The Good Liars by Anita Frank

400 pages

Publisher: HQ

Publishing Date: August 17, 2023

Netgalley

 

Blurb

In the hot summer of 1914 a boy vanishes, never to be seen again.

Now, in 1920, the once esteemed Stilwell family of Darkacre Hall find their already troubled lives thrown into disarray when new evidence leads to the boy’s case being reopened – and this time they themselves are under police scrutiny.

As the dead return to haunt the living, old resentments resurface and loyalties are tested, while secrets risk being unearthed that could destroy them all.

 

Review

If you take the blurb to suggest a dark tale, you would be right. This story is very atmospheric, as Darkacre, the name of the manor where the action takes place implies. Doom, gloom, secrecy, and shellshock all add to the undercurrent of evil. As the story progresses, that suggestion gets stronger until, in the end, it turns out not to be a suggestion at all.

I’m not sure how to label this book. It’s not quite a mystery, although there certainly are quite a few puzzles to resolve. And despite the haunting atmosphere, it’s also not quite a gothic thriller. And while there are hints of supernatural goings on and the departed certainly haunt those still alive, The Good Liars isn’t a ghost story either. This is however a fascinating and memorable tale; one that may well leave you wondering what you would do under similar circumstances.

Darkacre is a large manor house occupied by a cast of four. There’s Ida Stilwell, the mistress of Darkacre and the wife of Maurice Stilwell who two years after the end of WWI still suffers from shell shock. Leonard Stilwell is the younger brother who is an invalid, having lost the will to live after losing three of his limbs during the war. Finally, there’s Victor Monroe, a friend of the Stilwell brothers who has more or less been adopted into the family. Sarah Hove is a nurse/housekeeper who joins the family to look after Leonard and take care of some household duties. Eventually, this group will be joined by Detective Sergeant Verity, who ends up stranded there when bad weather makes leaving Darkacre impossible.

From the beginning, it’s clear that all is not happy and well with this family. And the tension increases when the police arrive to tell them that they will reopen an old investigation into the disappearance of a young boy in 1914. What’s more, they will be searching the estate’s woods.

Told from shifting perspectives, we watch as the situation in the house slowly moves from mildly uncomfortable to outright horrifying. But, as the title implies, we are dealing with a group of good liars. I mean, you have unreliable narrators, and then you have this lot.

And that’s probably all I should say about the plot. There are a lot of layers to this story, just as there is a lot of evil in it. It’s a fascinating tale though of the unravelling of a family who thought themselves to be untouchable and it asks some interesting questions about guilt, innocence, and justice.

The story is very well written and told. The descriptions of the house, the atrocious weather, and the surroundings add at least as much menace to the tale as the actions of the characters do. The words flow smoothly, pulling the reader along and the further I got into the book, the harder it became to take a break from reading. I did manage to figure out one or two plot twists before they were revealed on the page, but that didn’t diminish the story for me.

Overall, The Good Liars is a fascinating and thought-provoking book.

The Man Inside Me by Sean Kerr - Review Tour

Book Title: The Man Inside Me

Author: Sean Kerr

Publisher: SGK Publications

Cover Artist: SGK Publications

Release Date 31st September 2018

Genre/s: MM Romance, MM Historical, MM Gothic Romance, MM Paranormal Romance

Heat Rating: 4 flames 

Length: 202 Pages

It’s a standalone story.

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Blurb

Victorian London is a difficult place to be when you are gay, as Henry and Gabriel know all too well.

When they were young at Oxford University, Henry and Gabriel’s love burned hot and bright, and they thought to change the world together until a devastating tragedy ripped them apart.

Now, as youth fades away, Henry can no longer stand to see his own reflection in the mirror. All he sees is a sad, tired old man whose body has betrayed him. He craves the touch of another, to feel attractive and vital once more but his obsession with finding a cure for insanity has stolen his life away, and now his work has taken on a dark and sinister dimension. How far will he go to recapture the passion of his lost youth?

Gabriel fears that Henry is losing his mind, and when a brutal killer invades their lives, they are thrust into the dark depths of Victorian London in a fight for their very lives.

As their friendship is tested to its limits, Gabriel cannot help but wonder if there is still a chance for love. Can they move beyond the friendship that has spanned over thirty years and find the love that once made their hearts beat as one?

You may never be too old to find love, but will you be able to survive it?

Buy Links: Amazon US  | Amazon UK

- Available on Kindle Unlimited

 

 

Review

“I see the man inside me, the other man, the better man. The more attractive man. He is so full of confidence, so full of life, so full of all the qualities that prevent me from finding such companionship, and I find more and more that I wish to be that man, the man inside me.

