Category: Modern British Author

#SaturdaysAreBookish Book Review [during #FraterfestRAT] | “An Abiding Fire” (Book One: Thomazine and Major Russell #Thrillers) by M.J. Logue [#SatBookChat feat. guest, 12 October!]

Posted Saturday, 12 October, 2019 by jorielov , , , 0 Comments

#SaturdaysAreBookish created by Jorie in Canva.

After launching this lovely new feature of mine during [Autumn, 2018] it is a pleasure of joy to continue to bring #SaturdaysAreBookish as a compliment focus of my Twitter chat @SatBookChat. If you see the chat icon at the top of my blog (header bar) you can click over to visit with us. The complimentary showcases on my blog will reflect the diversity of stories, authors and publishers I would be featuring on the chat itself. As at the root and heart of the chat are the stories I am reading which compliment the conversations.

#SaturdaysAreBookish throughout [2019] will be featuring the Romance & Women’s Fiction authors I am discovering to read across genre and point of interest. Every Saturday will feature a different author who writes either Romance or Women’s Fiction – the stories I am reading might simply inspire the topics in the forthcoming chats or they might be directly connected to the current guest author.

I am excited about where new guests and new stories will lay down the foundation of inspiring the topics, the conversations and the bookish recommendations towards promoting Romance & Women’s Fiction. Here’s a lovely New Year full of new authors and their stories to celebrate!

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Borrowed Book By: I borrowed a print copy of “An Abiding Fire” via my local library. Full disclosure: this was a purchase request of mine after I hosted the author for a delightful interview in conjuction with a blog promotional tour her publisher Sapere Books assembled. I am choosing to share my reflections and takeaways on behalf of this novel without obligation to post my ruminative thoughts about the story. The Press Materials shown on this post were provided by either the publisher Sapere Books and/or the author M.J. Logue and are used with permission; as I had left the door open to review this novel if my library purchased the copy I had requested post-interview. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.

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What drew me into wanting to read “An Abiding Fire”:

For starters, it was the curious premise behind the novel itself – secondly, it was shortly after I received the responses back from the interview I hosted with Ms Logue where I realised between her wicked sense of humour & her love for the setting in which this series is set – it felt like quite a wicked good fit! I will admit, it also felt a bit more daunting to read – as we had such an insta-connection as writer to reader (as you can clearly oversee in the convo we shared) – I was hoping I could become attached into this world & pull out the vision she had for it as it is the first of a series.

The Restoration period of London isn’t one I usually read about either – I tend to dance round specific eras and historical ‘markers’ in History; I think I know more about Revolutionary War France & America than I do about the Restorative generation of England! Laughs. Even then, I am still in need of stories – as who can ever have their fill once they find a period of time they enjoy time travelling through an author’s story? Not, I, surely. Thus the timescape in of itself was quite the allure as I do like uncovering new chapters of the historical past within the stories I am reading moreso at times than even a new hidden niche of a genre I already know to love by the stories I’ve previously read.

When you get to travel back into a timescape you’ve either only heard about loosely, never heard of previously or only have a farthering of an idea of what it could involve; you get quite a bit giddy over the prospects of how your experience within this new ‘era’ will overtake you. I think more than anything that fuelled my curiosity but as said, on the interview itself – I was also smitten by the concept of the series, the characters & the overall sense of how this series stands out from others within the sphere of Historical Mysteries & Suspense if not outright Historical Thrillers.

This is labelled more Thriller than Mystery/Suspense – per the conversation I had with Ms Logue I could understand why that distinction was made – as it parlays into the kind of decriptive narrative you are about to experience inasmuch as certain inclusionary elements which take it outside the Mysteries & Suspense threads straight into the Thriller section(s).

Even before I began reading this novel, I knew I wanted to have Ms Logue as a guest during @SatBookChat as I had a feeling – the two of us together would make a wicked good team at discussing not just her series but whichever topic which organically elects to knit itself into our conversation! Mostly though – as I was looking through the Sapere Books catalogue and also reading through their emails – not just for blog tours to host but their bookish newsletters as well for pending & current releases, this is one series I felt I could go the distance to enjoy reading.

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#SaturdaysAreBookish Book Review [during #FraterfestRAT] | “An Abiding Fire” (Book One: Thomazine and Major Russell #Thrillers) by M.J. Logue [#SatBookChat feat. guest, 12 October!]An Abiding Fire
Subtitle: Murder and Mystery in Restoration London
by M.J. Logue
Source: Purchase REQ | local library

How do you solve a murder when you are one of the suspects?

