Portobello Book Blog

I’m delighted to be sharing an extract from If You Love Me I’m Yours today as well as giving you the opportunity to win a copy of the book and a crystal handbag charm. The book is published by Crooked Cat Books and is available to buy now. You’ll find buying links further down this post.

First of all, what’s the book about?

 ‘If you love me, I’m yours…’

Maud didn’t mind being boring, not really. She had a sensible job, clothes, and love life… if you counted an overbearing ex who had thanked her, rolled over and was snoring before she even realised he’d begun! She could tolerate not fulfilling her dreams, if her parents would pay her one compliment about the only thing she was passionate about in life: her art.

Dot should have fit in with her flamboyant and slightly eccentric family of talented artists, but somehow, she was an anomaly who couldn’t paint. She tried hard to be part of their world by becoming an art agent extraordinaire, but she dreamed of finding her own voice.

Dot’s brother Nate, a smoulderingly sexy and famous artist, was adored by everyone. His creative talent left them in awe of his ability to capture such passion on canvas. Women worshipped him, and even Dot’s friend Maud flushed and bumped into things when he walked into a room, but a tragic event in his past had left him emotionally and physically scarred, and reluctant to face the world again.

Someone was leaving exquisite little paintings on park benches, with a tag saying, ‘If you love me, I’m yours’. The art was so fresh and cutting-edge, that it generated a media frenzy and a scramble to discover where the mystery artist could be hiding. The revelation of who the prodigious artist was interlinked Maud, Dot and Nate’s lives forever, but their worlds came crashing down. 

Were bonds of friendship, love and loyalty strong enough to withstand fame, success and scandal?

 

EXTRACT

Chapter One

Maud closed her eyes and prepared to jump off the emotional cliff she was teetering on the edge of. She shuffled forward until she felt sick with nerves, took a deep calming breath and waited.

‘Oh, Maud…’ her mother sighed. ‘Not again.’

Maud cringed at the familiarity of those words, and in her mind, she stepped off into the void and plunged into the icy darkness without a whimper. In reality, she was still in her lounge, but being around her mother made her feel like an abject failure and the words she uttered sliced through Maud and filled her with doom. Her mum pushed her to the edge of reason on a regular basis. She wished that for once her mother could try harder to be nice. Surely it couldn’t be that difficult to be grateful for the anniversary gift she had been given and to offer a smile, even a fake one, for the sake of her child? It was the same every year and Maud was finally ready to surrender and stop trying so hard to make them understand her and compliment one of her paintings. It was never going to happen, she realised with a heavy heart.

Maud didn’t mind being boring, not really. She had a sensible job, sensible clothes, a sensible love life… if you counted two overbearing exes and a one night stand who had thanked her, rolled over and was snoring before she even realised he had started! She was ok with not fulfilling her dreams or being outrageous and carefree, she just wanted her parents to pay her a compliment, just once, after years of disapproval and disappointment.

Maud knew that as far as her mum was concerned, she was the most amazing parent who encouraged her daughter to have a responsible career until she settled down and found a ‘suitable’ husband. Granted, Maud was a very good, well-liked and adept teacher’s assistant in the local primary school, but every time she pushed against the boundaries set by her parents for their perfect daughter… ‘Oh, Maud!’

It was ridiculous, she was twenty-four, thought Maud. She wished she had a big glass of wine to slug back, but her mother would disapprove of that too, suggest in horror that she was a ‘wino,’ and hand her the number for AA, which she would have readily available in the little brown Filofax she carried everywhere in her patent handbag. The woman was a menace.

