#GuestPost #JuliaRoberts #AliceinTheatreland #BlogTour

 SYNOPSIS: 

It’s summer 1976; London is languishing in the sultry heat. Beautiful and talented nineteen-year-old, Alice Abbott, arrives in the city with high hopes of one day seeing her name up in lights but first she must impress Richard, the producer of a new West End show, Theatreland.

Alice is befriended at the audition by the more experienced Gina, who, although burdened by her own dark secrets, is determined to protect the newcomer from the sleaze behind the glamour. She also attracts attention from the male lead in the show, Peter, a former pop star struggling to escape his playboy reputation.

Alice’s star seems to be rising as fast as the temperature until she naively accepts an impromptu dinner invitation from Richard. What happened that night? And how far will Richard go to protect his guilty secret?

Alice in Theatreland is published on 27th June 2017. 

Today I am thrilled to welcome Julia Roberts to my blog with a guest post! Thanks ever so much for popping along Julia and for letting me part of your blog tour for your latest book! 

Thanks very much Katherine for inviting me on to your blog!

Alice in Theatreland is my fourth full-length novel and the first one that has a suspense/thriller edge to it. I really enjoyed developing new characters after my Liberty Sands trilogy. The book centres around the title character, nineteen-year-old provincial  dancer, Alice, and her introduction to the sometimes cut-throat world of West End theatre shows, but there are three other key players who I thought I would introduce you to.

Richard is the theatre impresario for whom Alice is auditioning. He is a really unpleasant human-being as we discover immediately when we first meet him in chapter two – however, that is merely the tip of the iceberg. The plot really centres around his behaviour towards Alice and how far he will ultimately go to protect his sordid secret. His only saving grace is his adoration of his spoilt daughter, Miriam.

Peter is the star of the Theatreland show. He is a former pop-star who Alice had a crush on when she was a younger teenager and she is besotted with him when he starts to show an interest in her. However, Peter is struggling to escape his playboy reputation and after being photographed leaving a London nightspot with another girl, Alice feels she can no longer trust him.

The fourth key player is Gina. I know we shouldn’t have favourites among our children or our pets but I must confess I grew fonder and fonder of her character as the story developed. Coming from a very rough upbringing with an absent father and a drug-addict mother, Gina has made some poor life choices, including going to work as a hostess at a London night-club when her dancing jobs were few and far between. She is afraid of her boss there, Franco, who openly threatens the girls at the Ostrich Club if they don’t toe the line.

Gina befriends Alice at the audition for Theatreland, sticking up for her when the other girls are being bitchy about her and taking her in when she has nowhere to live, but her actions later in the book place Alice in serious danger. 

All the way through the book, Gina’s fate was sealed but when it came to writing it I found myself struggling with what I had planned. 

Did I manage to write my original ending?... I couldn’t possibly say without spoiling the story.

Well now we are all seriously intrigued! Thanks Julia for giving us a taste of the characters we will meet in your novel! Good luck with its publication!

Don't forget to check out the other stops on the Blog Tour! 

JULIA ROBERTS 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Julia Roberts’ passion for writing began when, at the age of ten, after winning second prize in a short story-writing competition, she announced that she wanted to write a book. After a small gap of forty-seven years, and a career in the entertainment industry, Julia finally fulfilled her dream in 2013 when her first book, a memoir entitled One Hundred Lengths of the Pool, was published by Preface Publishing. Two weeks later she had the idea for her first novel, Life’s a Beach and Then…, book one in the Liberty Sands Trilogy, which was released in May 2015.

Julia still works full-time as a Presenter for the TV channel QVC, where she has recently celebrated her twenty-third anniversary. 

She now lives in Ascot with her partner of thirty-nine years and occasionally one or other of her adult children and their respective cats.

