Let the dead speak by Jane Casey extract

In the chilling new crime novel from award-winning author Jane Casey, Detective Maeve Kerrigan and the murder squad must navigate a web of lies to discover the truth…

A murder without a body
Eighteen-year-old Chloe Emery returns to her West London home one day to find the house covered in blood and Kate, her mother, gone. There may not be a body, but everything else points to murder.

A girl too scared to talk
Maeve Kerrigan is young, ambitious and determined to prove she’s up to her new role as detective sergeant. She suspects Chloe is holding something back, but best friend Bethany Norris won’t let Maeve get close. What exactly is Bethany protecting Chloe from?

A detective with everything to prove
As the team dig deeper into the residents of Valerian Road, no one is above suspicion. All Maeve needs is one person to talk, but that’s not going to happen. Because even in a case of murder, some secrets are too terrible to share…

Extract from the book:

‘We’re here.’

The car had stopped outside her house, she realised, the engine still running.

‘You can get out here. I won’t make you run across the road in this weather.’

‘OK. Thanks.’ She reached down to push the seatbelt’s release button but he got there first. ‘Thanks,’ she said again.

‘No problem.’ He was frowning at her. ‘Chloe, love, are you all right? You look a bit—’

‘I’m fine.’ She pulled on the door handle and it didn’t open and her heart rate went spiralling up like a bird spinning through clear air but he reached across her and gave it a swift shove and it came open. His arm brushed against her chest as he drew it back, but that was just an accident, the contact brief.

‘Needs a firm hand.’

‘Oh,’ Chloe whispered. Her ears were hot, her pulse thudding so hard that she could barely hear him, but he was still talking. She got out of the car without waiting for him to stop, slamming the door on him. She turned to scurry up the path, glancing up at the house to see Misty in the window of the front bedroom, her paws braced on the glass, miaowing with all her might. The horn blared behind Chloe twice, very loud. It made her jump but she didn’t look back, her whole being focused on her need to go inside without saying anything else, or crying, one two three four five six seven at the front door eight nine ten eleven keys out twelve thirteen the right key in the lock and the door was opening and she almost fell through it into the narrow, long hallway but she got it shut behind her in the same moment and that was it, she was alone except for Misty, and she could collapse or scream or crawl into a corner and shake or chew her nails until they bled again or any of the things she’d been holding back for days now.

Misty hadn’t come down the stairs yet, she registered, and as if in response a thunder of scratching – sharp-clawed paws on wood – echoed through the still, silent house. The cat was shut in, then. Mum had shut her in. Chloe put her keys on the hall table. She should let the cat out.

Unless the cat wasn’t supposed to be out.

Chloe started towards the stairs.

Unless.

She stopped.

There was a mark on the wall. A big one. A smear, with four lines running through it like tracks. Chloe’s eyes tracked from the smear to the ground, to the droplets that ran down the wall and trickled over the skirting board and puddled on the ground. It was dark, whatever it was. Dirty.

Mud.

Paint.

Something that would make her mother furious.

Maybe that was why the cat was shut in, Chloe thought.

Maybe that was it. Misty had made a mess. She started up the stairs, one hand resting lightly on the banisters, and it felt wrong, it was rough, as if something had dried on it, some more of the same dirt. Chloe looked down at it, at the stairs, and then at the hall below, and her legs were still carrying her up but her brain was working, trying to make sense of what she saw and what she felt and what she smelled and the carpet, the carpet was ruined in the hall upstairs, it was dirty and soaked and smeared and the pictures were all crooked.

Behind the closed door Misty set to work, digging her claws under the wood, splintering it as she scraped.

Let her out.

What had happened? The bathroom door was open but it was too dark in there, darker than it should have been. The whole house was dark. There was no reason to look, Chloe told herself.

She didn’t want to look.

. . . scratch scratch scratch . . .

Let her out.

Because if not, she’d damage the door.

Damage.

Let her out.

What . . .

Let her out, or there’d be trouble.

Chloe reached the door, and hesitated. She put out her hand to the handle, touching it with her fingertips. Behind the door the cat howled, outraged. She scratched again and the vibrations hummed across Chloe’s skin.

Let her out.

