Mrs Cooke’s Books

The Thunder Girls by Melanie Blake

It’s my stop on the blogtour for The Thunder Girls by Melanie Blake and I am pleased to share an Extract with you today!

Synopsis

THE

Chrissie, Roxanne, Carly and Anita, an eighties pop sensation outselling and out-classing their competition. Until it all comes to an abrupt end and three of their careers are over, and so is their friendship.

THUNDER

Thirty years later, their old record label wants the band back together for a huge money-making concert. But the wounds are deep and some need this gig more than others.

In those decades apart life was far from the dream they were living as members of The Thunder Girls. Breakdowns, bankruptcy, addiction and divorce have been a constant part of their lives. They’ve been to hell and back, and some are still there.

GIRLS

Can the past be laid to rest for a price, or is there more to this reunion than any of them could possibly know? Whilst they all hunger for a taste of success a second time around, someone is plotting their downfall in the deadliest way possible . . .

Mortmain Hall is at once a gripping thriller and a classic whodunit puzzle: a Golden Age Gothic mystery, the finest novel yet from a modern master of crime writing.

Extract

Prologue

November 1989
Carly Hughes stepped from the back of the limousine at the entrance to Shine Records. She was wearing a short kilt and leather jacket. Lacy tights with biker boots; big hair, kooky-looking shades and an oversized designer bag worth thousands.
Every inch the pop star.
Her driver, Dale, threw a protective arm around her as he steered her past thousands of screaming Thunder Girls fans, Carly stopping to scribble her name on the autograph books and tour programmes being thrust at her. Some of the fans were hysterical. A young girl clung to her, sobbing, burying her tear streaked face in her idol’s new jacket.
Without taking his eyes off her, a handsome lad was snap- ping endless pictures on a battered Instamatic whilst staring at Carly intently. Dale let Carly know it was time to move. She detached herself from the crying girl and escaped into the building.

As they waited for the lift she inspected her jacket. ‘I think I’ve got snot on my sleeve. First time I’ve worn this, as well.’
Dale frowned and handed her a crisp white hanky. She dabbed at the damp leather.
‘I keep telling you not to be so touchy-feely,’ he said. ‘You don’t know where they’ve been.’
‘Harsh, Dale. They’re just kids—’
‘Bunking off school, most of them,’ he grumbled. ‘—hanging about in the cold for hours, hoping for a word.’ ‘You’re way too trusting. They could pull a knife, any-
thing.’
Dale was ex-military. Special Forces. Decorated for bravery. Secretly hoping someone would step out of line one day so he could show what he was made of.
‘They’re our fans, they’d never hurt us.’ Carly gave him a dazzling smile. ‘Anyway, that’s why you’re here.’
He shook his head. ‘That weird one taking pictures . . . I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him – his eyes don’t look right.’
She giggled. ‘Don’t be mean. He’s the Mad Fan – goes everywhere we do, just likes to look at us and take his pics, bless him.’
‘Yeah, well that’s odd as well, the quiet ones are always the worst.’

The Thundergirls is out now in gorgeous peperback and you can buy it

My thanks go to Martina Ticic and Midas PR for the invitation to the blogtour and to Head of Zeus for my stunning finished copy of the book.

If you liked my post, please do check out my others, and also the other stops on the blog tour (see below).

Until next time!

@mrscookesbooks

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What’s Left of Me is Yours by Stephanie Scott

Hello and happy Tuesday 😎

Today I’m sharing my thoughts on What’s Left of Me is Yours by Stephanie Scott as part of the #blogtour 💫

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Synopsis

What’s Left of Me Is Yours follows a young woman’s search for the truth about her mother’s life – and her murder.

In Japan, a covert industry has grown up around the wakaresaseya (literally “breaker-upper”), a person hired by one spouse to seduce the other in order to gain the advantage in divorce proceedings.

