Gone by Leona Deakin

Today is my final blog tour for 2019 and so close to Christmas I am certainly ending on an absolute cracker as I play host to Gone by Leona Deakin.

Synopsis

Four strangers are missing.

Left at their last-known locations are birthday cards that read:

YOUR GIFT IS THE GAME
DARE TO PLAY?

The police aren’t worried – it’s just a game. But the families are frantic, and psychologist and private detective Dr Augusta Bloom is persuaded to investigate. As she delves into the lives of the missing people, she finds something that binds them all.
And that something makes them very dangerous indeed.

As more disappearances are reported and new birthday cards uncovered, Dr Bloom races to unravel the mystery and find the puppeteer. But is she playing into their hands?

An addictive debut thriller with an ingenious hook that turns the missing person plot on its head

– what if the missing people are the dangerous ones?

My thoughts

This was a very, very enjoyable read.  I have to say I am mightily impressed that this is a debut and rather excited that it kicks of the start of a series.

Right from the very first page this novel had a grip on me and I honestly found it hard to put down.  Daily life became frustrating as I was constantly on the lookout for my next opportunity to read, even waking up extra early to read.  The structure and plotting is superb and the twists and turns of the story executed with a expert hand.

The story begins with a crime scene.  A victim lies on the floor, life slowly ebbing away.  With him are two school girls.  At this stage we’re unsure what happened but the event leaves us with a feeling of unease. Something isn’t quite right and one of the young girls is sent to see Dr Bloom.  Alongside this runs what appears to be the main plotline of the disappearance of a young mother. Lana disappears without a trace on her birthday.  The only clue that remains is an unsigned birthday card simply stating ‘YOUR GIFT IS THE GAME.  DARE TO PLAY’.  As Dr Augustus Bloom and her partner Marcus Jameson begin to investigate it becomes clear that there are more disappearances and that the danger doesn’t lie with the missing people but is closer to home.

Exciting, fast-paced and with an very engaging detective team this is definitely a series to watch.  I can’t wait to read more. There are also reading group questions at the back and a sneak peek at book 2.  Thankfully the second novel is not too far away, with Lost due to be published in 2020. 🙂

Gone was published by Black Swan (Transworld Books) in paperback on October 3rd. Also available in EBook.

Many thanks to Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for inviting me to take part in this blog tour.

About the author

Leona Deakin

Leona draws inspiration for her writing from her own experiences having started her career as a psychologist with the West Yorkshire Police and her successful work in psychology since. She is now an occupational psychologist and lives with her family in Leeds.  Gone is her debut thriller.

You can follow Leona on Twitter at @LeonaDeakin1

You can follow Transworld Books on Twitter at @TransworldBooks

A Cornish Inheritance by Terri Nixon

Today I’m delighted to host the blog tour for A Cornish Inheritance by Terri Nixon as part of the Random Things Tours.

Synopsis

Welcome to Fox Bay Hotel, where family fortunes rise and fall.

1920, Bristol. Helen Fox is happily married to the love of her life: charming, former playboy Harry. With their three children, glamorous lifestyle and extravagant parties, they have the perfect life. But after a tragic motorcycle accident, nothing will ever be the same…

Helen is forced to leave their home and move to the Fox family’s hotel on the Cornish coast – where she discovers her perfect life has been based on a lie.
Now Helen must find a way to build a new life for herself and her children with the help of a vivacious new friend, Leah Marshall.
But when the future of the hotel is threatened, Helen discovers that she hasn’t left her past behind after all, and unless she takes drastic action, she’s going to lose everything all over again…

My thoughts

Helen is blissfully married as one half of the ‘heavenly twins’, but things are often not as they seem and she soon discovers that her husband has not been entirely honest with her.  Still it’s nothing that they can’t work through… they have each other and their three young children after all.  Then tragedy hits and suddenly Helen and the children are alone and forced to return to the Fox family’s hotel.  At least they aren’t destitute.  Surely the money from their half of the hotel still means they have the hope of a new home, a fresh start.  Yet more secrets begin to emerge and soon Helen must make some very difficult decisions as her trust is shaken along with the hope of any security she thought the Hotel might bring.