She turned the handle and pushed the door, and a grey paw slid through the gap, dragging at it to get it open, and Misty’s face, distorted as she pushed it through, her ears flat, her eyes pulled back like an oriental dragon’s as she forced her way to freedom. And then the door was open enough for her to rush through it to the hallway, and for the air inside the room to rush out along with her, dense with the smell of cat shit or something worse.

Before Chloe could investigate, the doorbell shrilled. It was loud, peremptory, and there was no question of ignoring it or hiding: she had to answer it. She hurried back down, narrowly avoiding the dark shape that was Misty crouching at the top of the stairs. There was a big smear up the door, she saw now, as she reached out to open it, a big brownish smudge that ended near the latch.

The bell rang again. Through the rippled glass she could see a shape, a man, his outline blurred and distorted. With a shudder, Chloe opened the door.

‘You forgot your bag, love.’ Mr Norris, with rain spangling his jacket, his tan very brown, his teeth very white. He held the bag out to her but she didn’t take it. She didn’t have time before his eyes tracked over her shoulder and took in the scene behind her and the genial smile faded. ‘Jesus. Jesus Christ. Christ almighty. What the—’

Chloe turned to see what he was looking at, and she could see a lot more when the door was open. A lot more. At the top of the stairs, Misty was still squatting, her eyes glazed and wild, her mouth open. Even as Chloe watched, she bent her head and gently, tentatively, began to lick the floor.

Behind Chloe, Mr Norris retched.

‘I don’t understand,’ Chloe said, and the panic spiralled again but she kept it down, held it back. ‘I don’t understand what’s happened. Please, what’s happened?’

Mr Norris was bent over, the back of his hand to his mouth. He shook his head and it could have been I don’t know or it could have been not now or it could have been something else.

‘Mr Norris?’

He had his eyes closed.

‘Mr Norris,’ Chloe said, very calmly, because the alternative was screaming. ‘Where’s Mum?’

Island of Secrets by Patricia Wilson blog tour

If you love Victoria Hislop and Rosanna Ley, you will love this perfect beach read.

Can you escape your past in paradise?

'The story started at dawn on the fourteenth of September, 1943 . . .'

All her life, London-born Angelika has been intrigued by her mother's secret past. Now planning her wedding, she feels she must visit the remote Crete village her mother grew up in.

Angie's estranged elderly grandmother, Maria, is dying. She welcomes Angie with open arms - it's time to unburden herself, and tell the story she'll otherwise take to her grave.

It's the story of the Nazi occupation of Crete during the Second World War, of horror, of courage and of the lengths to which a mother will go to protect her children. And it's the story of bitter secrets that broke a family apart, and of three enchanting women who come together to heal wounds that have damaged two generations.

This wonderful novel will transport you to the shores of Crete and stay in your heart long after you turn the last page.

Patricia Wilson has stopped by with a guest post! 

 ‘the books that inspired Island of Secrets’ 

Patricia Wilson, Island of Secrets, www.pmwilson.net, pmwilson.author@gmail.com

The first book that inspired me to write, was an unpublished manuscript I read after my mother had passed away. Her memoir. The love story of a sixteen-year-old girl living in occupied Holland in World War Two. How she fell in love with a young English soldier from Liverpool (my father). I found the story in a bag, under a pile of bed sheets in the airing cupboard. Her struggle to marry the man she loved was a complete surprise to me. The story made me realise how little we know about our parents, and what a determined young woman my mother had been. One day I will write her story of quiet courage and adventure.

Quite soon after my mother’s death, I read Wild Swans by Jung Chang, 1991. The novel covered three generations of women, and I found their differences quite fascinating. Again, I realised how little we know about the lives of our mothers and grandmothers.

More recently, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin inspired me. A love story almost spanning a lifetime. Captain Corelli's Mandolin was released in 1994 by British writer, Louis de Berniéres. The story is set on the Greek island of Cephalonia in 1943. Berniéres story is based on senseless slaughter, during the island’s German occupation during WW2. However, in Berniéres novel, Italian soldiers are rounded up and murdered, not innocent village people.

Island of Secrets, is also set on a Greek island (Crete), also starting in 1943, but there the similarity ends.

