Publisher: Canongate Books Ltd

#BookReview Restless Dolly Maunder by Kate Grenville @PGCBooks @canongatebooks #RestlessDollyMaunder #KateGrenville #PGCBooks

categories: 8.5/10, Book Review, Historical Fiction
#BookReview Restless Dolly Maunder by Kate Grenville @PGCBooks @canongatebooks #RestlessDollyMaunder #KateGrenville #PGCBooks Title: Restless Dolly Maunder

Author: Kate Grenville

Published by: Canongate Books Ltd on Nov. 2, 2023

Genres: Historical Fiction

Pages: 256

Format: Hardcover

Source: Publishers Group Canada

Book Rating: 8.5/10

The international bestselling author of The Secret River and A Room Made of Leaves returns with a fictionalised account of her grandmother’s life, commemorating a strong female character making the best out of the times and society she was born in.

Dolly Maunder is born at the end of the nineteenth century, when society’s long-locked doors are just starting to creak ajar for determined women. Growing up in a poor farming family in rural New South Wales, Dolly spends her life doggedly pushing at those doors. A husband and two children do not deter her from searching for love and independence.

Restless Dolly Maunder is a subversive, triumphant tale of a pioneering woman working her way through a world of limits and obstacles, who is able – despite the cost – to make a life she could call her own.

Review:

Nostalgic, sensitive, and intriguing!

Restless Dolly Maunder is an absorbing, fictional biography that sweeps you away to New South Wales during the late 1800s and into the life of the author’s maternal grandmother, Dolly Maunder, a woman who, after always craving something more than the simple farm life she only ever knew, successfully acquires business after business, from shops to boardinghouses to pubs, while at the same time creating a distance between herself and her children who were often left feeling disappointed, neglected and unloved. 

The prose is insightful and authentic. The characters are strong, intelligent, and enterprising. And the plot is a tender tale of life, loss, love, family, sacrifice, determination, history, tragedy, selfishness, and ambition.

Overall, Restless Dolly Maunder is a heartfelt, illuminating, personal family tale by Grenville that reminds us that families are complicated and messy and the choices we make often have far-reaching consequences.

 

This book is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

          

 

 

Thank you to PGC Books for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Kate Grenville

Kate Grenville's bestselling novel The Secret River received the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Miles Franklin Literary Award. The Idea of Perfection won the Orange Prize. Grenville's other novels include Sarah Thornhill, The Lieutenant, Lilian's Story, Dark Places, Joan Makes History and A Room Made of
Leaves.

Website

#BookReview Voices of the Dead by Ambrose Parry @ambroseparry @canongatebooks @PGCBooks #VoicesoftheDead #RavenFisherSimpsonSeries #AmbroseParry #PGCBooks

categories: 9/10, Book Review, Historical Fiction, Mystery/Thriller
#BookReview Voices of the Dead by Ambrose Parry @ambroseparry @canongatebooks @PGCBooks #VoicesoftheDead #RavenFisherSimpsonSeries #AmbroseParry #PGCBooks Title: Voices of the Dead

Author: Ambrose Parry

Series: Raven Fisher and Simpson #4

Published by: Canongate Books Ltd on Sep. 26, 2023

Genres: Historical Fiction, Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 416

Format: Hardcover

Source: Publishers Group Canada

Book Rating: 9/10

EDINBURGH, 1853.
In a city of science, discovery can be deadly . . .

In a time of unprecedented scientific discovery, the public’s appetite for wonder has seen a resurgence of interest in mesmerism, spiritualism and other unexplained phenomena.

Dr Will Raven is wary of the shadowlands that lie between progress and quackery, but Sarah Fisher can’t afford to be so picky. Frustrated in her medical ambitions, she sees opportunity in a new therapeutic field not already closed off to women.

Raven has enough on his hands as it is. Body parts have been found at Surgeons’ Hall, and they’re not anatomy specimens. In a city still haunted by the crimes of Burke and Hare, he is tasked with heading off a scandal.

When further human remains are found, Raven is able to identify a prime suspect, and the hunt is on before he kills again. Unfortunately, the individual he seeks happens to be an accomplished actor, a man of a thousand faces and a renowned master of disguise.

With the lines between science and spectacle dangerously blurred, the stage is set for a grand and deadly illusion . . .

Review:

Atmospheric, absorbing, and intriguing!