This is a good, traditional family saga with twists and turns and secrets being unearthed left, right and centre.  There is much drama and poor Helen is faced with quite a time of it.  Filled with rich, interesting characters ( as well as some dark, shady ones along the way) you can’t help but be drawn back to the 1920’s, a time where blessing s where counted and the loss of a loved one was felt even more harshly after surviving the war.  Family secrets, deceit and wrong doing mixed with the hope of redemption make this an intriguing read.  A delightful read that I imagine fans of Terri Nixon and the genre will adore.

Many thanks to Anne Cater for inviting me to take part in this blog tour and the lovely people at Piatkus books for my review copy.

About the author

Terri was born in Plymouth. At the age of 9 she moved with her family to Cornwall, to the village featured in Jamaica Inn — North Hill — where she discovered a love of writing that has stayed with her ever since. She also discovered apple-scrumping, and how to jump out of a hayloft without breaking any bones, but no-one’s ever offered to pay her for doing those.

Since publishing in paperback for the first time in 2002, Terri has appeared in both print and online fiction collections, and is proud to have contributed to the Shirley Jackson award-nominated hardback collection: Bound for Evil, by Dead Letter Press.
As a Hybrid author, her first commercially published novel was Maid of Oaklands Manor, published by Piatkus Entice. Terri’s self-published Mythic Fiction series set in Cornwall, The Lynher Mill Chronicles, is now complete and available in paperback and e-book.

Terri also writes under the name T Nixon, and has contributed to anthologies under the names Terri Pine and Teresa Nixon. She is represented by the Kate Nash Literary Agency. She now lives in Plymouth with her youngest son, and works in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at Plymouth University, where she is constantly baffled by the number of students who don’t possess pens.
You can follow Terri on Twitter at @TerriNixon
Website : http://www.terrinixon.com/

 

Blind Witness by Vicki Goldie

Today I’m delighted to be hosting the blog tour for Blind Witness by Vicki Goldie, the first novel in The Charters’ Mysteries Series.

Synopsis

In 1922 a blind WWI veteran and former intelligence officer attends a weekend with his aristocratic wife and her family at a country house in the New Forest, Hampshire. Fourteen people sit down to dinner on the Friday night; by the end of the weekend there are tow murders, an attempted murder and a suicide.

This is book one in a series of humorous murder mysteries and introduces young sleuths The Hon Melissa Charters and her war veteran husband Major Alasdair Charters.

The pair collaborate using Melissa’s powers of observation and Alasdair’s old skills gained in the Secret Intelligence Service to investigate the events unfolding over the weekend. A murder mystery, with a spy plot told from many different points of view in the tradition of Simon Brett, M.C. Beaton and Kerry Greenwood.

My thoughts

Major Alasdair Charters returned from the First World War without his sight. What happened the night he sustained his injury is unknown but there is something about it that still doesn’t sit well with him. Relieved to be alive and yet feeling much less of a man, he has struggled to come to terms with being looked after by his young, long suffering wife, Melissa Charters. He wonders why she is still with him and fears it may be more duty and pity than love. Melissa, however, adores her husband and wants nothing more than to remain by his side. If only she could lift his war battered spirit. After much patience on her part, he finally relents and agrees to escape the safety of their London flat and accepts a weekend visit to her family house in the country. A house that has also seen it’s own loss during the war. Melissa’s family have been summoned by her uncle, Brigadier Ferguson and his wife, Lady Honor. At first it seems like an innocent reunion but before the first night is over a murder has been committed and everyone in the house is a suspect. Could there be evil lurking within the family or could the small number of other guests, strangely invited considering it is a family gathering, have something to do with it? Desperate to discover the killer and prevent further crimes Alasdair shakes off his sense of uselessness and with Melissa by his side the two delve deeper into family and war time secrets – secrets that someone will resort to anything to keep quiet. Alasdair may be blind but his mind (and hearing) is still sharp as a tack and with Melissa as his eyes the pair may just get to the bottom of the mystery.

I am a big fan of crime novels and in particular the style of Agatha Christie, the original Queen of the murder mystery. She was of course a master creator of character and could find evil in the most mundane of situations, creating a thrilling read along the way. Her novel always entertain and thrill/  Blind Witness provided me with a welcome return to this gentle, yet intriguing style of crime novel and an interesting debut. I found the central characters interesting and I feel there is still a great deal to be seen from them. This is an engaging read and I feel that it shows a promising start to the series. I hope that we discover more about Major Charters and his wife. They make a good team and I look forward to revisiting them again in the second novel of the series.