When I unearthed a rusted machine gun, in my cottage garden in Crete, the local men began to tell me what had happened in that remote village of Amiras. Shocking! It took a while before the women came forward with their personal stories. Some spoke of the horrible local holocaust for the first time. So horrific were their tales, the old grandmothers did not want to burden their families with the terrible cruelty and suffering, which they ultimately managed to rise above. I researched. I do love research. Eventually, I discovered a document on the web recounting individual stories from that period and locality. Although I did not want to delve into the politics behind the story, I felt a need to confirm the facts for my own peace of mind.

When I found the last living member of the resident band of freedom fighters, his story confirmed there had been a political cover-up behind the tragedy. All was not as it seemed.

At the time, I was having Greek lessons in a local secondary school. When I arrived early, one day, the plump and jovial ‘dinner lady’ invited me to wait in her snacks room. After hearing about my interested in WW2, she brought her mother’s war medal and certificate of honour to show me. She told me stories of courageousness that, once again, had not been told outside the area of Viannos. This made me determined write about these brave and modest women.

And so, Island of Secrets was born.

Sharks and Other Sea Creatures by DK Publishing

Sharks and Other Sea Creatures by DK Publishing
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Packed with fun activities, crafts, reading games, and amazing facts, kids can take a dive under the waves and meet all the colorful creatures beneath--from clown fish to starfish to jellyfish--in this educational project book.

In Sharks and Other Sea Creatures, each page has engaging photographs with clear text and simple step-by-step instructions for young readers to follow as they complete each project. Kids can learn how to create an egg carton ocean, make pretty paper plate clown fish, and make their way through an octopus maze. Perfect for kids who love the enchanting creatures of the deep, this book will improve their dexterity, memory, and brain development with each activity.


This is a colourful non - fiction book designed for children. The presentation of this book is easy to follow and children can find out lots of interesting facts about different creatures that live in the sea. What is really lovely about this book and makes it different is that after each section there is a craft activity for the children to do. I think this is what makes this non- fiction book different to others on the market at the moment and would be a good way of getting children interested in these type of books.

Although the book is designed for slightly older children to read independently, the activities are advised the child completes these with an adult. However the instructions are given for a child to read and follow independently.

This is a very good quality book with thick pages, a hard cover and has a high level of colour used on the pages. There is a mixture of illustrations and high quality images in the book.

I would recommend this as a book for personal use or for a club or school. It is very interesting and has kept the children who have read this entertained for some time. I particularly love the projects and may use this for an after school club in the summer term.

I would like to thank the publisher for sending this in exchange for an honest review.

The Escape by C.L. Taylor

The Escape by C.L. Taylor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars


"Look after your daughter's things. And your daughter…"

When a stranger asks Jo Blackmore for a lift she says yes, then swiftly wishes she hadn't.

The stranger knows Jo's name, she knows her husband Max and she's got a glove belonging to Jo's two year old daughter Elise.

What begins with a subtle threat swiftly turns into a nightmare as the police, social services and even Jo's own husband turn against her.

No one believes that Elise is in danger. But Jo knows there's only one way to keep her child safe – RUN.


I picked this one up, thinking it would take a while to finish due to it's size. I was wrong, I was hooked from the very first page, the story grabbed me and I was intrigued to find out who this woman was that jumped in the car with Jo and what was going to happen.

This is quite a deep book with quite a lot of characters to get to know, they all have a purpose and are linked in some way even though it may not be obvious to begin with but does become clear.

Personally I enjoyed the first half of the book a lot more than the second half. Towards the end I also thought it was rushed a little and didn't hold the punch the first part of the book did. It was good but I felt a little let down by the ending.

Overall if you like thrillers or mystery's this is one book you should read this year. I give this book 3.5* mainly due to being a little let down by then ending, if felt rushed and I thought it could have been delivered better. It could be just that I have high standards of this genre of book, as I have read so many and know what I like.

I would like to thank the publisher for sending this in exchange for an honest review.

The Good Daughter by Alexandra Burt blog tour with extract

It's my stop on The Good Daughter tour and I am bring your an extract from the book. This looks like it is going to be a big thriller this year and I can't wait to get started on it.

What if you were the worst crime your mother ever committed?