You can find out more about Julia and her upcoming books on her Facebook page

www.facebook.com/JuliaRobertsTV and her website www.juliarobertsauthor.com

You can also follow her on Twitter @JuliaRobertsTV

Other Books By Julia Roberts

Life’s a Beach and Then… (Liberty Sands trilogy, book one)

If He Really Loved Me… (Liberty Sands trilogy, book two)

It’s Never Too Late to Say… (Liberty Sands trilogy, book three)

Time for a Short Story

The Shadow of Her Smile (free short story on www.juliarobertsauthor.com)

One Hundred Lengths of the Pool 

www.juliarobertsauthor.com

Amazon

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Alice-Theatreland-Julia-Roberts-ebook/dp/B071XZ3HMC

short link

https://t.co/Lr2wbfhrnw

#LastSeen #LucyClarke #Review

Seven years ago, two boys went missing at sea – and only one was brought to shore. The Sandbank, a remote stretch of coast dotted with beach huts, was scarred forever.

Sarah’s son survived, but on the anniversary of the accident, he disappears without trace. As new secrets begin to surface, The Sandbank hums with tension and unanswered questions. Sarah’s search grows more desperate and she starts to mistrust everyone she knows – and she’s right to.

Someone saw everything on that fateful day seven years ago. And they’ll do anything to keep the truth buried.

Hhhmm, maybe not the best book to read before I set off on holiday to the seaside with my young family  - but then hey, isn't that why secretly we love this type of story?! I have admired the cover of this book ever since it first made its appearance on social media - it's very eye-catching and full of impact.

This book also comes with some impressive endorsements from other writers such as Clare MacKintosh and Claire Douglas; I mean, they know their stuff, and so it's no surprise when I tell you - they are not wrong!

The novel alternates between the two voices of Sarah and Isla which is always a great way of creating tension and structuring a good story. The sub heading of 'day one' followed by a time for Sarah's sections also adds to the tension as we count up the hours that Jacob, her son, has been missing and the fear that something more untoward has happened mounts. It's like the reverse of a ticking bomb but works just as well. I took to Sarah straight away. Her honesty, her concerns and her sense of helplessness over her parenting skills and relationship with her now teenage son was very relatable and immediately makes the reader feel sympathetic towards her.

"On the odd occasion that Jacob does confide in me, I feel like a desert walker who has come across a freshwater lake, thirsting for closeness."

There is a lot about motherhood in this novel but this is also a novel about friendship and what happens to that friendship when life changing events come between you. In chapter one we see the tension within Sarah's family and then it ends by revealing a further tension between herself and an old friend, so the stage is set on both fronts.The next chapter shifts to Isla, Sarah's best friend, and goes back to 1991, generating  more suspense and creating a sense of something more threatening.

"It was a girl's wish, that's all. Beach huts next door, long summers spent on a sandbank. But neither of us could know that our lightly cast dream would come true - or what it would cost us both."

Isla's chapters begin and end with italics which often capture a thought, comment or observation which sounds like a whispered threat or throws in another hint or clue to the reader that we shouldn't rush to trust either of these characters. Isla's chapters sow more seeds of intrigue and reveal more twists about the past and about the relationship between the girls.

What I liked about this storyline is that although it starts with one harrowing event and there is one deep traumatic event from the women's past, it also starts with one little secret. I always enjoy a book that shows just how much things can spiral out of control or culminate from one little thing.

"We flit around the subject, never quite brushing the edges of it, like moths scared of getting too close to a flame." 

It starts with something that happens between the girls one summer when they are still young; it starts with a boy, it starts with something that they both pretend isn't something. What Clarke does then is explore how this something that seemingly isn't a issue, is actually an issue. The novel then becomes about secrets, resentment, jealousy and love.

This is a compelling read. Jacob is missing and as the hours tick by the sense of danger and fear about what might have happened to him gradually rise towards a nail biting conclusion. At the same time, the truth behind the girl's friendship - or the hidden emotions that are bubbling away - also copy this increasing rise in tension as things come to a head. The twists and turns about Sarah and Isla are as compelling as the search for Jacob and Clarke captures the dynamics between the girls really effectively. Just when we think we have something worked out, Clarke drops another detail, another revelation, another complication. The last section of the book is real edge of your seat stuff as the plot rattles along towards its dramatic finale.