 

BUY LINKS

Universal link: If you love me, I’m yours: viewbook.at/IfYouLoveMe-ImYours

Amazon.co.uk: If You Love Me I’m Yours

Amazon.com: If You Love Me I’m Yours

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Award-winning inventor and author, Lizzie Chantree, started her own business at the age of 18 and became one of Fair Play London and The Patent Office’s British Female Inventors of the Year in 2000. She discovered her love of writing fiction when her children were little and now runs networking hours on social media, where creative businesses, writers, photographers and designers can offer advice and support to each other. She lives with her family on the coast in Essex. 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lizzie.chantree.3

Author page: viewAuthor.at/LizzieChantree

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/LizzieChantree/pins/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Lizzie_Chantree

Goodreads Author Page: Lizzie Chantree

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lizzie_chantree/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lizzie-chantree-03006425/

Blog: www.lizziechantree.com

Website: www.lizziechantree.com

GIVEAWAY

Click the link below for your chance to win a signed copy of this book and a Swarovski crystal handbag charm. (OPEN INTERNATIONALLY)

Click here to enter

New Beginnings for Bryony Bennett is the debut novel from Katy Lilley. I say debut but actually, Katy Lilley is already an established writer albeit under a different name. It is her first foray into the rom-com genre though. You can read a guest post about this from her here: New Hat, New Genre?

Bryony unexpectedly inherits a fortune from her vivacious and much loved godmother and buys an old house in Devon, leaving the London rat-race behind. This is a light and entertaining account of her settling into village life, which isn’t the idyllic peaceful paradise she had envisaged.

I love the setting of a village in a book as it seems to focus all the different kinds of people you come across and all the different issues of everyday life in one small place. As in any small town or village, there are plenty of nosy residents, including those who don’t welcome incomers and aren’t afraid to make their opinions known. Luckily there is also lively and friendly Maddie who takes Bryony under her wing and is determined to get her involved in village life whether she intended to or not. There is also the smoulderingly gorgeous, but rather grumpy, Dario. He and Bryony get off to a bad start and are at loggerheads over many issues. He seems to delight in being awkward! They keep crossing paths as you do in a small community and their encounters were always fun to read about. He is certainly full of surprises!

Oh and I must mention Bryony’s dog Mop. He’s an Old English Sheepdog so that’s a fabulous name for him. He was full of character and I couldn’t help but like him – and I’m not even a dog person!

Bryony is a great character, the kind of person you feel you’d like to have as a friend the more you read about her. New Beginnings for Bryony Bennett is a warm and charming read, full of gentle humour and definitely what you’d call a feel-good read. It may be a new beginning for Bryony but I do hope we get to follow her to see what happens next.

My thanks to the author for my copy of the book. New Beginnings for Bryony Bennett is available now as an ebook or paperback. You can order a copy online here: Bryony Bennett

From the back of the book

When Bryony Bennett’s godmother dies and leaves her a huge inheritance, Bryony jumps at the chance to get away from it all and start again.

She packs up her life and moves into the (almost) idyllic Cliff Cottage…only to find that starting over is never quite as simple as you imagine. Faced with grumpy neighbours, hostile locals and more than her fair share of disasters, Bryony embarks on a mission to make sure her new life is everything she wants it to be…but will she ever win over the locals and truly be happy in her new life?

Katy Lilley

I’m pleased to be joined by Aidan Conway today who is answering my Author in the Spotlight questions and chatting a bit about his latest novel, A Cold Flame, the second in his Detective Michael Rossi crime thriller series.

Thanks for joining me Aidan. First of all, would you tell my blog readers a little about yourself?

I was born to Irish parents in Birmingham, where I attended a comprehensive school and then went on to study English at University in Wales and Northern Ireland. After that I had a variety of jobs: I was a hotel porter, a barman, a bookseller for a couple of years, a proofreader, and then moved into teaching English in France, and language consultancy and translation in Italy. I am currently an assistant university professor in Rome where I have been living for almost 20 years.

What inspired you to start writing?

I have always written in one way or another; there were poems and stories when I was at school and I continued doing so at university and beyond. Being a keen reader played its part and a little bit of encouragement along the way also helped. A teacher once said I had ‘a style’ and favourably compared a story I had written to Geoffrey Household – I think I’d just read Rogue Male, which had been lying around the house. That stuck with me, even if I often felt being a writer was something that happened in another universe far from mine. I took creative writing at university and the tutors there encouraged us to send stuff out to magazines, which I began doing. Writing became a habit and a bit of an obsession but one I couldn’t do without. I’ve never stopped since.

Tell me about your journey to publication.