Voices of the Dead is a mysterious, engaging tale that takes us back to Edinburgh during 1853 and into the lives of both Dr Will Raven, who finds a reprieve from family life when he is called to Surgeon’s Hall regarding the discovery of a severed foot and a missing professor, and Sarah Fisher who after stumbling into the world of mesmerism temporarily contemplates specializing in the field when her frustration over the fact her gender will never allow her to become the qualified doctor she wishes be has her looking for something more.

The prose is tense and tight. The characters are determined, reliable, and loyal. And the plot is a menacing tale full of twists, turns, revelations, insecurities, life, duty, friendship, misdirection, trickery, and murder.

Overall, Voices of the Dead is another complex, sophisticated, perilous tale in the Raven, Fisher, Simpson series by the Parry duo that does a wonderful job of interweaving historical facts and compelling fiction into a suspenseful mystery that is not only captivating but highly entertaining.

 

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

         

 

 

Thank you to PGC Books for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Ambrose Parry

Ambrose Parry is a pseudonym for a collaboration between Chris Brookmyre and Marisa Haetzman. The couple are married and live in Scotland. Chris Brookmyre is the international bestselling and multi-award-winning author of over twenty novels. Dr Marisa Haetzman is a consultant anaesthetist of twenty years' experience, whose research for her Master's degree in the History of Medicine uncovered the material upon which this series, which begun with The Way of All Flesh, is based. The Way of all Flesh was longlisted for both the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award and the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year.

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#BookReview The Trenches by Parker Bilal @PGCBooks @canongatebooks #TheTrenches #ParkerBilal #PGCBooks

categories: 8/10, Book Review, Mystery/Thriller
#BookReview The Trenches by Parker Bilal @PGCBooks @canongatebooks #TheTrenches #ParkerBilal #PGCBooks Title: The Trenches

Author: Parker Bilal

Series: Crane & Drake Mystery #3

Published by: Canongate Books Ltd on Sep. 13, 2022

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 320

Format: Paperback

Source: Publishers Group Canada

Book Rating: 8/10

When a woman rescued by a fishing boat off the coast of Grimsby disappears without trace, it turns out to be only the beginning of a dark investigation. Crane is soon contacted by another woman when she receives a letter out of the blue from her estranged son, not seen since he left to become a fighter for Islamic State. Drake is called in and forced to go back to his old stomping ground to infiltrate the underground network that took Jason abroad.

Meanwhile Drake’s old partner investigates the brutal murder of a journalist that appears to have worrying ties to a previous case. While Crane is in pursuit of the mystery woman, Drake finds himself drawn further into the company of a dangerous group as terror and organised crime intersect.

Review:

Sharp, intricate, and twisty!

In this latest novel in the Crane & Drake Mystery series, The Trenches, Bilal has written a clever, chilling thriller featuring former DS turned PI Calil Drake and his partner, forensic psychologist Dr. Rayhana Crane as they work together on the investigation of a missing man who seems to have vanished without a trace after leaving to fight for the Islamic State, but when it seems that their case might also be tied to a missing woman and infant who were rescued by a fishing boat and a journalist violently murdered while in the home of her MP lover, it becomes quickly apparent that something a lot more sinister is going on and this case may actually be a lot more complicated than anyone ever could have imagined.

The writing is tight and crisp. The characters are astute, diligent, and multi-layered. And the plot is a fast-paced, riveting tale full of twists, turns, action, intrigue, power, corruption, politics, duplicity, terror, manipulation, immorality, violence, murder, and organized crime.

Overall, The Trenches is another complex, diverse, engrossing thrill ride by Bilal that is an eerie reminder of just how cold, calculating and ruthless the criminal underworld truly is.

 

This book is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

              

 

 

Thank you to PGC Books for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Parker Bilal

Parker Bilal is the author of the Makana Investigations series, the third of which, The Ghost Runner, was longlisted for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. The Divinities, the first in his Crane & Drake London crime series, was published in 2019. Parker Bilal is the pseudonym of Jamal Mahjoub, the critically acclaimed literary novelist. Born in London, he has lived in a number of places, including the UK, Denmark, Spain and, currently, the Netherlands.