I will find the answer. Now that I seem him (…). For the man inside me is me, and I will find some way to set him free.”

So, I wrote a very long (some might say of novel proportions) review yesterday, and two minutes ago I deleted every single word. In my eagerness to convey how much I adored this story, how awe-inspiring the writing had been to me, I ended up writing a long piece of nonsensical gibberish.

Because, let there be no doubt, this is one fabulous book. The story, the characters, the historical setting, and the way it was written all took my breath away. The writing is almost lyrical, with well-chosen words placing the story in its time and the reader slap bang in the middle of that world.

And what a world it is, this London in Victorian times. Sean Kerr doesn’t give us a romanticized version of history. This is England in the second half of the nineteenth century in all its glory, but also in all its darkness, depravity, and narrow-mindedness. A world in which being gay went from being frowned upon to being a crime.

“The truth of the matter is, in order to survive and exist in a world of our choosing, we must become that which the world expects. Normal and sober, we must conform to society’s code of moral beliefs, though they may conflict with those that we know to be true to our hearts.”

But, this book is so much more than a history lesson. In fact, you may well recognize the story and the characters from a classic tale most of us are familiar with. Except that the author gives the old familiar a new and inspired twist, one that kept me enraptured from the first sentence to the last word. What starts off as an apparently angsty love-story slowly, and almost imperceptibly, transforms into a tale of darkness and horror of such proportions that it became almost impossible to hope for a positive, never mind happy, ending. And no, I’m not going to tell you whether or not you’ll find happiness at the end of this book, but I promise you’ll be on the edge of your seat while you’re reading to find out.

The various characters in this story tell their parts of it in alternating chapters, in what can probably be best described as monologues directed at the reader, and for me that was just about perfect in this book. It allowed me to get to know Henry and Gabriel (as well as one or two others) at such a deep level, and yet, as the book progresses we discover that all those characters lie to themselves, and in the process to their audience, which of course only makes the story more fascinating.

This is a multi-layered story with a multi-layered title. Who knew ‘the man inside me’ could refer to so many different meanings? The blurb only tells you part of what you’ll encounter on these pages, and the layers covering the deeper story are lifted slowly, almost imperceptibly, pulling the reader into a web of ever increasing darkness without them fully realizing it until they’re in the middle of the mayhem (or should that be Bedlam?).

I’m in serious danger of once again gushing my way to an unreadable and overly-long gush-fest, so I’m forcing myself to stop now and leave you with this final conclusion:

Funny, sad, terrifying, totally engrossing and stunningly beautiful, this is one extraordinary book telling a story that will stay with me for a long, long time and a very deserving addition to my list of extra-special reads.

About the Author

Hi everyone, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Sean Kerr, and I am a 49-year-old gay man living in Cardiff, Wales with my husband of 28 years, Derek. We have two cats, Rita and Harry, and a host of tropical fish.

I worked on building sites for years, and I used the money earned from that to put myself through college, specialist paint techniques etc. I trained in fine art, and then I went out and painted murals on client’s walls, and created Roman Bathrooms and fantasy hand painted bedrooms, all the rage back in the late eighties and nineties. I then became an Interior Designer for a large DIY chain. For the past thirteen years I ran my own Interiors business, and while that is no longer in existence, I am now looking for my next challenge in life!

By night I am an Author, and I am very proud to be an author for Extasy Books. It took me some years to get to this point. I spent a very long time trying to get an agent because I thought it was the right thing to do, and after a heck of a lot of refusals, I nearly gave up. I came so close to hitting the delete button on Dead Camp 1 because I thought I did not stand a chance. At the very last moment, I decided to have a go at approaching a few publishers directly, and I sent the manuscript to six. Within two weeks, I had offers of publication from three! Let’s just say that there may have been tears lol. It was my chance, at last, to become a part of a world that I have always loved and admired from a distance, and it is one of the very best things to ever happened to me.

Dead Camp is the first series I ever wrote, and then there is my short novella called Hush Little Baby. Dead Camp is my take on the Vampire genre, an MM Paranormal Romance series that is set against a backdrop of World War 2. However, the series uses key moments from History to tell one enormous saga, and I have loved every single moment of writing it. There are five books in the Dead Camp series.

Hush is a pure horror story with more than a nod towards such classic programmes as The Twilight Zone and Tales of The Unexpected. The project happened just after I completed Dead Camp 3 and it is a story that I had to get out of my system. It’s definitely a different beast to my Vampire saga, and I hope it will make you go to bed with the lights on lol!

