Darker Days by Thomas Old Heuvelt

Good morning! Today I'm a stop on the Random Things tour for Thomas Old Heuvelt's Darker Days!

Bird Street might seem like the perfect neighborhood. The kids are talented--prodigies event, the families seem perfect...but all is not as it seems on this idyllic street. See the residents made a deal. A deal that requires a death. A deal that turns their lives into nightmares every November. A deal that begs the question, is it worth it?

Ha! So first off, I love Thomas Old Heuvelt. His ability to dig into the meat of human fears, human feelings as a whole, is something that sticks with me every time I read his work. 

Second, I don't trust anyone on Bird Street! At least not the adults.

It's a street made up of just five houses. Five families. And the kids are affected the most by the deal these families have made. Because in November they go feral. I don't have a better way to describe it. We know from the start that the kids go on lockdown after Halloween. We know at least one has been hospitalized in recent years. And we know that this behavior is not the norm for these kids. 

We also know they're aware of it and they're exceptionally privileged the rest of the year!

It's not giving too much away to say this is a play on Faust. It's in the description. And yet it's not limited to just one person. It's the whole street. Five households colluding to manipulate fate or whatever may be in order to prosper and get their way. At the risk of everyone around them. See, I don't trust them! Because people willing to make deals with the devil...well, you'll find out what kind of people they are when you read. 

I loved Darker Days. It's told in part from the kids' perspectives, which gives it a shadow of coming-of-age feel, something I very much appreciate. And it balances out the adults' perspectives as well, giving the reader a chance to see who's really getting the short end of the stick. 

I don't want to spoil it in any way though. If you like horror about the human condition you should definitely pick this one up. And if this is your introduction to Thomas Old Heuvelt then congrats! You have a fun ride ahead of you!

Huge thanks to Random Things and PRH UK for having me on the tour!

Darker Days is out now in the UK and will be out shortly in the US.   

Last Time We Met by Emily Houghton

Happy Friday, readers! Today I'm a stop on the Random Things tour for Emily Houghton's latest, Last Time We Met!

Eleanor and Fin were once the best of friends. In fact, they were so close that when they were thirteen they made a pact to marry each other if they were both single at thirty-five. 

But that was then. Now, they're virtual strangers. 

Fin, who's been living and working in the States, has been gone for years and Eleanor, who was in a committed relationship since she was a freshman in college, is newly single and trying to move on. The two collide, literally, at a mutual friend's wedding, forcing them back into one another's lives. But can their friendship recover from the hurt and betrayal that tore them apart in the first place?

Last Time We Met is a mostly easy breezy and sweet romantic read, perfect for summer! 

Poor Eleanor. Her life has truly been shaken up by her recent break up. What's more, everyone around her is pushing her to move on when she isn't quite sure that she's ready. 

Fin is also at his wits end. After leaving everything and everyone behind, he's forced to come home after learning that his mother's health is rapidly declining. But there's a reason he left and there's a reason he hasn't spoken to anyone for so long. 

The story flashes back between then and now, illustrating for the reader just how integral Fin and Eleanor were in each other's lives before revealing what happened to separate them in the first place (also why Fin left and hasn't spoken to his mother). And while there are some truly heart wrenching moments, Last Time We Met is ultimately a feel good (and I'll stress again, light) read. 

Last Time We Met is officially out in the UK on August 4!

What She Left by T. R. Richmond

Hi, everyone! This is my second post today as part of the blog tour for T. R. Richmond's newly released debut, What She Left. You can check out the excerpt post here.

When Jeremy Cooke hears about Alice Salmon's tragic death, he is rocked to his core. Once upon a time, Cooke was very close to Alice's mother and felt a fond affinity for Alice as well. Her death can't be her end. 

And so he begins collating material on Alice - Twitter feeds, Facebook posts, texts, journal entries... anything and everything he can lay his hands on pertaining to her life and experiences. A project forms, one with an anthropological basis - a map of Alice's life. But amazingly, what begins as a bit of an obsession and refusal to say goodbye soon transforms into an investigation that could shed light on Alice's final moments. 

What She Left is a great example of storytelling through somewhat unique means. At heart, Alice's death is a mystery. But so is her life. Using letters, diary entries, and all sorts of electronic correspondence as the narrative thread, Richmond builds a tale that not only fills in the gaps of Alice's story, but of her mother's, her friends', and Cooke's as well.

The various pieces form chapters of a sort. Chapters that are short enough to keep the story moving at a fairly quick pace. And yet, though this is described as a thriller and though there is - as I mentioned - a mystery central to the story, the book doesn't really read like a thriller at all. Instead, it's a sort of cross between the aftermath of death and it's effects on the living and a commentary on social media and the electronic stamp one leaves behind these days. (As well as the notion that not all of a person's public facade can truly be trusted.)

Richmond's debut is a fascinating one that will appeal to readers who enjoy unreliable narrators, epistolary novels, and psychological suspense.

As a bonus, the publisher has put together two extras for readers: Alice's Facebook page and Professor Cooke's Tumblr.

What She Left is out now from Michael Joseph.

What She Left by T. R. Richmond - Excerpt

Hello, everyone! Today I'm part of the blog tour for T. R. Richmond's debut thriller, What She Left, which released just last week. And as part of the tour I've got a little treat for you - an excerpt from the book.

I'll be following up later today with a review, but for now here's a bit about the book from Goodreads to get you started:

Gone doesn't mean forgotten.

