WINNER and Runner-Up of the Mystery Thriller 2015 Book Award

The 2015 Mystery Thriller Golden Rose Book award went to

Rose Edmunds and her book Concealment

Meet Rose

Rose Edmunds lives in Brighton with her husband David. She gained a degree in mathematics at the University of Sussex and a PhD from Cardiff University, before qualifying as a chartered accountant and embarking on a successful career advising entrepreneurial businesses together with their owners. In 2007, after more than 20 years working for leading accountancy firms, she jumped off the corporate hamster wheel and now writes financial thrillers with a strong ethical theme. Her writing draws heavily on her considerable insight into the business world and in particular the uncomfortable conflict between individual and corporate objectives. Rose is also a trustee of Brightside, a charity helping young people to access career and education opportunities they might not have believed were available to them.

Catch up with Rose on Twitter @RoseEdmunds

Book Description

Amy is at the top of her game as a finance professional despite a traumatic childhood. But the higher she climbs, the greater her fear of falling.
Her new boss Ed sniffs out insecurity like a shark smelling blood. He’s trashed dozens of careers on a whim and has Amy lined up as his next victim.
When a young colleague is murdered, Amy’s fragile equilibrium is shattered. A client’s fraud may be linked to the killing, but no one seems to care.
Caught in a tangle of business and personal connections, and fighting for her sanity, can Amy find the moral courage to uncover the truth?

Find a copy here from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com

The Silver Award went to

Robert Leigh and his book Any Man Joe

Meet Robert

After bartending his way around Spain and the West End of London, Robert Leigh returned to his home city of Liverpool and began writing. Leigh’s works include The Retribution Trilogy (third book currently in production) and From Lime Street to Yirgacheffe (a true story, of sorts…).

Find Robert on Twitter @ScreamingMagpie

Book Description

Before Shaun, there was Joe.
DI Edwards was called to the scene of a shooting. Four of the deceased were well known to him. The fifth man remained a mystery.
Until he woke up.
His name was Joe, a misfit shelf stacker living on the Forest Estate. As the investigation continues, DI Edwards finds himself being drawn deeper into Joe’s world of vigilante revenge. But will the truth of Joe’s actions ever fully be revealed?

Find a copy here from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com

Final congratulations to all the Mystery thriller nominees.

Geoffrey West and The Jack Lockwood Diaries

Noelle Granger with Death In A Dacron Sail

Rob Sinclair with Rise Of The Enemy

Faith Mortimer with A Deadly Learning

 

 

 

ANNOUNCING winners and runners-up in the 2015 Rosie Amber Golden Rose Book Awards #TuesdayBookBlog

Welcome to the Official Awards Ceremony of the 2015 Rosie Amber #RBRT Book Awards. We had almost one thousand votes. A Huge thank you to all the nominees and their supporters.

Here Are The Results

 

Congratulations!

2015 Rosie Amber Book Award

Fantasy and Sci-Fi

Winner of the Golden Rose is

Barb Taub with One Way Fare

 

  

Runner-up and receiver of the Silver Rose is

John Privilege with The American Policeman

 

 

 

 

Congratulations!

2015 Rosie Amber Book Award

Mystery and Thriller

Winner of the Golden Rose is

Rose Edmunds with Concealment

 

Runner-up and receiver of the Silver Rose is

Robert Leigh with Any Man Joe

 

Congratulations!

2015 Rosie Amber Book Award

Contemporary

Winner of the Golden Rose is

Mark Barry with The Night Porter

 

Runner-up and receiver of the Silver Rose is

Terry Tyler with Last Child

 

 

Congratulations!

2015 Rosie Amber Book Award

Romance

Winner of the Golden Rose is

Lynne Shelby with French Kissing

 

Runner-up and receiver of the Silver Rose is

Patricia Sands with The Promise Of Provence

 

Congratulations!

2015 Rosie Amber Book Award

Historical Fiction

Winner of the Golden Rose is

Zoe Saadia with Two Rivers

 

Runner-up and receiver of the Silver Rose is

Frances Evesham with Danger At Thatcham Hall

A round of applause please for all our finalists;

Dylan J Morgan

C.S Boyack

Rewan Tremethick

Celine Jeanjean

Geoffrey West

Noelle Granger

Rob Sinclair

Faith Mortimer

Sue Hewitt

Laura Wilkinson

Tonia Parronchi

Dena Haggerty

Helen Pollard

Heather Hill

Donna Brown

Emily Arden

Alison Williams

William Savage

Tony Riches

Vanessa Matthews

I will be posting feature posts on the Winners and Runners-Up authors over the next few days.