I recently ventured into the world of self-publishing, and as such, I have just released my first independent book series, The Last Child. The Last Child is a horror series that is in 3 parts dealing with the occult. It has a definite Dan Brown vibe in that I love conspiracy stories, so I have used religion and some intriguing legends as the backdrop to this contemporary supernatural thriller that tells the story of a female protagonist trying to protect her young student. Neither of them realises how their lives, and indeed their histories, are intertwined in the most horrific and tragic ways.

My latest book, ‘The Man Inside Me’ is an MM Victorian Gothic Romance, and I think it is the favourite thing I have written so far. It deals with two men in their fifties trying to find love again, a subject that is very close to my heart as I approach that milestone. It is a very important book to me, and while it has some very ‘KERR’ twists and turns, it is, at its heart, a very romantic tale that deals with middle age. I am particularly proud of this book, and it is a very different spin on the MM genre.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I look forward to meeting you on social media.

Author Links: Blog/Website | Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | Amazon Author Page

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The Lucky Ones by Tiffany Reisz - A Pre-Release Review

388 Pages

Publisher: Mira Press

Buy links paperback: Amazon US | Amazon UK

Blurb

They called themselves “the lucky ones.” They were seven children either orphaned or abandoned by their parents and chosen by legendary philanthropist and brain surgeon Dr. Vincent Capello to live in The Dragon, his almost magical beach house on the Oregon Coast. Allison was the youngest of the lucky ones living an idyllic life with her newfound family…until the night she almost died, and was then whisked away from the house and her adopted family forever.

Now, thirteen years later, Allison receives a letter from Roland, Dr. Capello’s oldest son, warning her that their father is ill and in his final days. Allison determines she must go home again and confront the ghosts of her past. She's determined to find out what really happened that fateful night--was it an accident or, as she's always suspected, did one of her beloved family members try to kill her?

But digging into the past can reveal horrific truths, and when Allison pieces together the story of her life, she'll learns the terrible secret at the heart of the family she once loved but never really knew.

A vivid and suspenseful tale of family, grief, love—and the dark secrets that bind everything together—Tiffany Reisz’s latest is enthralling to the final page.

Review

Well now, what to say about this book? I have no idea what I want to rate it, never mind how I’m going to put into words everything that’s buzzing through my head right now.

Maybe I should start with the easy part. The Lucky Ones is a fascinating, gripping, very well written, and captivating gothic tale. And yet, most of this story is deceptively light. There’s a constant glimmer of something sinister, but it’s barely visible. And, initially at least, any issue or contradiction is easily explained away.

The reader is very aware something isn’t quite right from the start. Allison hasn’t seen the people she considered her family for thirteen years and can’t remember any details about her last hours/days in their company. It takes a major upset in the life she’s created for herself since, combined with a distressing letter to take her back to the place and the people she hasn’t seen since she was twelve.

Both the house and those who welcome her there appear, at first glance, nothing but friendly, loving even. It was so easy to fall for Dr. Capello, Roland, and the twins. And yet, now that Allison sees her companions through adult eyes she can’t help feeling she’s missing a vital part of the story. And because whatever that story may be, appears to be connected to her departure and missing memories, Allison sets out to find out what exactly happened in the house that looks like a dragon.

I really don’t want to say a whole lot more about the story itself, about what Allison discovers once she starts digging into the past, except to say that it is, indeed, horrific, and yet….

To truly appreciate this story you need to be able to get caught up in Allison’s quest, share her revelations as she encounters them, and reach your conclusions as she reaches hers. If you’re anything like me you will be mesmerised, shocked, horrified, and asking yourself questions you’ve never asked before.

It was impossible not to get caught up in the tug of war going on in Allison’s heart and mind. Seeing her torn between horror and love, trying to figure out which was the stronger emotion was powerful. In the hands of a lesser author this set-up might have gone horribly wrong. But Tiffany Reisz managed to convey the events without ever making a moral judgement; conclusion have to be drawn by the characters, the reader. At no point does the author try to tell you what to think and feel.

There’s an art to making the sinister sound plausible, even borderline moral. I’m in awe that Tiffany Reisz managed to make me care about a character I should detest. At least, I think I should detest him.

I want to say this is a book you should try to read together with at least one other person. I find myself wanting to talk about what I’ve read, compare notes, and discover whether or not others interpreted events the way I did. If ever a book posed a moral issue or two, this is it. And, as I said before, I’m not at all sure how I feel about what I read and how the book ended.