Many thanks to Anne Cater for inviting me to be a part of the blog tour and to Vicki Goldie for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review. I wish you all the very best with the series.

About the author

Vicki Goldie

Vicki worked as a Chartered Librarian for the Royal National Institute of Blind People and then for the past 19 years in public libraries in Bournemouth and Poole. There she enjoyed arranging and attending writing courses and author events, including such luminaries as Fay Weldon and Peter James. With the Reading Agency and other librarians round the country she reviewed and selected books for The Radio Two Book Club. All the time writing away in her spare time.

Born in California but brought up in England she was introduced to the Golden Age of crime authors at an early age by her mother. She is married to a blind physiotherapist, and it is from his mother, born in a large country house in Devon (now a hotel), educated by governess and with a cut glass voice like the Queen, that she absorbed real life stories about the twenties and thirties.

She has always had a fascination with the Art Deco period and the Golden Age of crime writing. She has been filling her house with Art Deco inspired artefacts and clothing for 40 years. 

Blind Witness is her debut novel and is the beginning of the Charters Mysteries Series featuring Major Alasdair Charters and The Honourable Melissa Charters.

 

Nothing Important Happened Today by Will Carver

Today I’m delighted to be taking part in the blog tour for the outstanding Nothing Important Happened Today by Will Carver.

Synopsis

A shocking, mesmerisingly original, pitch-black thriller, which, following the critically acclaimed Good Samaritans, confirms Will Carver as one of the most imaginative, innovative and exciting authors in crime fiction.

Nine people arrive one night on Chelsea Bridge.

They’ve never met. But, at the same time, they leap to their deaths.

Each of them received a letter in the post that morning, a pre-written suicide note, and a page containing only four words: Nothing important happened today.

That is how they knew they had been chosen to become a part of The People of Choice: a mysterious suicide cult whose members have no knowledge of one another.

Thirty-two people on a train witness the event.

Two of them will be next.

By the morning, People of Choice are appearing around the globe. It becomes a movement. A social-media page that has lain dormant for four years suddenly has thousands of followers.

The police are under pressure to find a link between the cult members, to locate a leader who does not seem to exist …

My thoughts

So, take a crime thriller,  someone is murdered and then a determined and quietly brilliant detective will investigate, leaving  no stone unturned as they work towards bringing the killer in, hopefully avoiding further deaths in the process.  Now turn that idea completely on it’s head and you might come somewhere close to Will Carver’s latest offering, Nothing Important Happened Today.

This novel is unlike anything I’ve ever read.  It was certainly gripping but oh did I find it an uncomfortable (yet wonderful) read.  The power of suggestion is alway slightly unnerving and yet, in reality, we are surrounded by it every day – every time we turn on the TV, open a newspaper or simply, innocently scrolling through the tiny screens that have become almost a part of our very being. It’s tricky to talk in too much detail without giving the plot away but in a nut shell Will has created a modern psycopath who uses the mind as a tool for their killing.

This is very much a crime story for the world we live in today.   There is no evil lurking in the shadows here, theyr don’t even have to lay a hand on their victims. The killer is subtle in their method uses the victim’s weakness against them as he drives them to their undoing.  They don’t want to die, of course they don’t, that’s what makes it so thrilling for our killer but somehow they just can’t seem to step away from the edge.

There is bucket loads of suspense following the victims as they go about their everyday lives and yet on one particular day, just one tiny thing changes and suddenly they are in mortal danger, from themselves – all quite brilliantly orchestrated by this unknown leader (and they didn’t even realise they were in a cult).

It is actually a rather brilliant novel.  The style is unique and Will has the ability to hit the nail on the head with modern society and what makes us tick (or not) as human beings. It’s almost a bit of a wakeup call.  He uses social media within the story to show how an idea can spread and how our perception can be manipulated.  It’s rather unnerving to say the least, yet there are even further ways to reach the inner workings of our minds, as our killer shows us.  This is a superb example of an author watching the world around him, looking deep and showing us how it could be, how it is.  His ending is, I think rather superb and incredibly satisfying.  Read this impressive piece of fiction and look at your world around you…perhaps turn off your phone for a bit and take back your mind.  You never know it might just save your life.