When Sato hires Kaitaro, a wakaresaseya agent, to have an affair with his wife, Rina, he assumes it will be an easy case. But Sato has never truly understood Rina or her desires and Kaitaro’s job is to do exactly that – until he does it too well.

While Rina remains ignorant of the circumstances that brought them together, she and Kaitaro fall in a desperate, singular love, setting in motion a series of violent acts that will forever haunt her daughter Sumiko’s life.

Told from alternating points of view and across the breathtaking landscapes of Japan, What’s Left of Me Is Yours explores the thorny psychological and moral grounds of the actions we take in the name of love, asking where we draw the line between passion and possession.

My Thoughts

There has been an ENORMOUS amount of buzz about this book over the last few months and everything about it, including it’s spectacular booksleeve, drew me to it.

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Eye-opening from the start, this is not a book for the faint hearted; it is sinister, heavy and at times rather disturbing. That said, I remained throughly gripped by Scott’s beautiful prose; it was so atmospheric and lyrical, almost like a poem at times.

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A tale laced with tragedy and guilt; What’s Left of Me is Yours is both raw and sensual and makes from a truly fascinating yet heartbreaking read.

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I hadn’t realised until after I’d finished, that this book was inspired by a true crime; without giving anything away, I think for me this made the climactic ending even more shocking.

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Dark, addictive and fiercely compelling; What’s Left of Me is Yours is a must read for 2020.

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What’s Left of Me is Yours is out today in stunning hardback and my thanks go to Anne Cater for the invitation to the blogtour and W&N Books for my gorgeous finished copy 💫

Hardback available via Waterstones.com (£14.99) here or Blackwell’s here.

eBook (£9.99) here and audiobook (£19.99) here.

If you enjoyed my post, please do check out my others and also the other stops not he blogtour (see below).

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Until next time! Have a wonderful day!

@mrscookesbooks

Bone China by Laura Purcell

Hello and happy Saturday 🌞

Today I’m so excited to be sharing my thoughts on Bone China by Laura Purcell today 🌟

I was lucky enough to take part in a fabulous readalong on Instagram with some lovely bookish buddies over the Easter Bank Holiday weekend, which culminated in a Q & A with Laura Purcell herself! It was such a great experience ♥️

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Synopsis

Consumption has ravaged Louise Pinecroft’s family, leaving her and her father alone and heartbroken.

But Dr Pinecroft has plans for a revolutionary experiment: convinced that sea air will prove to be the cure his wife and children needed, he arranges to house a group of prisoners suffering from the same disease in the cliffs beneath his new Cornish home.

Forty years later, Hester Why arrives at Morvoren House to take up a position as nurse to the now partially paralysed and almost entirely mute Miss Pinecroft. Hester has fled to Cornwall to try and escape her past, but surrounded by superstitious staff enacting bizarre rituals, she soon discovers that her new home may be just as dangerous as her last.

My Thoughts

It’s no secret that I love historical fiction and I was so excited to start Bone China; especially with its shiny and mystical looking paperback cover!

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Fuelled by drugs and alcohol and flitting between two time zones, 40 years apart; this story is a wonder. Purcell’s writing is so alluring and vivid; allowing the Cornish setting to leap off the pages and making for a terrifically tense read.

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With a cast of fairly unlikeable characters, Purcell has produced a sinister, spooky and spine tingling story and I honestly didn’t want it to end. Draped in darkness and superstition, folklore and even the supernatural, I was hooked from the first chapter.

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Full of glorious. gothic menace and mystery; Bone China is a book I won’t be forgetting in a hurry! I enjoyed it so much that I have ordered both The Silent Companions and The Corset.

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Bone China is out now in stunning paperback and you can buy it here💫

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My thanks go the lovely team from Tandom Collective for my invitation to this readlong and also to Laura Purcell herself for answering the Q & A. Special mention to my readlong buddies who are all wonderful 😘

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Until next time! Have a wonderful day!

@mrscookesbooks

Mortmain Hall by Martin Edwards

It’s my stop on the blogtour for Mortmain Hall by Martin Edwards and I am pleased to share an original AUTHOR POST with you today!