 

The #MysteryNovember Book Tour Day 28 Rose Edmunds @RoseEdmunds

Welcome to day 28 of the #MysteryNovember book tour

Today our guest is Rose Edmunds with her book Concealment

Blurb

Amy is at the top of her game as a finance professional despite a traumatic childhood. But the higher she climbs, the greater her fear of falling.
Her new boss Ed sniffs out insecurity like a shark smelling blood. He’s trashed dozens of careers on a whim and has Amy lined up as his next victim.
When a young colleague is murdered, Amy’s fragile equilibrium is shattered. A client’s fraud may be linked to the killing, but no one seems to care.
Caught in a tangle of business and personal connections, and fighting for her sanity, can Amy find the moral courage to uncover the truth?

 Where is your home town?

I’m a Yorkshire woman by birth, but I left Leeds at 18 to attend the University of Sussex near Brighton. Apart from a year spent in the US, I’ve lived in Brighton ever since.

What do you like about writing in the mystery genre?

I love the intellectual challenge of fitting all the pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle, making sure that there are no plot holes and that characters’ motivations are consistent and believable. It’s also fun putting in subtle clues and a few red herrings along the way. Ideally you want the reader to say ‘Aha – I knew it all along’ when all the plot strands converge at the end, but mystery readers are a savvy bunch these days, so you have to work hard to achieve that result.

What sub-genre of mystery does your book fit?

Amy, the heroine of CONCEALMENT, is effectively an amateur sleuth, but there’s also an extra layer of psychological suspense due to Amy’s deteriorating mental state. The reader is never quite sure what is real and what is inside Amy’s head.

Where is your book set?

The cut-throat dog-eat-dog environment of the City – London’s financial centre

Can you introduce us to the main characters?

Amy is a high-flying finance executive, who looks to the outside world like poised professional. But underneath the veneer of confidence, she’s desperately insecure and paranoid as a result of her traumatic childhood.

Her boss, Ed, is a cynical opportunist, quick to exploit others’ weaknesses to his own ends, and smart enough to know exactly how to turn the screws without getting on the wrong side of the HR department.

Lisa is Amy’s only friend in this hostile environment, but Amy is never able to trust her fully, maybe because she senses that Lisa’s main agenda is her own advancement.

DCI Dave Carmody is in charge of investigating the murder of Amy’s young colleague Isabelle. His rootless energy leads him down several blind alleys, and his attraction to Amy is also a distraction.

Where can readers find out more about you and your writing?

Website www.roseedmunds.co.uk

Facebookwww.facebook.com/RoseedmundsAuthor

Twitter www.twitter.com/RoseEdmunds

Where can readers find your book?

The book is available only on Amazon http://amzn.to/1QlNNl0 (UK)

and http://amzn.to/1HGsgkb  (US)

Rosie’s Book Review Team #RBRT Concealment by @RoseEdmunds #Bookreview

Today’s Team review is from Georgia, she blogs at http://www.georgiarosebooks.com

Georgia has read and reviewed Concealment by Rose Edmunds

Concealment by Rose Edmunds

Concealment is a thriller based in the financial world of a large accounting firm called Pearson Malone and is written in the first person. Amy Robinson is a partner in this firm and right from the start of this story she believes she is living a lie due to the upbringing she endured in her childhood home life, the knock on effects of which are coming out now that she is under a lot of stress.

At the beginning this setting reminded me of my time working in an office and the politics that are the undercurrent of such an environment. Such politics can make for an unpleasant work life and they are one of the reasons I choose to work alone. However at Pearson Malone they are taken to another level altogether and what starts off as mild manipulation and blatant, if suspicious, favouritism grows into something much, much worse as a member of staff is murdered and a culture of blackmail, threats and cover ups is revealed all in order to allow a big and extremely lucrative deal to go through.

This is a very tidy, well written book, the prose spare and efficient which I liked and I felt very much depicted Amy at her most organised. The character descriptions were vivid and very real; I could absolutely see these people, and most of them were terrible. Smithies made me shudder, the very worst kind of patronising bully, Lisa…well…let’s just say I’m not a fan.

Amy drinks too much and because of her actions gets caught up in the murder enquiries. When her suspicions are raised she reluctantly starts investigating the possible reasons behind the murder and discovers more than it is safe for her to. This leads to attacks being made on her life…and this is where I had a bit of a problem. Edmunds is very talented at building consistent and believable characters. She also did an extremely good job of the build up of the paranoia in Amy’s mind as she comes to believe everyone around her is involved in fraud and covering up for each other. But I would have liked there to have been more made of the attacks themselves and of Amy’s reaction to them as those parts of the story passed very quickly and she seems to brush them off when one in particular is not something that happens to you every day on a British street.

Amy not only has problems at work but also a situation arises with her mother which again Edmunds deals with extremely well showing a consistency of thought throughout the story which is totally believable.

