Skip to main content

Featured

Winter Magic at Hollybrae Castle by Jaimie Admans #Review

  Winter Magic at Hollybrae Castle by Jaimie Admans was published by Boldwood Books on September 9th. A Scottish castle, a fake marriage… and one very real Christmas romance?   After a window display goes disastrously viral – thanks to a malfunctioning animatronic Santa and an unfortunate encounter with Paddington Bear – Lula Haines finds herself without a job just weeks before Christmas. So she jumps at the chance to decorate Hollybrae Castle in Scotland for the holidays. There’s just one complication: her handsome new boss, Oliver Bracewell, needs a fake wife for the festive season. To secure a promotion that could save his family’s castle, Ollie has been pretending to be a married father-of-two to impress the family-focused firm where he works. Now his bosses are coming to stay at Hollybrae over Christmas… expecting to meet his non-existent wife and children. At first, playing along is easy as Lula is swept up in the magic of turning Hollybrae into the perfect f...
Post a Comment
Read more
Labels

The Concordat by Sean Heary ** Blog Tour Review**


Welcome to the blog today for my stop on the blog tour for The Concordat, Sean Heary's debut thriller.
 
Since his rise to power, Russian President Alexander Volkov has increasingly engaged in hostile activities as he attempts to rebuild the Russian Empire. In support of his tactics, the Russian FSB has forged a Concordat dated 1939 in which the Vatican supposedly agreed to cease all opposition to the Nazi government in return for being appointed the official state religion of the Third Reich.



Planting the counterfeit in a Berlin apartment, the FSB engineer a plan to blackmail the Vatican via the son of a murdered former East German Stasi colonel. The Vatican reluctantly agrees to acquire the counterfeit to prevent it falling into the hands of the Church's enemies, sending the head of the Vatican Police, Lorenzo Rossi, to Germany to negotiate with the blackmailer. But Rossi's flight is delayed and by the time he arrives the blackmailer is dead and the Concordat has vanished.



Rossi follows a deadly trail to Paris and onto Moscow, where he meets Cathy Doherty, a CIA Agent with a passion for all things Russian. Together they set out to establish the origins of the Concordat, and its intended purpose. Armed with information provided by a CIA informant, the forger is identified. Will Rossi be able to recover the Concordat and flee Russia with his life?

My Thoughts
This is a fast- moving thriller which travels from country to country throughout Europe and which has a political/ historical edge. The cover highlights: forgery, blackmail, murder and all these elements are there almost from the off. There is quite a head count going on. Rossi, the head of the Vatican Police and Cathy, the CIA agent, develop an interesting relationship which never gets in the way of the plot.

    With espionage and double dealing, you never quite know where the storyline is going to go. I am sure that lovers of Dan Brown's books would enjoy this. If you like novels with a revisionist take on history and where the pillars of the world order seem to be in conflict, this book will appeal to you. It's a quick moving novel which takes you with it all the way to the end.  

In short: A political crime thriller with just a dash of romance.
 
About the Author


Sean Heary lived for many years only a stone’s throw from the Kremlin. No wonder he writes political thrillers. He also worked for several years in Tashkent, Uzbekistan where he met his wife. Born and raised in Australia, Sean now makes Germany his home.

You can follow Sean here: Twitter   |  Troubador
     |   Goodreads
 
Book links:  Amazon UK 

Thanks to Sean Heary, Troubador Publishing and Anne Cater of Random Things Tours  for a copy of the book and a place on the tour. 

                                                    Check in with the rest of the tour!


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment