloved husband and their two babies, leaving her disabled. Life looked bleak. She was approaching forty, unemployed, broke and desperate.

Then she met Mason. He was charming, charismatic, persuasive, and a successful businessman, well respected in the community. His teenage daughter did nothing to welcome Leah into the family, but life is never perfect.

Then, two years into her second marriage, Leah Brand’s world is turned upside down; inanimate objects in the house move, her clothes are left out for the rubbish collection, pieces of furniture change places, there are unexplained noises and hauntings.

As the disturbances increase, everyone accuses Leah of losing her mind. Soon she begins to doubt herself and she starts to spiral down into a world of insanity. Is she going mad, or is someone out to destroy her? And if so, why?

Genre: Psychological thriller

Format: Mobi

Drake: Tudor Corsair (The Elizabethan Series Book 1) by Tony Riches (346 pages)

1564: Devon sailor Francis Drake sets out on a journey of adventure.

Drake learns of routes used to transport Spanish silver and gold, and risks his life in an audacious plan to steal a fortune.

Queen Elizabeth is intrigued by Drake and secretly encourages his piracy. Her unlikely champion becomes a national hero, sailing around the world in the Golden Hind and attacking the Spanish fleet.

King Philip of Spain has enough of Drake’s plunder and orders an armada to threaten the future of England.

Genre: Tudor Histfic

Format: Mobi