Crowvus Book Blog

     Review I feel  slightly bad writing this review because I googled the author, Reg Gadney, and discovered that he died in 2018. He seems to have been a very interesting person, who created many great things throughout a very creative and fruitful lifetime. Unfortunately, this book isn't one of those things.     There are two things I really loved about it. The first is the blurb, which is shared at the end of this review. This is a book which sounds perfect for me, and I'm still looking forward to reading the story that I believed it would be. The second is the personal inscription which is in my copy. You see, someone who knows me really well also read the blurb and immediately thought of me! What could possibly go wrong?! It turns out that a book can look perfect for someone but still not be a good fit. But, honestly, this is just not a good book. There are one or two characters who threaten to be realistic but every single one of them maintains an ai...

   This week, I'm delighted to be hosting  The Virgin of the Wind Rose  on the #HistFicThursdays blog! This is an exciting thriller from award winning author Glen Craney, and I excited to be teaming up with The Coffee Pot Book Club to host him and his book! But, enough from me... let's meet the book: A Templar cryptogram has confounded scholars for centuries. Is it a ticking cipher bomb just hours away from detonating a global war? Rookie State Department lawyer Jaqueline Quartermane was never much good at puzzles. But now, assigned to investigate a ritual murder of an American in Ethiopia, she and a shady stolen-art hunter must solve the world's oldest palindrome—the infamous SATOR Square—to thwart a religious conspiracy that reaches back to the Age of Discovery and an arcane monastic order of Portuguese sea explorers. Separated by half a millennium, two espionage plots dovetail in this breakneck thriller, driven by history's most elusive mystery.... ... the shockin...

This is my penultimate (one of my favourite words!) blog as #AuthorOfTheWeek, but I hope you've enjoyed my tips about inspiration and writing. Today, I'm making an offering to the reading community, and giving you a small sample of four novels which are up-and-coming from me over the next couple of years. At the moment, two of them are still nameless and, although the other two already have covers, I'm sworn to secrecy about them! Allow me to introduce you to them! The third book in the Tenterchilt family saga Beginning on the field of Waterloo, this third instalment (although it was actually the fourth one I wrote!) follows the Tenterchilt sisters in a period of peace. But peace is a luxury which is denied to the family, partly owing to ghosts of the past, partly owing to the cruelties of outside forces. Among These Dark Satanic Mills This is a totally new style of writing for me -set in the here and now, which is way out of my usual comfort zone! This boo...