I recommend this book and it would be a great summer holiday read.

Last Seen is published by Harper Collins on 29th June 2017.

For more recommendations, reviews and bookish chat, you can follow me on Twitter @KatherineSunde3 or via my website bibliomaniacuk.co.uk

#TheBindingSong #ElodieHarper #Review

Way back in January, SJI Holliday highly recommended this book and I have been eagerly anticipating it ever since. I have been desperate to read it and then, when it eventually did fall into my lap, I was almost too scared to turn the page and start reading it.......although not as scared as I was once I actually had turned the page and started reading it!

Oh my goodness, what a book. I loved it. This is totally my favourite kind of novel and totally worth the wait. SJI Holliday was not wrong. It is going to be one of my highlights of 2017.

So why did I like it so much? It's set in Norfolk for a start. That's not only my favourite place in the world but also a perfect location for a novel that has a bleak, gothic atmosphere about it. And it's about a new female psychologist working in a prison. A prison in a very remote area full of incredibly unpleasant inmates and staff that are equally hostile. Oh, and there has been a string of suicides amongst the inmates recently as well......

Fabulous.

Dr Janet Palmer wants to find out what secrets are hiding in the prison walls and what darkness is haunting the corridors to make the men take their own lives. But the deeper she digs, the more uncertain she becomes about what she is dealing with, what she is awakening and whether there is something much more sinister and evil at play.

Harper has created a compelling premise, location and cast of characters. Even from the blurb, it is clear this is a novel bursting with tension, suspense, threat and something very very dark.

By the end of the second paragraph of the first page, I was already fully transported to the woods in which the opening scene is set. I had completely fallen alongside the stride of the character as he stumbled through the trees in the wet weather and I could feel the tension prickling at my skin before I had even got to the bottom of the page. Immediately I was reminded of the opening of Great Expectations and filled with the same sense of trepidation that I felt watching the black and white film. I was already in love with Harper's writing.

I make notes when I'm reading - not just to help with my reviews but just because I love language, words and good writing. At the end of the prologue, I have simply annotated it with OMG.

Some of my favourite novels are The Woman in Black, Little Stranger and anything eerie, suggestive, and unnerving that will haunt me and make me too scared to get up in the night without flicking every single light in the house on. The Binding Song is like a perfect amalgamation of all of this. It's got echoes of some of the books I love and employs some great techniques with impressive effect. It's a blend of atmospheric description, allusions to the supernatural, ghostly hauntings and characters who are either master manipulators or preying on the vulnerable, using a mixture of confusion, mind games, reality and delusion to keep the reader on the edge of their seat. I already know I will reread it and pause a little longer over some of the sentences that literally punch the breath out of you.

As well as incredibly gripping prose, this novel is also thought provoking. It raises lots of questions about mental health, psychosis and drugs. It also explores issues such as the possibility or belief in rehabilitation, the relationship between religion and evil, grief, reality, perception and delusion. The characters are very well crafted and the main protagonists, Janet is a really intriguing character. She appears strong, she appears driven in her professional life yet actually, she is fragile and deeply traumatised. Her reliability, objectivity and point of view is often flawed or ambiguous so the reader develops an interesting relationship with her as more and more about her character is revealed as the novel progresses.

The men in the prison are deeply unpleasant. They are manipulative, unnerving yet balanced and calm all at the same time. It's an ambitious novel but for me, one that captured my imagination, attention and still haunts me now.

I enjoyed the way the author used mirrors and reflections in a metaphorical way as well as a very straightforward way to create tension and add another layer to the plot. There is a satisfying play on the concept of twins, seeing true self and the question of perception and reality.

I don't know anything about working in prisons or with prisoners but I thought that placing Janet in this setting worked well because she puts herself in a situation that is only going to compound and complicate her fears, anxieties and search for closure and resolution. It also makes the novel quite intense and claustrophobic - despite the bleak, isolated countryside that surrounds the building.

I found this an exciting, dramatic, scary and compelling read. I loved the ending.