Synopsis

ENGLAND, 1930. Grieving widows are a familiar sight on London’s Necropolis Railway. So when an elegant young woman in a black veil boards the funeral train, nobody guesses her true purpose.

But Rachel Savernake is not one of the mourners. She hopes to save a life – the life of a man who is supposed to be cold in the grave. But then a suspicious death on the railway track spurs her on to investigate a sequence of baffling mysteries: a death in a blazing car; a killing in a seaside bungalow; a tragic drowning in a frozen lake. Rachel believes that the cases are connected – but what possible link can there be?

Rich, ruthless and obsessed with her own dark notions of justice, she will not rest until she has discovered the truth. To find the answers to her questions she joins a house party on the eerie and remote North Yorkshire coast at Mortmain Hall, an estate. Her inquiries are helped – and sometimes hindered – by the impetuous young journalist Jacob Flint and an eccentric female criminologist with a dangerous fascination with perfect crimes…

Mortmain Hall is at once a gripping thriller and a classic whodunit puzzle: a Golden Age Gothic mystery, the finest novel yet from a modern master of crime writing.

Author Post

My Top 10 Female Detectives – Martin Edwards

The book that set me on the path to becoming a crime writer – at the tender age of eight – was The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie. I fell in lovewith Jane Marple, the elderly lady who, when it comes to solving murder mysteries, proves to be more than a match for Scotland Yard’s finest. Her acute understanding of human behaviour, in all its forms, gleaned from a lifetime spent in a small village, is more than just a brilliant concept, it’s an enormousstrength.

When I created Rachel Savernake, the lead character in Mortmain Hall, I wanted to balance her undoubted ruthlessness with a profound insight into human nature gained from her dark past. In one way or another, it’s this quality of knowing how people tick that is the hallmark of the best female detectives. Here are ten of my favourites.

Jane Marple (Agatha Christie)

When Miss Marple first appeared, one leading critic said that the character couldn’t sustain a series – she was too limited in her horizons. How wrong can you be? Marple has a powerful sense of evil, illustrated in A Pocket Full of Ryewhen she is distressed by the cruel murder of a naive housemaid. Of course, she makes sure the culprit gets his just deserts.

Mrs Bradley (Gladys Mitchell)

In the books about her, the psychiatrist Mrs Bradley is as ugly as she is brilliant. Everyone was amazed, therefore, when the stories were televised and DianaRigg took the role. The TV series was fun but short-lived. The books are variable, but the best are memorable. Mrs Bradley is clever but also ruthless: in Speedy Death, she even commits murder.

Harriet Vane (Dorothy L. Sayers)

The first great love affair in detective fiction was between Harriet and Lord Peter Wimsey. Like Sayers, Harriet is a detective novelist rather than a great detective, but she takes centre stage in Gaudy Night, described by some as the first major feminist crime story.

Anna Lee (Liza Cody)

Anna was the first major female private eye in British fiction, appearing in a series of lively mysteries. When the books were televised, Imogen Stubbs played Anna, but the scripts didn’t live up to the quality of the excellent source material.

Jane Tennison (Lynda LaPlante)

Helen Mirren’s performance as Jane Tennison in the Prime Suspect series remains as gripping as it was ground-breaking. The work-life balance challenges faced by a senior female police officer complemented strong storylines which influenced a generation of TV writers in their portrayal of women detectives.

Kinsey Millhone (Sue Grafton)

Kinsey is a likeable cop turned private eye who featured in 25 highly entertaining mysteries starting with A is for Alibi. Sue Grafton never allowed Kinsey to be portrayed on television, a decision influenced by her own experience of the TV world. Her death in 2017 means that the alphabet ends with Y is for Yesterday.

Cordelia Gray (P D James)

Cordelia is a private eye who only appears in two novels, yet they made a huge impact and led to a successful TV series, the wryly titled An Unsuitable Job fora Woman. However P D James resisted the temptation to marry Cordelia off to her series detective Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard – a good decision.