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#BookReview Paper Cup by Karen Campbell @PGCBooks @canongatebooks #PaperCup #KarenCampbell #PGCBooks

categories: 9/10, Book Review, General Fiction
#BookReview Paper Cup by Karen Campbell @PGCBooks @canongatebooks #PaperCup #KarenCampbell #PGCBooks Title: Paper Cup

Author: Karen Campbell

Published by: Canongate Books Ltd on Sep. 19, 2022

Genres: General Fiction

Pages: 336

Format: Hardcover

Source: Publishers Group Canada

Book Rating: 9/10

What if going back means you could begin again?

Rocked by a terrible accident, homeless Kelly needs to escape the city streets of Glasgow. Maybe she doesn’t believe in serendipity, but a rare moment of kindness and a lost engagement ring conspire to call her home. As Kelly vows to reunite the lost ring with its owner, she must return to the small town she fled so many years ago.

On her journey from Glasgow to the south-west tip of Scotland, Kelly encounters ancient pilgrim routes, hostile humans, hippies, book lovers and a friendly dog, as memories stir and the people she thought she’d left behind for ever move closer with every step.

Full of compassion and hope, Paper Cup is a novel about how easy it can be to fall through the cracks, and what it takes to turn around a life that has run off course.

Review:

Poignant, heartwarming, and raw!

Paper Cup is a pensive, heart-tugging novel that takes us to Glasgow and into the life of Kelly, a homeless alcoholic estranged from her family who, after finding an engagement ring and witnessing a horrific accident, embarks on a journey south, meeting some interesting characters and visiting some historical places along the way, heading to Gatehouse of Fleet, Galloway to not only return the ring to its rightful owner but to finally confront the demons she fled from and the family she hasn’t seen in years.

The prose is rich and vivid. The characters are vulnerable, flawed, and troubled. And the plot is a memorable tale of unlikely friendships, familial drama, poverty, homelessness, addiction, guilt, compassion, honesty, survival, mental illness, kindness, and ultimately finding your way home.

Overall, Paper Cup is an astute, touching, compelling tale by Campbell that does a beautiful job of reminding us that family is not always those just related by blood but rather those who love, care, support, and accept us.

 

This book is available on now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

            

 

 

Thank you to PGC Books for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Karen Campbell

Karen Campbell is a Scottish novelist and former police officer. She is the author of seven novels, most recently The Sound of the Hours, which was a Waterstones Scottish Book of the Month. She is a recipient of the Best New Scottish Writer Award and has led workshops for the Scottish Refugee Council, Amnesty, Moniack Mhor and Scottish PEN, among others. She has written for BBC Radio 3, Edinburgh International Book Festival and Glasgow Women’s Library, and was recently Writer in Residence at Dumfries and Galloway Council. She lives in Galloway, Scotland.

Photo courtesy of Canongate Website.

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#BookReview The Second Cut by Louise Welsh @PGCBooks @canongatebooks #TheSecondCut #LouiseWelsh #TheCuttingRoomSeries #PGCBooks

categories: 8/10, Book Review, Mystery/Thriller
#BookReview The Second Cut by Louise Welsh @PGCBooks @canongatebooks #TheSecondCut #LouiseWelsh #TheCuttingRoomSeries #PGCBooks Title: The Second Cut

Author: Louise Welsh

Series: The Cutting Room #2

Published by: Canongate Books Ltd on May 3, 2022

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 384

Format: Hardcover

Source: Publishers Group Canada

Book Rating: 8/10

Auctioneer Rilke has been trying to stay out of trouble, keeping his life more or less respectable. Business has been slow at Bowery Auctions, so when an old friend, Jojo, gives Rilke a tip-off for a house clearance, life seems to be looking up. The next day Jojo washes up dead.

Jojo liked Grindr hook-ups and recreational drugs – is that the reason the police won’t investigate? And if Rilke doesn’t find out what happened to Jojo, who will?

Thrilling and atmospheric, The Second Cut delves into the dark side of twenty-first century Glasgow. Twenty years on from his appearance in The Cutting Room, Rilke is still walking a moral tightrope between good and bad, saint and sinner.

Review:

Dark, sinister, and seedy!

The Second Cut is a gritty, chilling thriller that takes you back to Glasgow, Scotland, and into the life of middle-aged, gay auctioneer Mr Rilke who, after receiving a business tip for a lucrative house auction from Jojo, a long-time friend who merely hours later turns up dead on the street, finds himself inadvertently mixed up in the disturbing criminal underworld and all the immortality, depravity, manipulation, and violence that is found there.