Thanks so much to Susi Holliday for recommending it and also to Janet Emson. And, Ms Holliday, not only will I now be looking out for any more of your recommendations, I will also be following your advice ....... I will not be looking in any mirrors any time soon.

The Binding Song is published by Mulholland Books on 29th June 2017.

I think this book would make a good book group read so here's a few questions to help get you started if you decide to pick it one month!

Bibliomaniac's Book Club: Questions on The Binding Song

How important is the setting in this novel?

"It's just remembering some men want to reform and need support but others are extremely dangerous and would like nothing more than the opportunity to mess with your head." (Janet) How did you respond or relate to the male prisoners in the book?

"It's not good for you," says Janet's boyfriend about her job in the prison service. Do you agree with him? Is Janet too damaged herself to be helping the prisoners or is she still effective in a professional capacity? 

What is Janet's attitude towards the prisoners she works with? How did you feel about her thoughts and comments about the prisoners? 

The author uses flashbacks written in italics throughout the novel. Did you think this was effective? How did these sections enhance your understanding of the characters?

How did you respond to Steven? Why do you think the author decided to make his a chaplin? 

"Revenge leaves a sense of emptiness." What does the book say about revenge and retribution? 

"What is it that you want Janet Palmer?" Michael asks Janet. What does she want? Does this change at any point in the novel? Does she get what she wants? 

Did you feel this was an authentic, realistic, believable representation of prisoners, prison workers and the prison service? 

What did you think about the ending? 

For more recommendations, reviews and bookish chat, you can follow me on Twitter @KatherineSunde3 or via my website bibliomaniacuk.co.uk

#Guestpost #VivConroy #CornishCastle

Vivian Conroy's new series of cosy crime books, Cornish Castle Mystery Series, launch on 7th July and 30th August respectively but here is a little taster to keep you satisfied until you can read the books for yourself!

The books are currently on preorder for 99p and £1.99 so don't forget to use the links below to order your copies so you can start reading as soon as they are published!

Character Inspiration 

A Guest post by Cornish Castle series author Vivian Conroy

Yesterday via Rae Reads I shared how the Tour de France of 2016 started the Cornish Castle series idea for me and today I want to take a closer look at the characters. 

Because her beloved London theatre need renovations, my leading lady Guinevere leaves the bustle of the big city to spend her summer in Cornwall, cataloguing books for Lord Bolingbrooke. Lord Bolingbrooke is the owner of Cornisea Castle, a centuries old keep on top of Cornisea Island, a tidal island which is only reachable on foot at low tide, across a causeway. 

Guinevere is excited to find the castle will be background for a medieval trial reenactment where her theatre skills might come in handy. They do - only in a different way. When the reenactment ends in real-life murder, Guinevere uses her knowledge of scenarios and stage deceptions to crack the case. 

As I put Guinevere in a different position than my other heroines (Lady Alkmene in the Lady Alkmene Callender 1920s' mysteries and Vicky Simmons in the Country Gift Shop Mysteries) in that she is completely new to her environment so not able to draw on existing knowledge or local contacts, I had to give her other skills to be able to solve a crime. Her threatre studies, plus recent experience with a play in the London theatre, proved to be perfect for that. 