Thanks so much to Anne Cater for inviting me to take part in this blog tour and to the wonderful team at Orenda Books for my review copy.  As always, they and their authors make me look at the world around me in a slightly different way.

About the author

Will Carver is the international bestselling author of the January David series.  He spent his early years in Germany, but returned to the UK at age eleven, when his sporting career took off. He turned down a professional rugby contract to study theatre and television at King Alfred’s, Winchester, where he set up a successful theatre company. He currently runs his own fitness and nutrition company, and lives in Reading with his two children. Good Samaritans was book of the year in Guardian, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Express, and hit number one on the ebook charts.

 

 

Coming Home To Winter Island by Jo Thomas

Today I’m delighted to be taking part in the blog tour for Coming Home To Winter Island by Jo Thomas.

Synopsis

Do you need to find out where you’ve come from before you can know what the future holds?

Ruby’s singing career is on the verge of hitting the big time, when her voice breaks. Fearing her career is over, she signs up for a retreat in Tenerife to recover. But an unexpected call from a stranger on a remote Scottish island takes her on a short trip to sort out some family business. It’s time to go and see the grandfather she’s never met.

City girl Ruby knows she will be happy to leave the windswept beaches behind as quickly as she can, especially as a years-old family rift means she knows she won’t be welcome at Teach Mhor. But as she arrives at the big house overlooking the bay, she finds things are not as straightforward as she might have thought. There’s an unexpected guest in the house and he’s not planning on going anywhere any time soon …

My thoughts

This is an absolutely gorgeous read that will warm the cockles of your heart and remind you that happiness can be found in the most unlikely of places.

I haven’t read any of Jo’s previous novels but I can honestly say that I absolutely adored Coming Home To Winter Island. It has all the ingredients of a warmhearted, uplifting read that will take you away from the doom and gloom of everyday life.

Ruby Mac is on the verge of having everything she ever dreamed of fall into place.  A recording contract is within her grasp and once she has signed on the dotted line she and her boyfiend Joe will finally be able to make their relationship more official and move in together.  He is her greatest supporter after all and wants only what’s best for her career. Unfortunately just as she’s about to perform the most important gig of her career her voice deserts her. Unable to sing she is sent away on a retreat for rest and recovery in the hope that her voice will come back. Things don’t go quite as planned though and before she knows it she’s on a remote scottish island visiting a grandfather she’s never met in an effort to try and sort out his long term care after he becomes unable to continue living alone.  What should have been a short visit to sign the relevant paperwork to sell the house and get him into a care home soon becomes riddled with complications including an unwanted house guest who just won’t leave. There is unfinished business waiting for Ruby at Teach Mhor and she soon begins to realise that her life is not quite as idyllic as it seems and that happiness may just lie in a very different place to what she previously thought.

This is such a delicious novel.  I loved everything about it.  Ruby is a very engaging, likable character and I really enjoyed watching her journey as she finally came to understand the truth that lies in her family’s past. Jo’s wonderful setting made me wistfully dream of living in such a location amongst a tight knit community,  a place to put down roots and build memories.  Wonderfully escapist storytelling that will whisk you away and leave you with a warm feeling in your heart.

Thank you to the lovely Ann Cater for inviting me to be a part of this blog tour and to Headline Review for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review.  I abolutely loved it and look forward to discovering Jo’s previous novels.  LOVE discovering a new author. 🙂

About the author

Jo Thomas worked for many years as a reporter and producer, first for BBC Radio 5, before moving on to Radio 2’s The Steve Wright Show. In 2013 Jo won the RNA Katie Fforde Bursary. Her debut novel, The Oyster Catcher, was a runaway bestseller in ebook and was awarded the 2014 RNA Joan Hessayon Award and the 2014 Festival of Romance Best Ebook Award.  Her follow-up novels, The Olive Branch, Late Summer in the Vineyard, The Honey Farm on the Hill, Sunset Over the Cherry Orchard, A Winter Beneath the Stars and My lemon Grove Summer are also highly acclaimed. Jo lives in the Vale of Glamorgan with her husband and three children.

 

 

 

Ring The Hill

Today I am delighted to be hosting the blog tour for the wonderful Ring the Hill by Tom Cox.

Synopsis

A hill is not a mountain. You climb it for you, then you put it quietly inside you, in a cupboard marked ‘Quite A Lot Of Hills’ where it makes its infinitesimal mark on who you are.

