book blog tours

Welcome to my part of the blog tour to celebrate the publication of Val Penny’s Hunter’s Blood: A DI Hunter Wilson Crime Thriller.

About Hunter’s Blood:

DI Hunter Wilson never has just one problem to solve. Three elderly women he knows have died in mysterious circumstances. Hunter appears to be the only link.A little girl goes missing on a cold winter’s night. When his team discovers cocaine hidden at the farm where she was living, the search becomes even more urgent. Why did the women die? And what did the child witness?Hunter must find the answers to these questions to ensure his family and his city are safe.

About Val Penny

Val Penny has an Llb degree from the University of Edinburgh and her MSc from Napier University. She has had many jobs including hairdresser, waitress, banker, azalea farmer and lecturer but has not yet achieved either of her childhood dreams of being a ballerina or owning a candy store.

Until those dreams come true, she has turned her hand to writing poetry, short stories, nonfiction books, and novels. Her novels are published by SpellBound Books Ltd.

Val is an American author living in SW Scotland. She has two adult daughters of whom she is justly proud and lives with her husband and their cat.

My thoughts on Hunter’s Blood:

DI ‘Hunter’ Wilson has his hands full with family matters. His elderly aunt wanders out of a hospital, she is found suffering from shock and raving, full of odd stories of evil people hurting her on the hospital ward.

Meanwhile a group of friends get together for a weekend house party and amid tensions between the different guests, end up searching for a missing five-year-old. More than one person has a secret, and there is a claustrophobic sense of each of them watching one another.

Then we have Linda’s story as she lays waiting for help to reach her inside her boss’s van which has come off the road and turned over. why is the new owner of the company so particular about his vans?

Hunter’s Blood is full of twists and turns as these three apparently unrelated incidents gradually converge. We begin to see the strands of the stories intertwining and overlapping one another until gradually a new picture forms and it’s up to Hunter and his team to put the pieces together and find a ruthless killer.

But who would want to kill three frail elderly women? And more importantly why?

This book had me studying each character in turn, thinking, ‘Was it you?’ ‘Or you?’

At times grim and shocking, nevertheless this is a satisfying read.

SOCIAL MEDIA LINK – You can find Val Penny on these social media platforms:

Author Facebook Page

Author Twitter Page

Author Instagram Page

WEBSITE LINKS

Website – https://www.valpenny.com

Amazon Author Page – https://www.amazon.co.uk/Val-Penny/e/B07C4725TK

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Yes folks, I’m doing it again! This is a great time of year for releasing a new murder mystery, it seems, and this week I’m really happy to share my review of Miriam Drori’s mystery novel Style and The Solitary.

Here is a short blurb to get you in the mood:

An unexpected murder. A suspect with a reason. The power of unwavering belief.

A murder has been committed in an office in Jerusalem. That’s for sure. The rest is not as clear-cut as it might seem.

Asaf languishes in his cell, unable to tell his story even to himself. How can he tell it to someone who elicits such fear within him?

His colleague, Nathalie, has studied Beauty and the Beast. She understands its moral. Maybe that’s why she’s the only one who believes in Asaf, the suspect. But she’s new in the company – and in the country. Would anyone take her opinion seriously?

She coerces her flatmates, Yarden and Tehila, into helping her investigate. As they uncover new trails, will they be able to reverse popular opinion?

In the end, will Beauty’s belief be strong enough to waken the Beast? Or, in this case, can Style waken the Solitary?

My review of Style and The Solitary

The characters: Asaf hasn’t got any friends. Even at work, hardly anyone knows him. Asaf is struggling to cope with social interactions and just wants to get on with his work and be left alone. In spite of this, he goes to work on this particular day carrying a note as a reminder to himself that things are about to change.

Unfortunately when Asaf is discovered with a dead body in his office building at the start of the working day, that note of his doesn’t help at all.

As he gets caught up in what surely has to be the worst situation you can imagine, the reader is able to know Asaf’s thoughts. We know that he is not the bad guy he’s believed to be, and it’s so easy to develop a sense of empathy for him.

And it’s not only the reader who has sympathy for Asaf’s plight. Co-worker Nathalie also passionately and completely has faith in his innocence. And she is determined to prove him innocent. Her flatmates are roped into helping Nathalie in her quest to find out the truth and exonerate Asaf.

This is a gentle, humorous and compassionate story about people and how they are. It is a book that embraces difference and encourages acceptance and respect. The mystery is almost secondary to the development of the relationships in the book.

The backdrop: I think this is the first novel I’ve ever read set in Jerusalem, so this was new and exciting for me, a kind of travelogue wrapped into the story. Although the details of the setting do not overwhelm, the location makes a welcome extra character, complementing and reflecting the many layers of history, culture and social interaction that come together to make the story.

I recommend this book.

Quick note: with no graphic violence, no bad language and no graphic sexual content, this book would make a great read for mid-teens and up, or anyone who enjoys a ‘clean’, gentle romantic mystery.