1664, London

Life should be good for Major Thankful Russell and his new bride, Thomazine. Russell, middle-aged and battle-scarred, isn’t everyone’s idea of the perfect husband for an eligible young woman but the moment Thomazine set eyes on her childhood hero, she knew they were destined for one another.

But Russell, a former Roundhead, now working for the King’s intelligence service, was never going to have a simple life in Restoration London.

Unable to shake suspicions of his Parliamentarian past, someone seems hell-bent on ruining his reputation — and his life.

Whispers about his sister’s violent murder follow him and accusations of treason abound.

When more deaths occur Russell finds himself under suspicion.

He is ready to escape from the capital, but Thomazine is determined to find the truth and clear the name of the man she loves.

But who is the real killer and why are they so keen to frame Russell?
More importantly, will they succeed?
And has Thomazine’s quest put them all in mortal danger?

Genres: Historical Fiction, Historical Thriller Suspense



Places to find the book:

Borrow from a Public Library

Add to LibraryThing

ISBN: 978-1912786817

Also by this author: An Abiding Fire (Interview)

Published by Sapere Books

on 2nd January, 2019

Format: Trade Paperback

Pages: 285

Published by: Sapere Books (@SapereBooks)

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.comThe Thomazine and Major Russell Thrillers series:

An Abiding Fire by M.J. Logue

An Abiding Fire (book one)

A Deceitful Subtlety (book two)

1666, London Thomazine and Major Thankful Russell should be enjoying married life. With one teething baby and another on the way, life at the newly-rebuilt house at Four Ashes in the Chilterns is never dull, and they’re hoping to put the debauchery of Restoration London behind them. But then the indomitable poetess Mistress Aphra Behn arrives at their door… Aphra claims to have promised to marry respectable merchant William Scot, who she met on a previous spying mission in Belgium. But he never turned up for the wedding. She’s determined to discover his fate – and she wants Thankful to help her search Bruges. Which may be how married couples behave in sophisticated London society, but there’s no way Thomazine is letting her husband loose on his own with the lovely, flirtatious Mistress Behn. It looks like the couple will once again have to put domestic bliss aside to unravel this intriguing mystery…

→ A third novel is currently the author’s WIP!

Formats available: Trade Paperback and Ebook

Converse on Twitter via: #HistFic or #HistNov + #Thriller

+ #AnAbidingFire & #MJLogue as well as #ThomazineAndMajorRussell

About M.J. Logue

M.J. Logue

M. J. Logue (as in cataLOGUE and epiLOGUE and not, ever, loge, which is apparently a kind of private box in a theatre) wrote her first short novel on a manual typewriter aged seven. It wasn’t very good, being about talking horses, but she made her parents sit through endless readings of it anyway.

Thirty-something years later she is still writing, although horses only come into it occasionally these days. Born and brought up in Lancashire, she moved to Cornwall at the turn of the century (and has always wanted to write that) and now lives in a granite cottage with her husband, and son, five cats, and various itinerant wildlife.

After periods of employment as a tarot reader, complaints call handler, executive PA, copywriter and civil servant, she decided to start writing historical fiction about the period of British history that fascinates her – the 17th century.

Her first series, covering the less than stellar career of a disreputable troop of Parliamentarian cavalry during the civil wars, was acclaimed by reviewers as “historical fiction written with elegance, wit and black humour” – but so many readers wanted to know whether fierce young lieutenant Thankful Russell ever did get his Happy Ever After, that the upcoming series of romantic thrillers for Sapere Books began.

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Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

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Posted Saturday, 12 October, 2019 by jorielov in Blog Tour Host, British Literature, Crime Fiction, Historical Thriller Suspense, Modern British Author, Modern British Literature, Sapere Books

A #cloakanddaggerchristmas Book Review | “Naughty On Ice” (Book Four of The Discreet Retrieval Agency) by Maia Chance

Posted Monday, 24 December, 2018 by jorielov , , , , , , 0 Comments

Book Review badge created by Jorie in Canva using Unsplash.com photography (Creative Commons Zero).