Amy starts to hear a familiar voice right from the very first page, (I really liked this) and this manifests into her seeing a figment and eventually as she nears the edge of her own sanity and is close to a breakdown she finds herself acting on the figments instructions.

I’m not that keen on being told very obviously at the end of a chapter of the fate that lies in wait for a character but that is a personal thing and I can see it builds tension and I’m sure other readers will like it. I have to say that I loved the ending, the way Amy, and Edmunds, dealt with that last meeting…brilliant!!

If accountancy isn’t your idea of the ideal basis for an exciting thriller then think again and don’t be concerned about having to deal with the intricacies of tax fraud you don’t need to be all over that to enjoy this very well thought out story.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Find a copy here from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com

 

 

Rosie’s Book Review Team #RBRT Noelle reviews Concealment by @RoseEdmunds

Today we have a review from team member Noelle, she blogs at http://saylingaway.wordpress.com

Noelle chose to read and review Concealment by Rose Edmunds

 

 

Concealment by Rose Edmunds

Reviewer: Noelle Granger

Concealment is quite a twisted mystery and unique in that it takes place in the arena of big business and finance. Amy, an executive in the company overseeing the financial aspects of a merger of a construction company with another, larger company, has risen through the ranks by dint of ambition and hard work. Another less determined person might not have achieved her position, given the fact she is the daughter of a pathological hoarder who made Amy’s childhood miserable and who is currently bringing misery to her life again. She survives by keeping her past a secret, a delicate balancing act.

The story begins with the discovery by the tax division of Amy’s company of some irregularities in the financials of the smaller of the two companies, irregularities which are later found not to be the problem initially thought. The one problem I had with this book is that the financial and business information was over my head, and I did not understand exactly what was going on; nevertheless, I managed to get a general idea.

Then Amy’s young colleague, a thorough investigator of the tax conundrum, is murdered, and Amy’s new boss Ed displays obnoxious behavior that she interprets as a desire to trash her career and boot her from the company.

As the mystery of her colleague’s death unwinds under Amy’s reluctant but intelligent investigation, the pressure on her by the smarmy Ed increases inexorably. He undermines her authority, gets friends to spy on her, and discredits her at every turn. Amy becomes convinced he is the killer and increasingly uses alcohol to calm her distress. Her tight control of herself and her life starts to crack, and as her paranoia increases, even the reader becomes worried that Amy is mentally unbalanced. Is there no one she can trust?

Amy gradually discovers that various parties to the merger are pursuing illegal agendas, which leads to a suicide and attempts on her life. To top it off, a nosy and imperious neighbor manipulates her mother to apply even further pressure on Amy’s already precarious mental balance. The reader is kept guessing to the very end and I found myself reading as quickly as possible to discover who was at the bottom of everything. Most satisfying is how Amy exacts her revenge.

A smashing good read.

Find a copy here from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com

Rosie’s Book Review Team #RBRT Liz reviews Concealment by @RoseEdmunds

Today’s team review comes from Liz, she blogs at https://lizannelloyd.wordpress.com/

Liz chose to read and review Concealment by Rose Edmunds

Concealment by Rose Edmunds

 

In “Concealment” we meet high flying achiever, Amy Robinson, Head of the Entrepreneurs’ Tax Advising Group in a large finance company. But “nothing is but what is not.” Amy hides a secret from her youth and she is determined to appear normal, despite the voice in her head.

 

If that were not enough, Amy has to refuse bonuses and deny promotions at the bid of her boss Ed Smithers, earning the enmity of staff in her department. Next day, after an unpleasant experience with Ryan Kelly, her ex brother-in-law she learns that his girlfriend, Isabelle, an employee from her department has suddenly disappeared. Amy’s suspicions move from one colleague to another, following on from Ryan’s words that Isabelle had found discrepancies in the accounting of a slate quarry which is about to be acquired.

 

Amy takes over preparations for the acquisition, which means she has to speak to Greg, her ex-husband, who is leader of the Corporate Finance team. She wonders if Isabelle’s rapid promotion by Ed Smithers was because of a liaison or to keep her quiet. As Smithers increasingly undermines Amy’s authority she is glad to have the sympathetic ear of her only friend Lisa, who also has reason to distrust Smithers.

 

But Amy’s behaviour seems to be becoming increasingly odd. The voice in her head now has substance in the figure of her younger self, who berates her for not managing her childhood more effectively. As murder is followed by a suicide, is Amy suffering from paranoia or is she really in danger?

 

The novel moves rapidly, as Amy stumbles from one disaster to another revealing the source of the mystery. Does she have the strength to extract herself from an impossible situation and prove to Detective Chief Inspector Dave Carmody that she is telling the truth? There is treachery and confusion in a story I couldn’t put down!

Find a copy here from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com