Dahlia Waller’s childhood memories consist of stuffy cars, seedy motels, and a rootless existence traveling the country with her eccentric mother. Now grown, she desperately wants to distance herself from that life. Yet one thing is stopping her from moving forward: she has questions.

In order to understand her past, Dahlia must go back. Back to her mother in the stifling town of Aurora, Texas. Back into the past of a woman on the brink of madness. But after she discovers three grave-like mounds on a neighbouring farm, she’ll learn that in her mother’s world of secrets, not all questions are meant to be answered…

The Good Daughter is a compelling take on a genre that shows no sign of slowing down. The perfect read for fans of Gillian Flynn and Paula Hawkins.


An extract from the book:


Run.

My body obeys. Ten steps and I lose my footing and stumble, hit the ground, left shoulder first. I roll down a hill and sharp branches nip at my skin. I tumble farther and farther, a steady and painful descent that I’m unable to stop. I come to a halt and I feel a sharp pain hit me right between my eyes. Then my world goes dark.

When I come to, everything is quiet but for the thumping sound of my heart. I swallow water. I’m drowning. My head throbs but I manage to push my body off the ground. I’m in a creek, facedown. The vision of the hand has carved itself into my brain. I must be mistaken, I tell myself.

I catch my breath and return to the very spot. I kneel down and a burning sensation moves up my arm, to my face, then to my neck. There is an anticipation, a nervous kind of energy tingling through me, as if electrical sparks are traveling all the way to my toes. A scent hits my nostrils, an olfactory hint of something … unpleasant … out of place within the otherwise fresh forest. The scent is sickly sweet, a mere hint one moment, then a good stench. Something is dripping onto my lap—warm moisture spreads onto my bare thighs—and I realize my nose is bleeding profusely. My shaking hands are covered in blood.

A buried body, I think, as if I have finally solved a riddle I’ve been pondering for a while. My mind tumbles, spills into itself. My sense of smell is heightened and the soil and decomposing leaves make the atmosphere thick. I feel a sense of paranoia, I imagine someone watching me, no, I don’t imagine, I know there’s someone watching me.



I scan the trees around me. I know what I am; prey. A small sob works its way up and out of my throat.

There’s no visual clue, just knowledge and intuition, and my eyes find a narrow path with knotted roots. Run, I repeat to myself, and again my body obeys.

I reach the road and wave down a truck filled with men in overalls. There’s a large ladder covered in paint splatters extending beyond the truck bed. I scream and point at the tree line and they rush in that direction.

One man stays behind and says words in Spanish I don’t understand.

I feel as if I have traveled through a time machine: I remember the clinic well—Metroplex, a three-story building, aged and tacky, from the industrial carpet to the disassembled pay phones left deserted on linen fabric–covered walls.

I recall the emergency room—every strep throat, every fever that wouldn’t go away, every sprained ankle, every cut that required stitches resulted in arguments with nurses and administration. My mother refused to sign paperwork, wouldn’t give them any information but our names.

There’s this rage inside of me that I feel toward my mother and I wish my memory was a sieve, yet it maintains a detailed account of her transgressions, all fresh, all defined, neat and organized. They sit in waiting and many have come back to me lately, so many memories have returned, yet not a single one of them pleasant. Lately, all it takes is an image, a smell, a faint recall, and the dam of restraint breaks. It sloshes over everything, unforgiving in its clarity.

They say—I’ve done the research—humans are hardwired to retain negative memories as a matter of survival.

Survival; the act of surviving, especially under adverse or unusual circumstances.

The Fifth Letter by Nicola Moriarty

The Fifth Letter by Nicola Moriarty
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Four friends. Five Letters. One Secret.

The scandalous breakthrough novel from Nicola Moriarty that will leave you asking, how well do I really know my friends?

Joni, Trina, Deb and Eden.

Best friends since the first day of school. Best friends, they liked to say, forever.

But now they are in their thirties and real life - husbands, children, work - has got in the way. So, resurrecting their annual trip away, Joni has an idea, something to help them reconnect.

Each woman will write an anonymous letter, sharing with their friends the things that are really going on in their lives.

But as the confessions come tumbling out, Joni starts to feel the certainty of their decades-long friendships slip from her fingers.