Acquired Book By: I was approached by Minotaur Books this Winter about reading a selection of their upcoming Mysteries and Suspense novels. I was hoping to read them in the weeks leading into Christmas until I came down with a serious Winter virus which disrupted my plans. Therefore, it became a proper #cloakanddaggerchristmas celebration for me as I settled into these Cosies as the holiday was arriving giving me a comfortable joy of reading the kind of stories I love to discover during this time of the year. Cosies are wonderful all year round but there is something special about the ones that take-on a holiday vibe!

I received a complimentary copy of “Naughty On Ice” direct from the publisher Minotaur Books (an imprint of St. Martin’s Press) in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.

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The reason reading ‘Naughty On Ice’ appealled to me:

This one felt like a smashing good fit as I personally was seriously attached to the tv series “Miss Fisher” – I love the whole era this is set behind and of course, I can imagine the kind of folly which might follow suit as well. I saw the first in the series is at my local library so I wouldn’t feel guilty this is a series already in-progress!

I have been aching to find a new Cosy series which was representative of what I *adore!* in the Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries but which could exist separate from #MissFisher all the same! I haven’t ever read one of those mysteries due to how attached I became to the television adaptations – something didn’t seem quite right to me to back-read a series I knew would ultimately disappoint me as the series on air and the series in print are two birds of different feathers! It would have been different of course, if I had found the book series prior to the tv series but since I hadn’t, I was ready to find another Cosy Historical Mystery series which had the essence of Miss Fisher but was a wholly new adventure all the same!

I had a feeling I’d adore reading this series – I had it in mind to fetch the first of the series as I spied it at my local library but as I struggled with my health this Autumn & Winter, I elected to read it out of sequence, keeping true to how sometimes you can read a festive Cosy and gather a good notion about a series already in-progress. It didn’t take long for me to recognise I would love these stories and I happily added the first three to my #BeatTheBacklist reading challenge to see what I’ve been missing out from not having found this series sooner!

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Naughty On Ice badge created by Jorie in Canva. Photo Credit jorielovesastory.com

Naughty On Ice
by Maia Chance
Source: Direct from Publisher

Marvelously charming Lola Woodby and her stoic Swedish cook Berta return for a dazzingly fun holiday adventure in Naught On Ice, Maia Chance's latest addition to the Discreet Retrieval Agency series.

When an anonymous Christmas card from Maple Hill, Vermont beckons the Discreet Retrieval Agency to recover an antique ring at a family gathering, of course Lola and Berta jump at the chance - after all, holiday business hasn't been such exhilarating work, and their sweethearts Ralph and Jimmy have been on the back burner.

But no sooner do they find the ring on Great-Aunt Daphne Goddard's arthritic finger than Mrs Goddard drops dead from a poisoned glass of Negroni on ice - and the police show up to find Lola and Berta red-handed with the ring. It's an obvious set-up, and now the duo must uncover the secrets of Maple Hill in order to clear their name... or be thrown in the slammer.

Genres: Cosy Historical Mystery, Crime Fiction, Historical Fiction



Places to find the book:

Borrow from a Public Library

Add to LibraryThing

ISBN: 9781250109071

Published by Minotaur Books

on 13th November, 2018

Format: Hardcover Edition

Pages: 288

 Published By: Minotaur Books (@MinotaurBooks)
{imprint of} St. Martin’s Press (@StMartinsPress)

The Discreet Retrieval Agency series:

Come Hell or High Ball (book one)

Teetotaled (book two)

Gin and Panic (book three)

→ Naughty on Ice (book four) *where I begin the series!

Converse via: #DiscreetRetrievalAgency, #LolaAndBerta, #MaiaChance

and #CosyHistoricalMystery, #CosyMystery or #HistMys

Available Formats: Hardcover and Ebook

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About Maia Chance

Maia Chance was a finalist for the 2004 Romance Writers of America Golden Heart Award and is a Ph.D candidate at the University of Washington. She is writing her dissertation on nineteenth-century American literature. She is also the author of the Fairy Tale Fatal Mystery series.

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Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

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Posted Monday, 24 December, 2018 by jorielov in 20th Century, Amateur Detective, Bits & Bobbles of Jorie, Blog Tour Host, Book Review (non-blog tour), British Literature, Cosy Historical Mystery, Cosy Mystery, Crime Fiction, Detective Fiction, Historical Fiction, Lady Detective Fiction, Modern British Author, the Roaring Twenties