Ring the Hill is a book written around, and about, hills: it includes a northern hill, a hill that never ends and the smallest hill in England. Each chapter takes a type of hill – whether it’s a knoll, cap, cliff, tor or even a mere bump – as a starting point for one of Tom’s characteristically
unpredictable and wide-ranging explorations.

Tom’s lyrical, candid prose roams from an intimate relationship with a particular cove on the south coast, to meditations on his great-grandmother and a lesson on what goes into the mapping of hills themselves. Because a good walk in the hills is never just about the hills: you never know where it might lead.

My thoughts

I’ve been a follower and admirer of Tom’s writing for quite some time now.  I fell in love with his cats whilst following their antics on facebook and twitter, was unnerved and chilled by his collection of creepy short stories in Help the Witch and came to know him and our wonderful country a little better in 21st-Century Yokel.  He also writes regularly on his website and I have to say that each and every article is thought-provoking and interesting.  I feel that if I was ever to meet him in real life I would possibly feel like I was seeing an old friend.  He is possibly used to this reaction from complete strangers though as his following seems to be growing and growing.

His latest book is a kind of memoir.  Ring the Hill, as it states in the synopsis, is about hills, or is it?  I received my copy on Friday.  Although I knew that I would be writing this piece for the blog tour, I felt that I didn’t want to be rushed with my reading.  It is such a delight to delve in to.  Tom writes beautifully and he conjures up the most wonderful images of his world… no, our world, the world we often miss when we’re always busy, never just stopping and taking it all in.

He is incredibly knowledgeable, humourous (I loved how he described being outdressed by Clarence the pheasant!) and has such a connection with our world and nature that you can’t help but feed off of his enthusiasm. When he moves into a house he invests himself completely in the area and through his books brings them to us with a smattering of history and also anecdotes from his own adventures.  After reading 21st-Century Yokel, it was a joy to hear about his parents again.  I especially love the way his dad always TALKS IN CAPITAL LETTERS.  At the root of it all is real affection and it is, as always, lovely to read.  One of my favourite sections was reading about Steve and Johanna and their pilgrimage to the Tor, a place I have seen many times when driving towards the West Country and a place I have visited once. His books make me want to get out and explore this beautiful country even more.  I also want to go out and buy an OS map for my local area and get out and explore it too. It’s amazing how much we miss just by ‘living’ somewhere. Who knows what I might discover… Tom always reawakens my interest in the world immediately surrounding me. We miss so much as we wonder through life with our noses pointed towards our phones or rushing from one task to another, Ring the Hill reminds us to stop and take a breathe.  Wonderfully written and beautifully illustrated this is absolutely perfect for the coming autumnal evenings.

About the author

Tom Cox lives in Norfolk. He is the author of the Sunday Times bestselling The Good, The Bad and The Furry and the William Hill Sports Book longlisted Bring Me the Head of Sergio Garcia. 21st-Century Yokel was longlisted for the Wainwright Prize, and the titular story of Help the Witch won a Shirley Jackson Award.

 

You can follow Tom on Twitter at @cox_tom

Thank you to the lovely Anne Cater for inviting me to take part in this blog tour.

Eight Hours From England by Anthony Quayle

Today marks the end of a uniquely special month of blog tours celebrating the publication of the IWM Wartime Classics collection and I’m thrilled to be taking part to chat about this amazing collection and especially, Eight Hours From England by Anthony Quayle.

How do people cope with the experience of being at war? Those on enemy soil and those at home? For many it was a period left unspoken, the memories too difficult to share. Then there are others who found another creative outlet to release those memories. Surely sometimes talking about such difficult experiences may be easier when giving them to a fictional character. These four books from the Wartime classics collection show us just what can be created when stories are written from personal experience. These authentic, engrossing reads give you a unique insight into life at this time. There is something very personal about the stories and as I read them I feel that each author has captured the reality of the Second World War brilliantly.

Perfect for lovers of historical fiction but also scholars and students who may be trying to make sense of how the world was through the eyes of those who really lived it.

Synopsis

Autumn 1943. Realising that his feeling for his sweetheart are not reciprocated, Major John Overton accepts a posting behind enemy lines in Nazi-Occupied Albania. Arriving to find the situation in disarray, he attempts to overcome geographical challenges and political intrigues to set up a new camp in the mountains overlooking the Adriatic.

