Category Archives: #RBRT

Fair as a Star (Victorian Romantics Book 1) by @MimiMatthewsEsq #Victorian #Romance #RBRT #FridayReads

Posted in #RBRT, Book Review, Romance, Victorian by

Author: Mimi Matthews

Due to be Published by Perfectly Proper Press on 14th July

Category: Victorian Romance, Book Review

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

After a mysterious sojourn in Paris, Beryl Burnham has returned home to the village of Shepton Worthy ready to resume the life she left behind. Betrothed to the wealthy Sir Henry Rivenhall, she has no reason to be unhappy—or so people keep reminding her. But Beryl’s life isn’t as perfect as everyone believes.

As village curate, Mark Rivenhall is known for his compassionate understanding. When his older brother’s intended needs a shoulder to lean on, Mark’s more than willing to provide one. There’s no danger of losing his heart. He already lost that to Beryl a long time ago.

It’s a long time since I read a Victorian romance so this proved to be a nice change. The story opens as Beryl Burnham and her Aunt Hortensia arrive home after spending the past year in Paris. The reason for the trip isn’t revealed until later in the story and creates much empathy for Beryl. The first thing Beryl does on reaching Shepton Worthy is to pay her respects to the curate, Mark Rivenhall, when she notices the church doors are open, signalling Mark was there. He was soon to become her brother-in-law as Beryl was betrothed to Sir Henry Rivenhall.

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Madam Tulip and the Serpent’s Tree (A Madam Tulip Mystery) by @DaveAhernWriter #BookReview for #RBRT #TuesdayBookBlog

Posted in #RBRT, Book Review, Cozy Mystery, Humour, Mystery, Romance, Suspense by

Author: David Ahern

Published: March 2020 by Malin Press

Category: Cosy Mystery, Drama, Suspense, Romance, Book Review

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Actress Derry O’Donnell, moonlighting as fortune-teller Madam Tulip, finds herself in a famous pop singer’s entourage.

But at the star’s glittering birthday party in the Dublin mountains, Derry finds a band riven by rivalries and feuds. Behind the trouble is a mysterious Russian guru, a shaman hated by everyone but the singer whose life she dominates.

Derry O’ Donnell, a talented but at the moment jobless actress, along with her friends, rising TV star Bella and ex Navy SEAL Bruce, have secured a three week run for their fledgling theatre company. Pat Kelly, pub owner and band manager, has offered a room above the pub as a venue. But first Derry was required to grant a favour and become her alter ego, Madam Tulip, for a party. Pat Kelly manages pop group Maramar and is hosting a birthday bash for the lead singer, Aileen.

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The Paperboy (DCI Peter Hatherall Mystery #6) by @DianaJFebry ~ two crimes more than 20 years apart – are they linked? #RBRT #FridayReads

Posted in #RBRT, Book Review, Murder, Mystery, Police Procedural by

Author: Diana J Febry

Published on Kindle

Category: Murder, Mystery, Police Procedural, Book Review

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A young mother brutally stabbed in a busy park in front of her son. 

A paperboy shot in an isolated farmhouse twenty-four years previously. 

This is a murder mystery with its roots in the past. Amanda Beresford is a single mother with a young son, Freddie. She is struggling to make ends meet and Freddie’s father is no help. While walking in the park one day with Freddie, in a seemingly random attack she is stabbed twice and her attacker flees without being caught. 

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Fatal Finds in Nuala (An Inspector de Silva Mystery) by @harrietsteel1 #CosyMystery set in 1930s Ceylon #RBRT

Posted in #RBRT, Book Review, Cozy Mystery, Crime, Historical Fiction, Thriller by

Author: Harriet Steel

Published: July 2018 by Stane Street Press

Category: Historical Fiction, Cosy Mystery, Murder, Crime, Book Review

In this fourth instalment of the Inspector de Silva mysteries, it is monsoon season in the Hill Country. One stormy night, a ghostly encounter on a lonely road leads de Silva into a case of murder, and a mystery that stretches back to Ceylon’s distant past. To uncover the truth, he will have to face death and his inner demons.

Inspector Shanti de Silva is already regretting the whim that made him arrange a visit to see his colleague Inspector Singh in Hatton during the monsoon season.

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Twisted Truth (Peter Hatherall Book 5) by @DianaJFebry ~ Contemporary Crime Fiction reviewed for #RBRT #FridayReads

Posted in #RBRT, Book Review, Contemporary Fiction, Crime, Murder, Mystery by

Author: Diana J Febry

Kindle Edition

Category: Crime, Murder, Mystery, Contemporary, Book Review

It’s hard to defend yourself when you have memory lapses, and everyone thinks you are crazy. 

Journalist, Megan Roach, is given a story by an old man in a nursing home that could make her famous. When her carefully constructed life starts to unravel, she is forced to confront her childhood demons and the possibility she could be a murderer. 

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Ryan Kaine: On The Rocks (Book 2) by @KerryJDonovan #BookReview for #RBRT #FridayReads

Posted in #RBRT, Action, Book Review, Books, Crime, Suspense, Thriller by

  • Author: Kerry J Donovan
  • Published: September 2017 by Human Vertex Publications
  • Category: Mystery, Thriller, Crime, Book Review, Books, Reading

Fresh from finding evidence that might clear him of terrorism charges and still carrying the scars of battle, Ryan Kaine heads to Scotland to help find missing schoolboy, Martin Princeton. 