Every mystery has something of a play about it as characters try to hide what they know and you have to search beyond first impressions. Agatha Christie often played with the concept of a magician doing a trick and letting the audience watch his moving hand while the other is actually doing whatever the audience is not supposed to see. As a huge Agatha Christie fan I couldn't resist making Guinevere's surname a playful reference to one of her books and once you've read Death Plays a Part, please let me know to what book it refers! Guinevere works with her trusted dog Dolly by her side. The two have been inseparable ever since Dolly first appeared at the theatre and ran onto the stage - during a performance! Dolly is adventurous,perky and not afraid to challenge much bigger dogs, like the Great Dane and mastiff living at the castle. Dolly also befriends a puppy looking for a home on the island ... Apart from being massively cute, Dolly also has an active part in the investigation as she accompanies Guinevere everywhere, digs into things (literally) and gives her idea of the situation in her very own way. I'm over the moon that the design team gave her centre stage in the covers because she deserves it! Guinevere's other partner in crime, ahem, in crime solving of course, is Oliver Bolingbrooke, son of the lord of the castle. Or the prodigal son in many ways, as he left Cornisea to roam the world and make wildlife documentaries. As Oliver puts it: 'When I first left,I wasn't going anywhere, I was just getting away from here.' Still Guinevere senses there is more than that to Oliver's relationship with the island, his heritage and his father. And what their first meet has to do with a gleaming motorcycle you must find out for yourself! While developing characters for my books I enjoy the minor characters as much as the main cast. In the Lady Alkmene mysteries I have the Russian princess who gave up everything to marry the love of her life, while a titled friend of Alkmene hides on the dig from his mother's matchmaking schemes. In my Country Gift Shop series I have the disgruntled beautician who has to watch while her modern beauty parlour is changed into an authentic British shop; the handyman who is a favourite with all the elderly ladies around town and the
charming, ambitious reporter who is not all he seems to be. For Cornisea I especially loved writing Jago Trevelyan, the fisherman who lived on the island for all of his life and as Oliver puts it 'has the island in his bloodstream'. But there is also Meraud, who runs the Cowled Sleuth bookshop and has a troubled relationship with the Bolingbrookes, and Emma at the eatery, who is determined to pull more tourists to the island with new initiatives like donkey rides. Even when a character has but one scene - a customer at the fishmonger's gossiping about the murder - I try to give them mannerisms that will clearly draw their picture for the reader. Every scene is like a tableau vivant in my mind peopled with characters that all deserve their (sometimes brief) moment in the spotlight, adding to the whole picture. Tomorrow, at Books of All Kinds, I will talk about my choice for a locked room mystery for the first instalment in the Cornish Castle series and I hope you will follow along to celebrate this pre pub party with me. 

As a huge dog fan I love all breeds and if you have a dog and want to tweet me a pic of your dog, maybe on pub day with Death Plays a Part on your ereader, I'd be thrilled to get acquainted with your canine best friends (cute goats, miniature pigs and tropical fish also welcome - I heart animals in general!).
If you would like to purchase these books via Amazon then click on the link below:
Death Plays A Part
Rubies in the Roses
Vivian Conroy writes the Cornish Castle Mysteries for HarperCollins, with Death Plays a Part releasing in July and Rubies in the Roses following in late August. Her Lady Alkmene Mysteries, of which the first instalment A Proposal To Die For became an Amazon USA and Canada best seller in five categories, will continue with a new instalment in October, Fatal Masquerade, set at a Venetian style masked ball where every guest has a secret and some of these secrets prove lethal. 

For all the latest bookish news, with plenty of dogs and desserts, follow Vivian on Twitter via @VivWrites. 

You can also find her books on Goodreads, Library Thing, Book Bub and Fantastic Fiction.

#TheChild #FionaBarton #Review

Ok, I confess, I requested this book at the last minute because I was saw it reviewed by so many brilliant bloggers I just could not resist anymore! So once again the NetGalley book ban was breached and once again I found myself reading late into the night just to squeeze in one more chapter of just one more book this month! But it was not difficult to squeeze in that extra chapter or even that extra 360 pages of The Child because, as I knew it would be, Barton's novel is gripping and full of twists and turns that mean you really don't want to put it down.

I have read The Widow and enjoyed the fact that although it is definitely a crime novel and a psychological thriller, it felt like Barton had chosen a slightly different angle from which to tell the story. I felt the same again with this book.

"Baby's Body Found." 

Barton reintroduces us to Kate Waters, a journalist who is always looking to uncover the truth behind a story, often taking a passing news story that may be in danger of slipping under the radar and then brings it to the forefront of the news - or more importantly, to the forefront of the lives of the people it affects. Kate is interested in 'human life' stories. Well, she's sure found one here.

"Baby's Body Found."