As he struggles to complete his mission amidst a chaotic backdrop, Overton is left to ruminate on loyalty, comradeship and his own future.

Based on Anthony Quayle’s own wartime experience with the Special Operations Executive (SOE), this new edition of a 1945 classic includes a contextual introduction from IWM which sheds new light on the fascinating true events that inspired its author.

*

My thoughts

I remember lazy Sunday afternoons as a child.  Sunday roast and family time falling asleep in front of the TV watching a Bond or old war movie.  No doubt The Guns of Navarone would have been one such film but I don’t really recall.  As a young child I would have just thought of it as a piece of fiction,  I certainly wouldn’t have thought that the actors involved had actually served in the war.  Of course there was every possibility. In fact as I’ve grown older and learnt so much more about that time and the films and books that was born from it I realise that a great many of the actors probably drew on personal experience when acting.  Anthony Quayle was one such actor.

This novel, according to Alan Jeffreys in the introduction, was so well received when it was originally published back in 1945 that the author did consider turning from his acting career and becoming a writer.  He decided that he didn’t have enough experience for further endeavour and so continued with his wonderful acting career, which was I’m sure to great relief of the acting world.  He was incredibly well respected and within this novel we can see that his talents extended to the written word.  As with the other three novels in this collection, Eight Hours From England gives us a close up and personal view of the Second World War.  This time we are travelling to Nazi-Occupied Albania and the life as part of the SOE.

The introduction as with the previous titles is informative and enticing.  Alan Jeffreys informs us that this novel is so close to Anthony’s own experience that it’s almost a memoir.  This novel, just like the others, have given me an even greater insight into this time in history.  Yet it’s also an excellent novel, a thrilling read and one that will stay with you long after you have turned the final page.

This is an absolutely brilliant series. I have thoroughly enjoyed being part of these blog tours. I am so grateful for the IWM for bringing these stories back into print for a new generation to enjoy and to make sure they are not forgotten. I have purchased the entire series for my school library for both staff and older students to enjoy and my personal copies will remain firmly amongst my own collection.

Thank you to Anne Cater for inviting me to take part in these tours and also to the Imperial War Museum for my review copies.

About the author

This is information taken from Eight Hours From England.

Anthony Quayle (1913-1989) was a successful British actor and theatre director, well known for his roles in classic plays on the stage as well as his film career. After appearing in music hall he joined the Old Vic in 1932, touring in various productions before the outbreak of the Second World War.

During the war Quayle served in the Royal Artillery, and later joined the Special Operations Executive (SOE), whence he was deployed to Albania, Eight Hours from England, is a fictionalised account of Quayle’s time behind enemy lines there. He also wrote a later novel, On Such a Night, about his time with the British Army in Gibraltar.

After the war Quayle returned to the stage. From 1948 to 1956 he was the director of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, laying the foundations for the creation of the Royal Shakespeare Company and helping to establish Stratford-on-Avon as a major centre of British theatre.

Quayle’s screen career began on 1938 and he appeared in many classic films such as Ice Cold in Alex (1958), The Guns of Navarone (1961), and Lawrence of Arabia (1962). Quayle received both Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for his role in Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), and his towering stage career took him around the world to both popular and critical acclaim. He was knighted in 1985.

About IWM

IWM (Imperial War Museums) tells the story of people who have lived, fought and died in conflicts involving Britain and the Commonwealth since the First World War.

Our unique collections, made up of the everyday and the exceptional, reveal stories of people, places, ideas and events. Using these, we tell vivid personal stories and create powerful physical experiences across our five museums that reflect the realities of war as both a destructive and creative force. We challenge people to look at conflict from different perspectives, enriching their understanding of the causes, course and consequences of war and its impact on people’s lives.

IWM’s five branches which attract over 2.5 million visitors each year are IWM London, IWM’s flagship branch that recently transformed with new, permanent and free First World War Galleries alongside new displays across the iconic Atrium to mark the Centenary of the First World War; IWM North, housed in an iconic award-winning building designed by Daniel Libeskind; IWM Duxford, a world renowned aviation museum and Britain’s best preserved wartime airfield; Churchill War Rooms, housed in Churchill’s secret headquarters below Whitehall; and the Second World War cruiser HMS Belfast.

Want to find out more about the books in this series?  Check out my other articles for Plenty Under the Counter and Trial by Battle