Facing arrest for shooting down civilian aircraft, Flight BE1555, and killing the 83 people aboard, Kaine is desperate to help find the boy. Why? Martin’s brother was on that plane and Kaine has vowed to protect the families of the victims–The 83. 

Following on from book one – Ryan Kaine: On the Run – Ryan is making a mad dash up to Scotland to help in the search for sixteen year old Martin Princeton, whose brother was a passenger on the doomed civilian aircraft. The events that transpired in the first book continue to take a heavy toll on Ryan, the guilt he feels is overwhelming at times which is why he’s determined to do all he can to see Martin safe and back with his parents. Martin has gone missing during a school camping trip in the Scottish Highlands and is in a desperate life and death situation.

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The Angel Killer by April Taylor #BookReview for #RBRT #Crime #TuesdayBookBlog

Posted in #RBRT, Book Review, Books, Crime, Fiction, Murder, Mystery, Reading, Suspense by

  • Author: April Taylor
  • Kindle Edition
  • Category: Crime, Murder, Suspense, Fiction, Book Review, Books, Reading

Deryn Steele has an unwanted psychic gift leftover from a near-death experience. He can read people just by touching them. His friend, DCI Harry Curzon pulls him into the hunt for the killer of blonde, blue-eyed 12-year-old girls in the Lincolnshire seaside town of Thorpe St David, the Angel Killer..

Deryn Steele’s life had taken an unimaginable path when he rescued a girl from her abusive boyfriend, and a sequence of events resulted in a near death experience, the knowledge that somehow he was now an empath and a prison sentence. He worked hard to obtain a psychology degree and a subsequent teaching qualification, only to find disillusionment in the role he secured as lecturer at Birmingham City University. 

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Clay Tongue: A Novelette by Nicholas Conley #RBRT @NicholasConley1 #TuesdayBookBlog #Fantasy

Posted in #RBRT, Book Review, Books, Contemporary Fiction, Fantasy, Reading by
  • Author: Nicholas Conley
  • Published: November 2016 by CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
  • Category: Fantasy, Contemporary, Book Review

Katie Mirowitz is a small little girl with an even smaller little voice. She possesses a deep love for her grandfather, who suffers from aphasia after a bad stroke cuts loose the part of his brain that processes verbal language.

Clay Tongue is a moving story of a little girl’s belief, determination and courage. Young Katie Mirowitz is a quiet, shy child, except when she’s with her Grandfather. Katie loves talking to him, even now when he can’t form coherent words anymore after his stroke, they always manage to communicate one way or another. But Grandfather is keeping a secret, Katie saw him trying to hide his journal. The knowledge gives her an unfamiliar, and not altogether comfortable, feeling in her heart.  Continue reading →

Codename Lazarus (The Spy Who Came Back from the Dead) by A.P. Martin #TuesdayBookBlog #RBRT #HistFic

Posted in #RBRT, Book Review, Books, Espionage, Historical Fiction, Reading, WWII by
  • Author: A.P. Martin
  • Published: July 2016 by Troubador
  • Category: Historical Fiction, WWII

Spring 1938: Great Britain is facing potentially lethal threats: the looming war with Germany; the fear that her Secret Service has been penetrated by Nazi agents and the existence of hundreds of British citizens, who are keen to pass information to her enemies.

Codename Lazarus is taken from a true story and set in pre World War II Britain and Germany. It’s John King’s last day of an eighteen month research stay in Heidelberg. Although he will be sorry to leave his friends, the threatening climate in Germany, the increase in Hitler’s dictatorship and the ensuing violence against Jews only disgusts and horrifies, somewhat neutralising the sadness at leaving. 

The young SS officer and the rangy, fair-haired man looked equally shocked and baffled that things between them could have come to this. As the German picked himself tentatively from the floor, trying in vain to maintain what dignity he could, the Englishman was taken in the unforgiving grip of two SS soldiers. Briefly their eyes met, full of sadness and incomprehension, for they both knew instinctively that this would change everything.

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Turn of the Tide (Munro #1) by Margaret Skea #HistFic #RBRT #FridayReads @margaretskea1

Posted in #RBRT, Book Review, Historical Fiction, Reading by
  • 41kchzt5uxlAuthor: Margaret Skea
  • Published: September 2015 (2nd Edition) by Sanderling
  • Category: Scottish Historical Fact/Fiction
  • four-stars

Old rivalries…new friendships…dangerous decisions. 

Set in 16th Century Scotland Munro owes allegiance to the Cunninghames and to the Earl of Glencairn. Trapped in the 150-year-old feud between the Cunninghames and the Montgomeries, he escapes the bloody aftermath of an ambush, but he cannot escape the disdain of the wife he sought to protect, or his own internal conflict.

Initially, I wasn’t too sure about this book. There are a lot of characters, and their allegiances, to keep track of, which I found it a little confusing at first. Writing them down as a quick reference helped as it’s not so easy to keep referring back on a kindle. The more I read, the easier it became and the story took hold. Set in Ayrshire in the sixteenth century it tells of a notorious feud that lasted almost two centuries, between the Montgomeries and the Cunninghames. In the middle of these two warring clans is Munro and his family. Munro owes his loyalty to the Cunninghames, even as he is ever more uncomfortable with their actions and behaviour, and his understandable failure to comprehend the reasoning behind the feud. Continue reading →