The prose is raw and tight. The characters are lonely, anxious, and vulnerable. And the plot is an ominous tale full of twists, turns, secrets, deception, corruption, desperation, sexual liaisons, violence, mayhem, and murder.

Overall, The Second Cut is an atmospheric, unsettling, taut novel by Welsh that was shocking, sordid, entertaining, and truly an edgy Tartan Noir.

 

This book is available on now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

            

 

 

Thank you to PGC Books for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Louise Welsh

Louise Welsh is an award-winning author of eight novels. The Cutting Room, her debut novel, won the Crime Writers’ Association John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger Award and the Saltire First Book of The Year Award. In 2018, she was named the Most Inspiring Saltire First Book Award winner by public vote. She is Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow.

Twitter | Goodreads

#BookReview A Corruption of Blood by Ambrose Parry @ambroseparry @canongatebooks @PGCBooks #ACorruptionofBlood #RavenFisherSimpsonSeries #AmbroseParry

categories: 9/10, Book Review, Historical Fiction, Mystery/Thriller
#BookReview A Corruption of Blood by Ambrose Parry @ambroseparry @canongatebooks @PGCBooks #ACorruptionofBlood #RavenFisherSimpsonSeries #AmbroseParry Title: A Corruption of Blood

Author: Ambrose Parry

Series: Raven Fisher and Simpson #3

Published by: Canongate Books Ltd on Oct. 19, 2021

Genres: Historical Fiction, Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 416

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Publishers Group Canada

Book Rating: 9/10

Edinburgh. This city will bleed you dry.

Dr Will Raven is a man seldom shocked by human remains, but even he is disturbed by the contents of a package washed up at the Port of Leith. Stranger still, a man Raven has long detested is pleading for his help to escape the hangman.

Back in the townhouse of Dr James Simpson, Sarah Fisher has set her sights on learning to practise medicine. Almost everyone seems intent on dissuading her from this ambition, but when word reaches her that a woman has recently obtained a medical degree despite her gender, Sarah decides to seek her out.

Raven’s efforts to prove his former adversary’s innocence are failing and he desperately needs Sarah’s help. Putting their feelings for one another aside, their investigations take them to both extremes of Edinburgh’s social divide, where they discover that wealth and status cannot alter a fate written in the blood.

Review:

Menacing, gripping, and addictive!

A Corruption of Blood is a vivid, unsettling tale that takes us back to Edinburgh and into the lives of Dr Will Raven and Sarah Fisher as they find themselves wrapped up in not only the suspicious death of one of the wealthiest men in the Scottish Lowlands, Sir Ainsley Douglas but also the case of a murdered infant that may, in fact, only be the start of a bigger more heinous murder spree than anyone could have imagined.

The prose is descriptive and tense. The characters are intelligent, curious, and committed. And the plot is a compelling tale of life, loss, secrets, friendship, courtship, abuse, revenge, manipulation, deception, greed, violence, early medicine, and murder.

Overall, A Corruption of Blood is another atmospheric, gritty, intricate novel by Parry that is a fantastic addition to the Raven, Fisher, Simpson series, and I can’t wait to read whatever this dynamic writing duo manages to come up with next.

 

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

           

 

 

Thank you to PGC Books for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Ambrose Parry

Ambrose Parry is a pseudonym for a collaboration between Chris Brookmyre and Marisa Haetzman. The couple are married and live in Scotland. Chris Brookmyre is the international bestselling and multi-award-winning author of over twenty novels. Dr Marisa Haetzman is a consultant anaesthetist of twenty years' experience, whose research for her Master's degree in the History of Medicine uncovered the material upon which this series, which begun with The Way of All Flesh, is based. The Way of all Flesh was longlisted for both the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award and the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year.

Twitter | Goodreads

#BookReview Be My Guest by Priya Basil @canongatebooks @PGCBooks

categories: 8/10, Book Review, Nonfiction
#BookReview Be My Guest by Priya Basil @canongatebooks @PGCBooks Title: Be My Guest

Author: Priya Basil

Published by: Canongate Books Ltd on Nov. 15, 2019

Pages: 128

Format: Paperback, ARC

Source: Publishers Group Canada

Book Rating: 8/10

A meditation on the meaning and limits of hospitality today, from the shortlisted author of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize.