It was relatively quick once I had finished writing the first book. I felt that I had put too much time and effort into it to sit back and just wait for something to happen. So, after a brief pause for reflection, I set about finding an agent. Having already had plenty of experience of sending poetry out to magazines (and a pile of rejections) I was quite ready for the challenge and just got stuck in. I studied the market a bit, made sure my presentation was good and that the novel was as strong as it could be. I had made a fairly tenuous contact in a publishing house through a colleague. The person in question read my first 10,000 words and liked what she saw. That meant I had some positive feedback on the book from a professional, which I was then able to use in my pitch. It did the trick and several agents expressed interest. After signing with Ger Nichol, it then took a further four months or so to get a book deal.

In a nutshell, what is your latest book about?

 

My latest book, A Cold Flame, sees DI Michael Rossi and DI Luigi ‘Gigi’ Carrara dealing with a series of suspicious fires in Rome during a searing August. As you may expect, behind this there is a complex web of intertwined stories and various Italian and international shenanigans. The Church is never far away. Rossi’s relationship with Yana, his Ukrainian girlfriend, is also to the fore as things really begin to heat up. The investigative journalist Dario Iannelli appears again after his first outing in A Known Evil and as well as the usual cast – Maroni, Torrini, Silvestre – there are some new female characters too.

How did you come up with the title for your book?

The title went through a few incarnations along the way. I often throw around ideas as I’m writing a book and until I am absolutely sure, I remain pretty flexible about it. There was a bit of back and forth then between me and the marketing team at Harper Collins but in the end I came up with one which pleased everybody.

How do you plan to celebrate publication day?

Publishing the novel as an e-book first means I like to be at home and close to my computer so I can join in the party online, sending out tweets and getting some momentum going. It will probably involve having dinner at home with my family and a few glasses of something nice and cool as by 20 July things will have hotted up here in Rome. Then there is paperback publication day in September 2018 – so it’s like having two birthdays really.

Do you have a work in progress just now?

I have just finished A Cold Flame but on my hard drive there is the complete first draft of book 3, which I wrote in the autumn of 2017. Sooner or later, I will be taking a look at that and getting to work on the second draft. I don’t know when yet but once I have had a bit of a rest I think I’ll be itching to knock it into shape so I can get it round to my first readers. Then, over the summer, I may see if there’s another idea forming and I’ll begin to make some notes and do some broad research. That’s the way it usually happens anyway.

What’s your favourite book you’ve read in the past few months? Or favourite three if you really can’t choose!

I’ve just finished Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me. A classic and a masterpiece. Menacing, absorbing, with as twisted an anti-hero as you could hope to meet. Then, for something contemporary, Don Winslow’s The Force. That really blew me away with its use of dialogue and street language and the big overarching questions it poses about duty, responsibility, right and wrong. And for some non-fiction: Bernard Lewis’s What Went Wrong? It looks at the history of the middle east and the role and influence of the west there as well as the often challenging relationship both worlds and their cultures have with each other. Some very useful insights for this day and age, thoroughly researched and written with style and economy.

    

What are you reading just now? 

I recently discovered Stuart MacBride and I have begun reading his Logan McRae series. As of 18 June 2018, I have nearly finished Cold Granite. It’s a fine debut and I shall certainly be working my way through the rest of the series.

If you were on Desert Island Discs, what one book would you take with you?

I get Shakespeare already, which is good. It would have to be something I could dip into or read again and again. I think a huge anthology of international poetry with facing page translations so I could continue to learn some new languages as well as find inspiration and comfort.

[Not sure this is quite what you had in mind. Think you better start compiling one now, just in case… ]

How can people follow you or connect with you on social media?

I’m on Twitter @conwayrome and on Goodreads. I’d love to hear from you.

And finally, if you could be a character in any book you have read, who would it be and why?

I wouldn’t mind being Dave Robichaux in James Lee Burke’s novels. I have never been to Louisiana and New Orleans but I get a very alluring and vivid impression of the place from his descriptions. I am also drawn to the lifestyle – the multi-cultural history, the music, the fishing and boats and barbecues and dramatic summer heat and storms. I would bring my guitar too so I might learn something.

