The sixth in the wonderful series featuring Stella Bled.
London, 1940.
The Battle of Britain rages while Stella Bled sits frustrated on the sidelines. Her husband, Nicky, is unreachable as he risks his life flying in a Spitfire and she has to recover from her mission in France without her beloved Bijou or a single familiar face. Stella isn’t exactly content to rest, but she has no choice until a mysterious set of orders arrives at Castle Caladh. Something isn’t right, but Stella’s eager to return to service and ends up at a meeting in the famous St. Ermin’s Hotel. That meeting will land in the history books, but Stella, clearly, wasn’t supposed to get through it unscathed. Someone wants her out of the SIS and they have the power to pull some very long strings.
As the Blitz begins, Stella juggles two roles. One as a secretary at the newly formed Special Operations Executive and the other as an ordinary volunteer at the Women’s Voluntary Service. The Nazi push to invade England is looming closer and the chatter in the SIS networks is getting louder. All Stella wants to do is get back to her chosen profession and fight the only way she can, but the enemy has other ideas. If it isn’t bombs from the sky, it’s betrayal on the ground. Like England, Stella has almost nothing left to give, but more will be required if she and the nation she loves is to survive some of the darkest days in history.
The second in the new post-apocalyptic series from T.L. Payne. Another page-turner.
Two weeks after an electromagnetic pulse knocked out the power grid, communications, and nearly all transportation, sending that nation back into the Stone Age, Lauren Wallace and the small eastern Tennessee town struggle to survive as the residents of Unicoi hunker behind their newly constructed walls.
Sam Wallace, injured and exhausted from his trek out of Atlanta, finds refuge in Franklin, North Carolina. But trouble comes knocking when the town’s tourist population refuses to go home.
Edited at the end of July 2021, this enjoyable read keeps you turning the pages.
Tom Fulwood, the future Earl of Standish discovers at the age of fifteen that marriage can destroy a man, namely his father. His mother prefers entertaining men in her bedroom, while her husband sits downstairs, unable or unwilling to respond to his wife’s inappropriate behaviour. From that day on Tom vows that no woman will hurt him the way his mother hurt his father. For the next seventeen years, Tom works hard to become one of the most notorious rakes London society has ever seen, successfully keeping all the women of his acquaintance at a distance.
In 1810, twenty-four-year-old Isabelle Crawford had been brought up hearing stories of how much in love her dead parents were and had expected to find similar happiness when she came out in society. Reality was different from what she had imagined though, instead of love, she found fortune hunters and as a result, left London to set up home in Bath. Her two elder brothers had supported her decision, although they would have rather seen their sister married instead of choosing what was seen by the ton as an eccentric decision, a young woman living a single life in Bath with a cousin as chaperone.
A potential marriage between Tom’s sister and Isabelle’s brother throws the couple together and sets in motion a chain of events that will see Tom fighting for his life and Isabelle being kidnapped by the very man that Tom had found in his mother’s bed chamber all those years ago.
Edited at the end of June 2021, this is the second thrilling mystery in the new series by Derek Fee.
DS Fiona Madden and Detective Sean Tracy are given the task of assisting with the solution of a mini crime wave in the town of Clifden. The situation is complicated by two groups of travellers being camped in the area.
A man who has been stabbed to death is found on the morning after the annual Horse Fair in Clifden. He has been stripped of all identification and been dumped in a location which is not the crime scene. The investigation is hampered by the lack of identity and the plethora of suspects. The existence of the travellers in the locality creates tensions and Fiona and Tracy are under pressure to produce a result.
This delightful third book in the English Garden Romance series by Sara Sartagne is a joy to read and was edited towards the end of May 2021.
Her dream job. Her too dreamy colleague…
Magda Keane has been waiting for this job her whole life – creating her design for the exotic gardens in the huge Arcadia glasshouse. This assignment could grow her developing reputation – even get her a partnership.
There are just two problems…
The first is enigmatic Vincenzo Mazzi, the Italian engineer in charge of the solar panels powering the glasshouse. She’s never forgotten how she threw herself at him, nor the humiliation of his polite rejection. The second is the unexplained failure of Vincenzo’s system, which could blight her prospects quicker than an early frost.
For Vincenzo, having Magda on site, in the flesh, is enough to give him sleepless nights. He’s been so intent on building his business, he’s kept his passion under lock and key.
Even worse, strange problems with his tried and tested system are giving him an almighty headache. That, and working with Magda, threaten both his hard-earned reputation and his self-imposed restraint.
Will this shared pressure drive them further apart? Or draw them together to finally face the attraction that never went away?
Another wonderful and humorous instalment in the Guesthouse on the Green series as Mammy and Moira travel Vietnam.
I love the series and can't wait for book four!
A quick but emotional read - reading about the cruelty to the dog was heartbreaking but this was a lovely tale of the love and healing that animals can bring to our lives.
I would have given five stars but for the missed typos - a few t...
I get the impression that this could be a nice story but I've had to give up after forcing myself to go as far as 15% of the way through. If this novel has ever been near a remotely professional editor then the author was conned.
Chapte...
Another very enjoyable story but with a few niggles, hence the four stars rather than five. Maybe it's because I was tired but the editing issues grated on me more than in the first story and, do people really generally believe that 'ear...