Only two sentences follow the headline but two sentences from which Kate is going to unearth deeply buried complicated secrets involving several women. I love that Kate tears out the story for later.

"The bottom of her bag was lined with crumpled scraps of newspaper....... shreds of paper waiting for life to be breathed into them. .......Who is the baby? How did it die? Who would bury a baby?"

We learn that a baby's skeleton has been discovered on a building site and the police are investigating. When Emma Simmonds sees this headline in the Evening Standard, it chills her. She continues to tell us, as we watch her loving, supportive, understanding husband make her dinner and show that he understands the anxieties from which she suffers daily, that there is something else, something more, that he is totally unaware of, playing on her mind.

"What's yours is mine. But my sins...... well, they're my own." 

So by the end of the first two chapters the reader is hooked. A baby's skeleton is discovered and a character is chilled by the headline. Another character is intrigued by what might have happened and already set on course to find out the truth. And the reader is intrigued, already wondering what is the connection between the bones and the woman, and what how successful with the journalist be in finding out anything from only two vague sentences.

There are plenty more dots to join though and more women to hear from. Barton uses four narrative voices in this novel and at first this worried me a little, but it's very easy to keep track of. All four voices are clearly signposted and all are well developed into characters that reflect different attitudes to love, parenting, marriage. Each of the women is connected with the baby's skeleton but Barton is going to make the reader work a little before she is willing to reveal exactly how the story lines will converge in the dramatic denouement.

The writing is very good. Emma particularly is a very complicated, emotional character who has a lot to confront, a lot to hide, a lot to figure out.

"People say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger........But it doesn't. It breaks your bones, leaving everything splintered and held together with grubby bandages and yellowing sticky tape." 

Emma has held on to her secret for so long she is set to lose too much by confiding in her husband or going forward to the police. Barton has taken a line from a newspaper report and shown how deep the  story behind that one line might run. This novel is as much an exploration of characters coming to terms with the past and what it means to carry a secret for so long as it is a mystery about who the baby's bones belong to.

Kate's chapters don't always provide us with the break we might seek from some of the more traumatic passages that come from Emma and Angela - the mother whose baby was stolen from her in hospital when it hours old. But Kate's interaction with her colleagues remind us of police procedures, the methodical and less emotional way she has to process the information she has access to and also perhaps creates a wider context in which to consider the events in the story. I think 'forgotten cases' and historical crime is always a great way to add layers to a crime thriller and always raises the tension and the stakes further so the suspense and need to read on is doubled. And besides that, I enjoyed Kate's trip to the Reference Library which dwells in the "bowels of the newspaper, troglodyte survivors of the Google revolution"!

Kate is a strong character and the reader feels in safe hands with her as she takes more control of the investigation and the novel. She has no intention of exploiting Angela's pain or trauma. She has no interest in sensationalising events in order to get that bestselling, eye-catching headline. She wants to get close to the story but she never loses sight of the fact that there are real people involved who have real pain.

"[College lecturers] bang on about objectivity and balance but she'd like them to sit down with a rape victim or the mother of an abused child and remain unaffected. Without empathy, without feeling someone's pain, how could you tell a story like that and capture the truth of a situation?"

Barton worked as a journalist for many years and this has not only ensured that the details about journalism and researching news stories are correct and accurate but also that Kate is a convincing, authentic and highly believable character. I like that Kate is so emotionally respectful and that the relationships with the women she approaches for information become more than that to her as the truth begins to reveal itself.

The Child is a good novel. I didn't work out the twists, I hadn't worked out how the stories were all interlinked and I didn't really want to as I was enjoying the character development and plot structure. I enjoyed how well Barton wove everything together and how satisfying it was at the end - if not slightly traumatic and slightly tear jerking.

This novel is as successful and well written as The Widow and is sure to propel Barton back on to the bestsellers list!

The Child is published by Bantam Press on 29th June 2017.

For more recommendations, reviews and bookish chat, you can follow me on Twitter @KatherineSunde3 or via my website bibliomaniacuk.co.uk