Vera Stanhope (Ann Cleeves)

Vera made her first appearance half-way through The Crow Trap but, on reading the book when it first appeared, I was convinced that she was a character with star quality. Many years later, her portrayal by Brenda Blethyn on television has helped to make Ann Cleeves Britain’s new Queen of Crime.

Lisabeth Salander (Stieg Larsson)

Salander, the enigmatic and formidable ‘girl with the dragon tattoo’ is one of the most striking characters in modern fiction. She appeared in three novels before her creator’s untimely death. The success of the books and film adaptations has led to the appearance of continuation novels by other writers.

Precious Ramotswe (Alexander McCall Smith)

Precious lives in Botswana and founded the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. Her wisdom rivals that of Jane Marple, and the light stories in which she appears offer delightful entertainment in testing times.

Mortmain Hall is out now in gorgeous hardback and you can buy it here

My thanks go to Martina Ticic and Midas PR for the invitation to the blogtour and to Head of Zeus for my stunning finished copy of the book.

If you liked my post, please do check out my others, and also the other stops on the blog tour (see below).

Until next time!

@mrscookesbooks

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

Hello and happy Tuesday 🌞

Today I’m so excited to be sharing my thoughts on Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell 💫

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Synopsis

TWO EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE. A LOVE THAT DRAWS THEM TOGETHER. A LOSS THAT THREATENS TO TEAR THEM APART.

On a summer’s day in 1596, a young girl in Stratford-upon-Avon takes to her bed with a fever. Her twin brother, Hamnet, searches everywhere for help. Why is nobody at home?

Their mother, Agnes, is over a mile away, in the garden where she grows medicinal herbs. Their father is working in London. Neither parent knows that one of the children will not survive the week.

Hamnet is a novel inspired by the son of a famous playwright. It is a story of the bond between twins, and of a marriage pushed to the brink by grief. It is also the story of a kestrel and its mistress; flea that boards a ship in Alexandria; and a glovemaker’s son who flouts convention in pursuit of the woman he loves. Above all, it is a tender and unforgettable reimagining of a boy whose life has been all but forgotten, but whose name was given to one of the most celebrated plays ever written.

My Thoughts

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I was beyond ecstatic when I received a highly coveted proof of Hamnet. I’d heard so much about this wonderful book and couldn’t wait to get stuck into it. Centred around William Shakespeare’s family, and set in Stratford-Upon-Avon; this story concentrates on his wife Anne Hathaway referred to as Agnes in the book).

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I adored reading about the familiar setting of Stratford-upon-Avon and was entranced by every character in this story, as, whilst not new to us, O’Farrell has managed to breathe oxygen and a whole new chapter into the pages of Shakespeare’s life and has created, in my mind, a formidable woman in Agnes. I loved her wonderfully witchy and gothic vibe; her lotions, potions and poultices; and felt truly aligned to her tale.

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Hamnet is not a book to be rushed; it is to be savoured slowly. It consists of lavish, long, luxurious sentences; oozing and dripping glorious details. Such is the wizardry of O’Farrell’s sumptuous prose that I didn’t once feel that I needed to reread a sentence for it to make sense.

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Without giving too much away; Hamnet is a tragic tale of grief and loss and harrowing to say the least; I for one had tears flowing quietly during most of the latter sections; so please be prepared.

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Everyone knows that I love hist fic as a genre, but Hamnet is on a whole new level of perfection. Rich in historical detail; dramatic yet devastating; O’Farrell has given us a masterclass on how to tell a story and I was consumed.

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Excellent, exquisite, epic. There aren’t enough superlatives. Everyone needs to buy and read Hamnet right now.

Hamnet is is out now in stunning hardcover and you can buy it here 💫

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My thanks go to Emily Patience, Alara Delfosse, Headline Books and Tinder Press for giving me the opportunity to read this stunning book.

Until next time! Have a wonderful day!