Beautiful Liars by Isabel Ashdown

Seventeen years ago Martha said goodbye to best friend Juliet on a moonlit London towpath.
The next morning Juliet's bike was found abandoned at the waterside.
She was never seen again.

Nearly two decades later Martha is a TV celebrity, preparing to host a new crime show... and the first case will be that of missing student Juliet Sherman. After all these years Martha must reach out to old friends and try to piece together the final moments of Juliet's life.

But what happens when your perfect friends turn out to be perfect strangers...?

I would like to say thank you to Isabel Ashdown for writing such a brilliant and psychological thriller. I would like to thank Tracy Fenton for arranging this blog tour. Also would like to thank Orion Publishing Group and Trapeze for letting me review this book. 

OMG, what an explosive storyline. At the beginning I wanted to give up as it was like where is this going. It was so confusing me at times and I was like why am I reading this. But as I carried on reading and the story was opening up where it was making sense. I've really had my OMG moments and as they say "Shut the door" moments as well.

Without giving the story away, it will make you carry on reading and to find out what happens when your perfect friends really do turn out to be perfect strangers. You have to download or buy and read Beautiful Liars - Isabel Ashdown to find out all about Martha, Juliet and others.

Trading with Death (Tales of the Unexpected #1) by Ann Girdharry

What sacrifice might we make for those we love?
In the face of death, will we be selfish or selfless?

Taka is tortured by her younger sister’s terminal illness.
Then one dark day, she is faced with an opportunity to change fate.

As the two sisters struggle with the approach of death, what final choices will be made?

A twisty, chilling tale that will leave you breathless.

Praise for Trading with Death

“Totally unexpected!”


“Best short story that I’ve read for a long time”


“Awesome”



Trading with Death is the first in the Chilling Tales of the Unexpected Short Reads series. 


I would like to thank Ann Girdharry for letting me read and review this short book.

This was a short read of 2 little girls walking through a woods. Both are sisters. 1 is ill and is dying the other is healthy but wants to take the illness away from her sister. What happens in the woods, stays in the woods. Who comes out of the woods - both or just 1, you will have to read and find out what happened in the woods.


A great short story and will be intrigued to carry on reading more from Ann Girdharry in the future.

The Corpse Role (DI Granger #1) by Keith Nixon

Not everything that gets buried stays buried... sometimes things have a nasty habit of resurfacing…

When the body of a security van driver implicated in an unsolved £1.2 million heist turns up in a shallow grave two years later it’s just the beginning for Detective Inspector Charlotte Granger.

She embarks on an investigation that takes her into dangerous territory – a world of dirty cops, dodgy private investigators, local villains and nosy journalists. Meanwhile events from Granger's own past are threatening to come back and haunt her... 


I would like to thank Keith Nixon for allowing me to read and review this new series. I've never read anything by this author and was surprised of the outcome.

DI Granger is investigating a murder. A body has shown up in the woods. Been there a while and no one knows who it is. They then find another body in a car outside a pub, but this time it's a retired police officer. What has these 2 bodies got to do with each other. What happened in the past will bring people together in the present and the ramifications from the past has a bad habit of catching up with people.


I found this hard going at times as it kept going from present day to the past. But once I got into the story and followed it, I found it so fascinating and wanted to find out who and what was going on. The ending shocked me as I really thought it was someone different. A great start to a new author and series for me and I can't wait for what happens next and will definitely be reading more from this author.

The Good Samaritan by John Marrs

She’s a friendly voice on the phone. But can you trust her?

The people who call End of the Line need hope. They need reassurance that life is worth living. But some are unlucky enough to get through to Laura. Laura doesn’t want them to hope. She wants them to die.

Laura hasn’t had it easy: she’s survived sickness and a difficult marriage only to find herself heading for forty, unsettled and angry. She doesn’t love talking to people worse off than she is. She craves it.

But now someone’s on to her—Ryan, whose world falls apart when his pregnant wife ends her life, hand in hand with a stranger. Who was this man, and why did they choose to die together?

The sinister truth is within Ryan’s grasp, but he has no idea of the desperate lengths Laura will go to…

Because the best thing about being a Good Samaritan is that you can get away with murder.

I want to thank Netgalley, John Marrs and Amazon Publishing for allowing me to read this great psychological novel. It has all the markings of a great psychological and intense book.

You have Laura who is to be at first believed as a nice, warm, sympathetic and kind woman at the end of a phone to people who've got problems. You have Ryan who is a loving, kind man who's whole world has come crashing down when his pregnant wife commits suicide. What have these two people have in common - Laura was the last person Ryan's wife spoke to. OR was she? Why is Ryan chasing after Laura? What is Laura hiding from people? Can a good samaritan really hold a life in their hands and snuff it out or is it all make believe?

You need to read this riveting book that has had my emotions all over the place. I have hated, loathed, detested Laura through this book. I have cried over characters and the way they seem to think there is no way out of the life they lead. I have cheered for characters as they turn corners from their struggles. But OMG have I immersed myself as I've read what these characters have gone through in their lives (Laura included). Can a Good Samaritan ever be DERANGED or are they like the rest of us - just NORMAL people. Find out in this The Good Samaritan novel by the excellent John Marrs.

The Restless Dead: (David Hunter #5) by Simon Beckett

‘Composed of over sixty per cent water itself, a human body isn’t naturally buoyant. It will float only for as long as there is air in its lungs, before gradually sinking to the bottom as the air seeps out. If the water is very cold or deep, it will remain there, undergoing a slow, dark dissolution that can take years. But if the water is warm enough for bacteria to feed and multiply, then it will continue to decompose. Gases will build up in the intestines, increasing the body’s buoyancy until it floats again.
And the dead will literally rise . . . ‘
It was on a Friday evening that forensics consultant Dr David Hunter took the call: a Detective Inspector Lundy from the Essex force. Just up the coast from Mersea Island, near a place called Backwaters, a badly decomposed body has been found and the local police would welcome Hunter's help with the recovery and identification . . . 
Because they would like it to be that of Leo Villiers, the 31 year-old son of a prominent local family who went missing weeks ago, and they are under pressure to close the case. Villiers was supposed to have been having an affair with a married woman, Emma Derby. She too is missing, and the belief is that the young man disposed of his lover, and then killed himself. If only it was so straightforward.
But Hunter has his doubts about the identity of the remains. The hands and feet are missing, the face no longer recognisable. Then further remains are found - and suddenly these remote wetlands are giving up yet more grisly secrets. As Hunter is slowly but surely drawn into a toxic mire of family secrets and resentments, local lies and deception, he finds himself unable, or perhaps unwilling, to escape even though he knows that the real threat comes from the living, not the dead.
With its eerie and claustrophobic sense of place, explosive heart-in-mouth moments, and viscerally authentic forensics and police procedural detail, coupled with David Hunter’s own uncanny ability to understand the living as much as the dead, The Restless Dead stands as a masterclass in crime fiction and marks the stunning return of one of the genre’s best.

This is final book in the David Hunter series. I've had the series minus this one for a while. So I've sat and read/listened to the series. 

I've found I hated a couple of characters in this book (not David Hunter). David has been called out on a body in the water. Is the body someone who went missing 7 months ago or is it the person who was last seen 6 weeks ago. Who is the body in the water? You need to find out by reading The Restless Dead to see what David Hunter can do to help with who is the body and how they died.