I’m left with a few questions such as, how far would I be prepared to go to protect someone from themselves, or to protect the people I love? And also, what is ‘memory’ anyway, and can any of us trust what we think we remember?

I adore books that stretch my boundaries, take me by surprise, and make me think. The Lucky Ones sure as hell did that, and then some. I’m not sure how I feel about a book that makes me wonder whether or not there may be something wrong with my moral compass. On the other hand I’m in awe of the author for being able to make me feel compassion for a character I’m pretty sure I should hate.

On a much lighter note; what is it with Tiffany Reisz and men who take holy vows and then succumb to the lures of a beautiful woman?

Because there are plenty of light and funny moments in this book too. That’s what made the story almost deceptive. I almost missed the creepy because the characters were all, on the surface at least, very nice, charming and interesting. And Allison is the kindest of narrators. She wants to see the good in people, she looks for reasons to redeem or forgive them when they’re less than perfect.

So yeah, 1000 words later, I’m still no clearer on how I feel about this book. But since I would recommend it to anyone who likes a story that will challenge them, because I couldn’t stop reading once I started, and because I’m still thinking about the book, twenty-four hours after I finished it, I think I’ll settle on 5 stars.

“If I wanted to judge people all day I’d either be a priest or get a Facebook account” - Roland

Between Us by F.E. Feeley Jr.

Pages: 48

Fantasy - Paranormal

Buy links:      Amazon         Amazon UK

The blurb:

When Jeremy, a tall, hunky, ladies man begins to explore his bisexual attractions, he realizes he loves his best friend and college roommate Roger. 

Roger secretly loves Jeremy back but is holding on to a secret of his own. A terrible one. 

On Halloween night both men are invited to a party where the truth of each other will be revealed in a horrific way. Will they survive a night of terror? Or will it rip them apart forever? 

My thoughts:

I don’t read (or watch) scary stories as a rule. I’m all for murder and mayhem, but horror… not so much most of the time. This blurb, however, intrigued me so I decided to overcome whatever preconceived reservations I might have and dive in.

The start of the story lulled me into a false sense of security. But the playful banter was soon replaced by the first apparition and the creepiness kicked off. As soon as it did I remembered why I so rarely read creepy stories; they make me feel too much. My stomach churns and I get jittery. It gets too much and I close the book only to open it again two minutes later because I HAVE to know what happens next, except that I don’t want to because NERVES, but I do because I can’t stand the tension of not knowing. LOL. It’s an experience I both love and try to avoid. And the more invested I am in a story the stronger those feelings become.

Yes, I did get quite invested in Between Us. Me, the self-confessed wimp who doesn’t deal well with either angst or tension, fully enjoyed the wonderfully torturous combination of romantic uncertainty and ghostly scariness. In fact, I was really impressed that the romance and ghost storylines in this book are perfectly balanced. All too often I’ve come across books in which one storyline ends up taking precedence at the expense of the other. Not in this book; romance and ghostliness play next to each other and one enhances the other.

I liked Jeremy and Roger, enjoyed the way they interacted, and I loved the premise of the story. While this is a fully formed story without an open ending, I would love to see more of them. And given what Roger’s secret is, and considering that he’s met and recognised Cindy (yes, I'm being vague on purpose), I could well see more spooky adventures for these two men. I would most definitely read them.

This was my first encounter with this author and I can safely say it won’t be my last. Between Us packed a whole lot of story into relatively few pages and did so very well. While I wouldn’t have minded more words, the story didn’t need them. If F.E. Feeley Jr can hook me this much in under fifty pages I can’t wait to find out what’ll happen when I pick up a full length novel.

Overall I highly recommend this book if you'd like to add more ghosts and romance to your Halloween.

About the author:

F.E. Feeley Jr was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan and lived there for twenty years before joining the military. He is a veteran of the US Armed Services; having done a tour in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2002-2003, he turned college student, pursuing a degree in political science. He now lives in Southeast Texas where he is married to the love of his life, John, and where they live with their five year old German Shepherd, Kaiser. 

As a young man, reading took center stage in his life, especially those novels about ghosts, witches, goblins, and all the other things that went bump in the night. His favorite authors include such writers as Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and Anne Rice, whose work allowed him to travel to far off places and meet fascinating and scary characters. As a gay man, he wishes to be able to write good fictional literature for those who love the genre and to write characters that readers can relate to. All in all, he is a cigarette smokin’, whiskey drinkin’, rock and roll lovin’, tattoo wearin’ dreamer of a man with a wonderful husband who puts up with his crap and lets him write his stories.