Thanks to Finn Cotton at Killer Reads (Harper Collins) for inviting me to take part on the tour. A Cold Flame is available now as an e-book and the paperback will follow in September. You can order a copy online here: A Cold Flame

From the back of the book

Play with fire and you get burned…

A gripping crime thriller, from a new star in British crime fiction. Perfect for fans of Ian Rankin.

Five men burnt alive.
In the crippling heat of August in Rome, a flat goes up in flames, the doors sealed from the outside. Five illegal immigrants are trapped and burnt alive – their charred bodies barely distinguishable amidst the debris.

One man cut into pieces.
When Detective Inspectors Rossi and Carrara begin to investigate, a terror organisation shakes the city to its foundations. Then a priest is found murdered and mutilated post-mortem – his injuries almost satanic in their ferocity.

One city on the edge of ruin.
Rome is hurtling towards disaster. A horrifying pattern of violence is beginning to emerge, with a ruthless killer overseeing its design. But can Rossi and Carrara stop him before all those in his path are reduced to ashes?

Follow the rest of the tour

I first heard about this book when Isla Dewar appeared at the Portobello Book Festival a couple of years ago. I was naturally intrigued to hear that it was set in Portobello in a kind of private detective agency. So I was really pleased when the publishers asked if I’d be interested in reading a copy.

It Takes One to Know One features three main characters: Martha Walters, her mum Sophie and her boss Charlie Gavin. Martha is mum to young Evie and a few years back her husband literally ran off, leaving her with no idea where to find him or why he left. She moves back in to her childhood home in Portobello, where Sophie still lives. After a rather unorthodox interview, she lands a job working for Charlie who runs a missing persons agency – the ‘Be Kindly Missing Persons Bureau.’

This is a gentle and very enjoyable story, with warm humour but also looks at how important ones sense of personal identity is. It is full of endearing characters, with all three of the main characters searching for something or someone, but mostly looking for themselves. The other characters – the missing or those looking for the lost – add plenty colour to the story too.

I enjoyed reading about the cases Charlie and Martha worked on and finding out the reasons why people were missing. It is set in the days before the internet so Charlie and Martha have to follow paper trails, talk to people who knew the person who is missing, and they work a lot by instinct. I was very amused by their daily ritual of buying bacon rolls from one of the local cafes – anyone on our local ‘Porty People’ Facebook page will understand why! I really enjoyed the local references both to Portobello and Edinburgh and, for Portobello in particular, trying to decide exactly what shop or house Isla Dewar had in mind. 

I suppose this could maybe be called a cosy mystery. It had a comforting feel to the book, a gentleness and a sense of good old fashioned civility – something we could do with more of in today’s world. Having heard Isla Dewar talk at the book event I mentioned earlier, I can tell you that she is a speaker who holds her audience’s attention effortlessly. This comes across well in this book, which is a most enjoyable read from an accomplished storyteller. 

My thanks to Kristian at publishers Birlinn Polygon for my copy of the book. It is available now in paperback and ebook formats from your usual book retailer or you can order a copy online here: It Takes One to Know One

From the back of the book

Charlie Gavin was abducted as a baby. He didn’t know who he was or where he came from. His mission was to find himself. And when he did, he decided to spend his life finding other lost souls by opening the Be Kindly Missing Persons Bureau.

Martha Walters, his assistant, has had her fifteen minutes of almost fame and failed. Now, dealing with her guilt and pain, she lives with her mum and dotes on her young daughter. Charlie appears to be a man who is a loser and dreamer, but, hey, his office is near her house, she can lie in of a morning, take her kid to school and the work isn’t too heart-breaking. Or is it . . . ?

About the author

Isla Dewar’s first book, Keeping Up with Magda, was published in 1995. Dewar found success with her second novel, Women Talking Dirty; the film of which starred Helena Bonham Carter. She contributed to the collection Scottish Girls about Town and has also written for children. Her most recent novel is A Winter Bride, set in Edinburgh in the 1950s. Born in Edinburgh, Isla lives in the East Neuk of Fife with her husband, political cartoonist Bob Dewar.

