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The Year of What If by Phaedra Patrick #Review

  I am delighted to join in the celebrations for the latest novel by Phaedra Patrick , The Year of What If. You can read my review of The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper   here and The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy  here Can the future be rewritten? On the verge of her second marriage, Carla Carter knows she’s finally found the one. She and her fiancé, Tom, met through Logical Love, a dating agency she founded for the pragmatically minded, and she’s confident that, together, they will dispel an old family curse claiming Carter women are unlucky in love. But Carla’s highly superstitious family insists she visit a fortune teller before her big day, and the tarot cards reveal that a different man holds the key to Carla’s happiness – someone she met while travelling during a gap year, twenty-one years ago. This startling information spurs Carla to trace and revisit the ex-boyfriends she met during that time before she walks down the aisle. From Barcelona to Am...
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The Unseeing by Anna Mazzola *Blog Tour Review*


    I am delighted to be the next stop on Anna Mazzola's Blog Tour for The Unseeing. It is her debut novel and quite  an amazing one at that. I always enjoy historical crime fiction and this one captures the sights and smells of Victorian London. Inspired by the real life case of the murder of Hannah Brown, which became known as 'The Edgware Road Murder', the author's research shines through. You have a real sense of the physical surroundings where the different characters reside and how they impinge on their lives.  

    Set in the 1830's, Sarah Gale has been sentenced to hang for her part in the murder of Hannah Brown who has been dismembered and her body parts scattered through the city. Sarah's ex-lover, James Greenacre is to be hung, accused of the murder. Sarah's case has been passed to Edmund Fleetwood, a barrister, to review. We soon discover that we cannot take at face value the known facts of the case. Sarah is reticent as to what actually happened, leading the reader to feel unsure, as Edmund must be. Building on actual source material, Anna Mazzola has written a fictional account which weaves together a complex web of relationships. We are kept guessing as to how reliable some of the accounts are, even finding Edmund's motives for continuing his investigation open to question.

    I found the descriptions of life inside Newgate Prison both vivid and chilling. Anna Mazola's eye for detail means that the reader has a strong visual image of the world she has created and you come to care about the people in it as you are so thoroughly immersed in it all. Well paced and expertly plotted, it really is a page turner. This is a book which immerses the reader in the Victorian period and keeps you guessing to the end.

In short: A book which oozes with authenticity and intrigue.

My thanks to the publishers, Tinder Press for a copy of the book via Bookbridgr. 

You can connect with the author on her website, Facebook and Twitter.
 

                                     Follow the rest of the Blog Tour





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