The dinner table, among friends, is where the best conversations take place⁠—talk about the world, religion, politics, culture and cooking. In the same way, Be My Guest is a conversation about all those things, mediated through the medium of shared food.

We live in a world where some have too much and others not enough, where immigrants and refugees are both welcomed and vilified, and where most of us spend less and less time cooking and eating together. Priya Basil invites us to explore the meaning and limits of hospitality today, and in doing so makes a passionate plea for a kinder, more welcoming realization that we have more in common than divides us.

Review:

Eloquent, pensive, and rich!

Be My Guest is a beautifully written, candid story by Basil that explores the power of being hospitable and the diverse customs and traditions that people use around the world to invite, include, accept, nourish, and share with others.

The writing is informative and moving. And the novel is a generous, welcoming tale that delves into the true meaning of hospitality and emphasizes that the dinner table should not only be a place for nourishment but a place for unification regardless of political ideologies, religion, skin colour, or socioeconomic status.

Overall, I would have to say that Be My Guest is, ultimately, a genuine, impassioned, humourous reminder that breaking bread with family, friends, strangers, and even the diverse community at large is not only good for the body and mind but also a conscientious, important salve for the heart and soul.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

                   

 

 

 

Thank you to Publishers Group Canada for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Priya Basil

Priya grew up in Kenya, returning to the UK to study English Literature at the University of Bristol. She had a career in advertising before becoming a full-time writer. In 2010 Priya, and the journalist Matthias Fredrich-Auf der Horst, initiated Authors for Peace. It is intended to be a platform from which writers can actively use literature in different ways to promote peace. The first event by Authors for Peace took place on 21 September 2010, the UN's International Day of Peace. With the support of the International Literature Festival Berlin, Priya hosted a 24hour-live-online-reading by 80 authors from all over the world. The authors read from their work in a gesture of solidarity with those who are oppressed or caught in conflict. Priya lives in London and Berlin.

Photograph courtesy of Author's Goodreads Page.

Website | Goodreads

#BookReview Sal by Mick Kitson @PGCBooks @canongatebooks

categories: 8.5/10, Book Review, General Fiction
#BookReview Sal by Mick Kitson @PGCBooks @canongatebooks Title: Sal

Author: Mick Kitson

Published by: Canongate Books Ltd on Mar. 1, 2018

Genres: General Fiction

Pages: 234

Format: Paperback

Source: Publishers Group Canada

Book Rating: 8.5/10

Sal planned it for almost a year before they ran. She nicked an Ordnance Survey map from the school library. She bought a compass, a Bear Grylls knife, waterproofs, and a first aid kit from Amazon using stolen credit cards. She read the SAS Survival Handbook and watched loads of YouTube videos. And now Sal knows a lot of stuff. Like how to build a shelter and start a fire; how to estimate distances, snare rabbits, and shoot an air gun; and how to protect her sister, Peppa–because Peppa is ten, which is how old Sal was when Robert started on her.

Told in Sal’s distinctive voice, and filled with the silent, dizzying beauty of rural Scotland, Sal is a disturbing, uplifting story of survival, of the kindness of strangers, and the irrepressible power of sisterly love, a love that can lead us to do extraordinary and unimaginable things.

Review:

Pensive, adventurous, and moving!

Sal is a compelling tale that takes us on a journey into the lives of two young sisters as they learn to escape and survive both the predators and dangers found in the Scottish wilderness as well as those within their own home.

The prose is astute and vividly descriptive. The characters are witty, vulnerable, loyal, resourceful, and endearing. And the plot is a heart-wrenching story about alcoholism, sexual abuse, poverty, self-preservation, coming-of-age, innocence, morality, and selfless love.

Overall, Sal is a profound, sophisticated, inspiring novel that highlights the complex dynamics of sister relationships and does an exquisite job of reminding us just how indomitable the human spirit can truly be.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

                                            

 

 

Thank you to Publishers Group Canada for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Mick Kitson

Mick Kitson was born in South Wales and grew up in London. He studied English at the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne before a brief spell as one half of 80s pop duo The Senators. He went on to work as a newspaper reporter before switching career again at the age of 40 to become an English Teacher.

He lives in Fife, Scotland with his wife Jill and bad tempered dog Lucy. He has three grown up children: Molly, Susie and Jimmy and spends more time than is good for a person fly fishing for sea trout, reading, playing the banjo and growing
Strawberries. He also builds boats.