This book has to be my most anticipated read of 2018 and I was over the moon when I received an early copy. It most definitely did not disappoint. But then, I am never disappointed with a Patrick Gale novel. (I am still beside myself that part of my review for the wonderful A Place Called Winter is quoted on his website!)

Take Nothing With You is the story of Eustace. On the face of it, it’s a coming of age tale, something which has been done so many times before but feels fresh and new with Patrick Gale’s compelling and elegant writing. Throughout the book, Eustace is learning what’s important in life, who he is, what matters. Passion runs permeates the book. A quiet passion for music and indeed for life. There are also chapters from an older Eustace’s point of view. This is a Eustace facing his own mortality, looking back at what and who he has loved.

Eustace has an inspirational music teacher in Carla Gold and later her own mentor Jean Curwen. Who would think that chapters about learning to play and buying a cello could be so enthralling? Yet in Patrick Gale’s masterful hands, they are just that. His own passion for music is clear and conveyed so beautifully through Eustace.

The lesser characters in the book are no less significant. Carla’s friends and flatmates Louis and Ebrahim who show Eustace there is nothing out of the ordinary in a loving gay relationship, his friend Vernon, who was not afraid to be that bit individual and looked after his ailing father with quiet dignity, even Eustace’s mother who wasn’t particularly likeable. All in some way served to show the complexities and variety of adult relationships.

Take Nothing With You is a wonderful read. It’s powerful, touching and thought-provoking and fully deserves a five star rating. In fact, it’s deserving of more than five. I can’t wait for the Edinburgh Book Festival event next month to hear the author talk about this book. Eustace and his cello have stolen my heart.

My very grateful thanks to Tinder Press for kindly sending me a copy of the book. It will be available from 21st August in hardback and as an ebook and I believe the author himself is narrating the audiobook version. The paperback will follow next April. You can pre-order your copy of the book here: Take Nothing With You. Tinder Press have recently re-jacketed all Patrick Gale’s earlier novels and they really are beautiful so do have a look at them if you are ordering a copy and maybe treat yourself to something from his back catalogue.

From the back of the book

1970s Weston-Super-Mare and ten-year-old oddball Eustace, an only child, has life transformed by his mother’s quixotic decision to sign him up for cello lessons. Music-making brings release for a boy who is discovering he is an emotional volcano. He laps up lessons from his young teacher, not noticing how her brand of glamour is casting a damaging spell over his frustrated and controlling mother.

When he is enrolled in holiday courses in the Scottish borders, lessons in love, rejection and humility are added to daily practice.

Drawing in part on his own boyhood, Patrick Gale’s new novel explores a collision between childish hero worship and extremely messy adult love lives.

About the author

I’m delighted to be kicking off the blog tour for Fatal Inheritance by Rachel Rhys. Her last novel, A Dangerous Crossing, was one of my top reads last year and this book will be joining it this year. I didn’t even bother to find out what it was about, I just knew I loved A Dangerous Crossing so jumped at the chance to read it. With that glorious cover – who could resist? So it was an unexpected pleasure to discover it is set largely in France – where I was on holiday reading it. And it was just the perfect book to read in the hot sunshine.

Eve is married to the rather dry and stuffy Clifford when she receives news of a completely unexpected inheritance from someone she doesn’t know. She has no idea of any connection between herself and Guy, who died very suddenly so didn’t meet her to be able to explain. Chapters from his point of view interspersed with the main narrative give tantalising hints of what’s behind the mysterious bequest. She has to go to the south of France to meet his family and find out more about the bequest. There she discovers a whole new way of life, a glamorous life she had never dreamed of, but it seems that her life could be endangered by this bequest. Her mundane married life in England pales in comparison to the glitz and glamour of the Riviera, mixing with authors, artists, film stars and millionaires. It’s a million miles from her previous experience so no wonder Eve is dazzled and entranced.