Anger. Accusations. Desires. Deceit.

And then she finds another letter. One that was never supposed to be read. A fifth letter. Containing a secret so big that its writer had tried to destroy it. And now Joni is starting to wonder, did she ever really know her friends at all?


After reading the blurb of this one I really thought this would be up my street, I haven't read a women's contemporary for a while and really wanted to get back into it. I choose to begin this today, I had a long trip at the hairdressers planned and wanted something good to read. Wow is all I can say, when I left I only had about 70 pages left to read. This was certainly one quick read and one that hooked me in from the start. The writing style is so easy to get into and you won't believe how much you have read in a short period of time, you just get swept along with all the drama in the story to notice.


Set in Australia we follow four friends, Joni, Trina, Deb and Eden. They have been friends since high school and every year since they were 21 they have taken an annual holiday. As the years have gone on, this has not always been easy for them to commit to a date with families and life getting in the way.

We are taken through the story through different points of view and discover their past and their relationships. I really loved that the story was broken up with the confession to the priest, this made it really enjoyable for me as I don't think I have ever read a story like this before. It made it different and interesting.

This year something about their annual holiday is different, yes Joni seemed to mess up when booking their holiday home but they have decided they have grown apart over the years and perhaps its time to rekindle their letter love. (They used to write notes to each other when they were at school.) After a few glasses of wine they all decide this is a good idea. However the night they are writing their letters one woman writes an extra letter, determine to destroy the original and put this in its place. What she doesn't do though is destroy the fifth letter immediately.

This book is full of twists and turns, to be honest I thought I had guessed who had written it half way though and it wasn't until I was about 30 pages from the end that I realised that I had been wrong. I did however guess a few of the smaller 'secrets' to spill.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I would definitely recommend this to others, I would also be keen to read other novels by this author. Overall I give this book 4.5* (rounded up to 5 for Goodreads and Amazon.) The only reason this is not a 5* book is down to the fact I had guessed some elements of this. Saying that, it did not affect my enjoyment of the book.

I would like to thank the publisher for sending this in exchange for an honest review.

Close Your Eyes by Nicci Cloke

Close Your Eyes by Nicci Cloke
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Southfield High School is oh so normal, with its good teachers, its bad, and its cliques. But despite the cliques, there's a particular group of friends who have known each other forever and know that they can rely on each other for anything.

There's the twins: Vis, rebellious, kind, and just a tiny bit worried about what the hell she's going to do once this year is over, and Aisha, smart, quiet and observant. Then there's Remy, the loudmouth, and Gemma, who's more interested in college boys and getting into the crap club in town. And then there's Elise: the pretty one.

But at the start of Year 11, when the group befriend the new boy, Elijah, things start to change. The group find themselves not as close as they used to be.

Until one Tuesday, when the students are trapped inside the school building. And one of them has a gun.

Close Your Eyes is the story of a school shooting which, through interviews, messages and questionable actions, asks: Who is truly responsible?


'Close your eyes' really captured my attention, I have read a novel about a shooting in a school in the US so wanted to see how and if this would be similar. Thankfully in the U.K we don't have an issue with guns and don't have a 'gun culture' so I was interested to see how this would pan out set in the U.K. We have had a couple of shootings I believe in the past but there have been very few.

There are 6 main characters in this novel, which at time could be confusing if you don't read the heading of that chapter. We also jump from the past into the present to learn more about the characters and the situation.

This is a very quick read, although I didn't read it in one sitting, I could have easily of done. It is face paced and engrossing, you have to know what is going to happen. It is a very different book in the style it is written, the story has been told through transcripts, online messages, interviews etc. Initially I found this difficult to follow but I managed to get into it quite quickly.

We learn through journal entries and interviews what is going to unfold and how. Personally I thought the story was a little disjointed in places, the first part of the story felt separate to the second and I enjoyed the second part a lot better as it flowed better.

Overall I am glad I had the opportunity to read this book, it is not the best book I have read and it certainly isn't the worst. It is a quick read and this covers many topics including cyber and normal bullying. If you are interested in any of these topics this would be a book you probably enjoy.

I would like to thank the publisher for sending this in exchange for an honest review.