When Alice Salmon died last year, the ripples were felt in the news, on the internet, and in the hearts of those who knew her best.

But the person who knows her most intimately isn't family or a friend. Dr Jeremy Cook is an academic whose life has become about piecing together Alice's existence in all its flawed and truthful reality.

For Cooke, faithfully recreating Alice's life - through her diaries, emails and anything using her voice - is all-consuming. He does not know how deep his search will take him, or the shocking nature of what he will uncover.

And now for the excerpt!

Prologue

Article in the Arts Council magazine, 

The Operative Word, 2001 

What’s in a name? That’s the question we asked teenagers to answer in 1,000 words for this year’s New Talent competition. Here’s the winning entry from fifteen-year-old Alice Salmon. 

My name is Alice.

I could leave it there. I know what I mean by that. I’m me, Alice Salmon. Tall, average-looking, big feet, hair that goes wavy at the mere mention of water, a bit of a worry bear. A massive music fan, a proper bookworm, loves being outdoors, though dies at the sight of a spider. 

Mostly it’s Alice people call me, although occasionally I’m Al or Aly or Lissa, the last one of which for the record I hate. When I was a kid I used to have squillions of nicknames like Ali Baba and Ice and, my favourite of all, especially when my dad called me it, Ace. 

My uncle calls me Celia, which is an anagram of Alice, although I get the word ‘anagram’ muddled up with ‘anachronism’. ‘That’s what I am,’ my dad always says if anyone says ‘anachronism’, although the word ‘dad’ is actually a palindrome. I learnt that yesterday. 

I like knowing this stuff, even if my best friend Megan says I sound as if I’ve swallowed a dictionary. It’s not that I like showing off, but you’ve got to if you’re going to study English. If I get the grades, I’d love to go to Exeter or Liverpool, but as long as it’s a long way from Corby I don’t mind, although wherever you go there are probably people trying to get away from there. I’ll be honest, I can’t wait to move out; my mum’s constantly poking her nose into my business. She reckons it’s because she cares, but it’s not fair it’s me who suffers because she’s paranoid. I obviously put that last line in after she read this and she’ll never see it because I’m bound not to win. 

Maybe what’s in my name is the music I like (have listened to ‘Dancing in the Moonlight’ about 400 times today) or the TV I watch (you’re looking at the world’s biggest Dawson fan) or my friends or the diary I keep? Maybe it’s the bits of all of that stuff I can remember, which isn’t much because my memory’s lousy. 

Perhaps it’s my family? My mum and dad and brother who used to called me ‘a lice’ or ‘Mice’ or ‘Malice’ as if it was the funniest joke ever cracked in the history of the world. Maybe it’ll be my kids, not that I’m going to have any, no thank you: all that yuck and puke and poo. I haven’t even got a boyfriend, although if Mr DiCaprio is reading this, I am free on Friday . . . 

‘You’ll change your mind,’ Mum says about the babies, but she said that about asparagus and I haven’t. 

Perhaps it’s the things I plan to do, like travel, or the nicest thing I’ve already done, which hands down was that day’s volunteering at the deaf place (can you see my halo shining?) or possibly the worst (no way am I fessing up to that!). 

I could tell you about my best day ever. That’s a toughie, maybe it was when Meg and I went to see Enrique Iglesias or I met J. K. Rowling or my gramps took me on that surprise birthday picnic, but the thing about ‘ever’ is that it only takes you up to now, and tomorrow can be better so I ought to talk about ‘so far’ rather than ‘ever’. 

There again, sometimes you can explain what an object is by pretending not to talk about it (I’ve just googled that, it’s ‘apophasis’) so maybe what’s in my name are the things I could be doing instead of this, like my maths homework or taking Mr Woof for a walk. 

I used to wish more famous people were called Alice. Not, like, mega famous because then whenever anyone said it, it would be them who everyone thought of – like if you’re called Britney or Cherie – but semi famous. There’s Alice Cooper but he’s a man and that’s not even his real name. There’s Alice in Wonderland, too, which used to get quoted at me a lot, stuff like being curiouser and curiouser, though my favourite line was always the one about not being able to explain yourself because it’s not actually yourself you see, even if I never understood it. 

I suppose I am what I’m writing here, too, which might be rubbish. I asked my mum to read this – only to check the spelling – and she said it was great, even if the first and last lines did make me sound like an alcoholic, but that’s just how she interpreted it. 

Mum said there were a few bits I should reconsider, but there’s no point submitting it if it’s lies, although I did agree to knock out the text speak and swear words and there were lots of them in the first draft (this is the seventh!). I also use too many brackets and exclamation marks but they’re staying in, otherwise (again) this wouldn’t be me. 

‘At times it terrifies me how much we are alike,’ Mum said after she read it. Well, she’s not the only one. Some days, even though she tries to hide it, she mopes around the house like the world’s about to end. (Yes, this line went in after she vetted it, too – talk about the thought police!) 

Dad reckons I must have been dropped on my head as a baby, because me and him have hardly anything in common, although we both love salmon, which is funny because you could say that makes us cannibals. 

My name is Alice Salmon. Five words out of my 1,000. I hope I’m more than 200 times those five words. Even if not now, I hope one day I will be. 

I will finish this now and stand up and ask myself who I am. I do that a lot. I’ll look in the mirror. Reassure myself, scare myself, like myself, hate myself. 

My name is Alice Salmon.