Fatal Inheritance is wonderfully atmospheric and rich in detail. It brings to life the decadence of post-war Riviera life in a very visual way. I could see this making a wonderful film or tv series. It certainly had the feeling of a Golden Age mystery, as is rightly mentioned on the back of the book. It felt to me like an Agatha Christie style novel: classy and elegant. And quite the enthralling thriller it is too, with so much mystery and so many people with unexpected secrets being uncovered. I was completely captivated by Rachel Rhys’ writing.

Fatal Inheritance is a stunning, evocative read and I highly recommend you add it to your summer reading lists.

My thanks to Anne Cater at Random Things Tours for inviting me to be part of the blogtour. Fatal Inheritance will be published by Doubleday on 26th July in hardback and as an e-book. It will be available at all the usual book retailers or you can order a copy online here: Fatal Inheritance

From the back of the book

1948: an English housewife trapped in a dull marriage escapes to the South of France to claim a mystery inheritance. But rivals to her unexplained fortune begin to emerge, and now they want her out of the way …

She didn’t have an enemy in the world…
until she inherited a fortune

London 1948: Eve Forrester is trapped in a loveless marriage, in a gloomy house, in a grey suburb.

Out of the blue, she received a solicitor’s letter. A wealthy stranger has left her a mystery inheritance but in order to find out more, she must travel to the glittering French Riviera.

Eve discovers her legacy is an enchanting villa overlooking the Mediterranean sea and suddenly, life could not be more glamorous.

But while she rubs shoulders with film-stars and famous writers, under the heat of the golden sun, rivals to her unexplained fortune begin to emerge. Rivals who want her out of the way.

Alone in paradise, Eve must unlock the story behind her surprise bequest – before events turn deadly…

Reminiscent of a Golden Age mystery, Fatal Inheritance is an intoxicating story of dysfunctional families and long-hidden secrets, set against the razzle-dazzle and decadence of the French Riviera.

About the author

The Development is the third in the series of Cora Baxter Mysteries. I have read and thoroughly enjoyed both the previous books so was delighted when the author got in touch to ask if I’d like to read the third one too. You can read my other reviews by clicking on these links: The Dead Dog Day and The Deadline

The Development starts off in a dramatic and tragic way as TV news reporter Cora drives home after a busy week at work. A young woman lands on her car from a bridge over the road. The woman’s death is ruled a suicide but her family – and Cora – aren’t so sure. She begins to investigate and soon uncovers links to a planned housing development, local protests, anonymous threatening letters, a dodgy businessman and a possible cover-up by the police. Could they all be connected with the woman’s death?

I really enjoyed reading about all the stories which were covered on the breakfast show. The author worked as a reporter in newspapers and on tv herself so has used her insider knowledge to great effect, showing the fast pace of live tv and how quickly stories can escalate or indeed turn into a non-story. The pressure, but also the excitement, of the job comes across well through Cora and her team.

I really like the character of Cora. She is dedicated and professional, determined and principled. The story is mostly told from her point of view but smaller asides from some of other characters hints at something serious being covered up by more than one person. The book is a crime investigation but a bit unusual, not being police led. I don’t like gory or graphic incidents in books but do enjoy a mystery adventure (yes, a Famous Five fan in my youth!) so this kind of book is right up my street.

As with Jackie Kabler’s other books, her engaging style kept me guessing till the end. And the final dramatic chapters had me tapping my kindle quickly, desperate to find out how it would end. I know the author has suggested that this will be the last outing for Cora  but I really hope that she may reconsider at some point and there will be more mysteries for her to solve.

My thanks to the author for giving me a copy of her book. It is published by Accent Press in both paperback and e-book format. You can order a copy online here: The Development

From the back of the book

After a stressful week, TV reporter Cora Baxter is ready for a quiet weekend. What she isn’t counting on is witnessing the shocking death of a young woman on her way home.

Cora discovers that seventeen-year-old Leanne has been protesting against a new housing development, angering the powerful establishment. Leanne’s death is ruled a suicide but, when puzzling information comes to light, Cora decides to investigate further.

She might not know what an unscrupulous businessman, a suspended police officer and hate-mail sending neighbours have to do with the case – but she does know there is a news story there.

With her eccentric camera crew on hand to help, can Cora work out what happened in the days before Leanne’s death? And was it really suicide after all?

 

About the author