Yvonne
Vicky is renowned for organizing Mega Blog Tours with consummate ease, however, this time with her Head Of Zeus hat on, even she has surpassed herself with this gargantuan effort, which stretches to three pages. Ably backed up as ever, by the lovely folks at NetGalley, who organize the downloads. Find out all you need to know about this new and intriguing crime series!
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THE BAD PLACE – (DI Sasha Dawson – book #1)
The newspapers called it The Bad Place. A remote farm out on the Thames estuary, where six children were held captive for two weeks. Five of them got out alive.
That was 20 years ago. Now adults, they meet up annually to hold a candlelit vigil for their friend who died. The only rule is that no one can talk about what happened the night they escaped.
But at this year’s event, one of them witnesses a kidnapping. A young girl, Sammi, is bundled into a van in front of their eyes. Is history repeating itself? Is one of them responsible? Or is someone sending them a twisted message?
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M.K. HILL
He is MK to some, and Mark to others…
He has been a journalist and an award-winning music radio producer.
He worked for about five minutes in PR.
But now Mark writes, which is just as well, because he loves writing. It’s his dream job!
Keep up with all his latest news at Mark’s website
Follow mark on Twitter
Connect with mark on Facebook
Follow and ‘like’ Mark’s pictures on Instagram
“I love my life as an author and I wouldn’t change it for the world.”
“I write crime fiction because it’s the perfect way of setting a fire under the bottoms of my characters, getting them into massive trouble and then – sometimes, if they’re lucky – getting them out of it.”
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BLOG TOUR EXTRACT
Twenty-Six Years Later
‘Perhaps we should eat soon, before it gets too late.’
Karin straightened the cutlery on the table, adjusted the place mats. ‘Just give her another ten minutes.’
‘Nice spread as usual, Karin.’ Paul was the only person who ever made a point of thanking her. ‘Is there Anything I can do to help?’
She tossed him a box of matches. ‘Do you mind lighting the candles?’
All Karin had to do was get through tonight, they’d have their usual reunion dinner, and then she’d let them All drift from her life. There was no point in their meeting any more. None of them had anything in common except that one thing that happened to them. The evenings were usually tense, and no one even pretended to enjoy themselves, except for Paul, who spent the whole night vainly attempting to encourage some kind of ridiculous camaraderie.
It was crazy that they still even had these reunions. Psychologists had suggested it when they were all too young to know better. They shared a bond, the shrinks said, nobody outside of their group would ever understand the sickening ordeal they had suffered. Coming together regularly to remember their shared trauma, to remember her, would help them heal.
Heal, Karin thought. As if.
The four of them would never heal – they were losers, rejects, misfits. And Lydia, when she eventually arrived, was in a worse state than any of them. Well, Karin would feed them all one last time, and then they could all finally go their own way. There was no rule to say that just because one awful thing happened to them a long time ago, they had to keep returning to it again and again, like an animal licking a festering wound.
The evening would unfurl exactly like every other year. Michelle would look down her nose at everyone; Paul would bang on about his faith; Simon would hardly utter a word; and Lydia would take them all aside, one by one, and ask to borrow money.
‘It’s really not on, Lydia should be here by now.’ Michelle poured herself another glass of wine. ‘Some of us have responsibilities. I’ve a multi-million-pound business to run and can’t stay out all night. I imagine she’s probably off her face on smack or whatever and has completely forgotten.’
‘She doesn’t do that any more, she’s clean.’
Michelle snorted. ‘If you believe that, you’ll believe anything. What does our chatterbox friend think, is she going to turn up?’ She waited for Simon to answer, but he just shrugged. ‘Don’t you worry about replying, darling, we don’t want your powers of conversation to peak too early.’
‘I’m uncomfortable being judgemental about Lydia,’ said Paul primly. ‘She needs our love, not our criticism.’
‘So sorry, Paul.’ Michelle smirked. ‘I must have missed that lesson in Bible class.’
Paul ignored the jibe. ‘She won’t let us down, but maybe we should do the toast now, just in case.’
They all gathered behind the chair that would remain empty for the evening – because it always did.
Six places set – but only ever the five of them in attendance.
‘To our absent friend.’ Paul lifted his glass. ‘You’re in a better place, but you will always remain for ever in our hearts. God rest your soul.’
‘To Becky,’ they all said.
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Thanks for sharing these Yvonne, I enjoy a good crime thriller. The kidnapping in the plot would bother me though, I shy away from those storylines but here it seems like much of the plot centers around them as adults. Enjoy these when you read them.
Hi Naida,
I suppose that the storyline about children being kidnapped, doesn’t overly bother me, but it might become an issue if the details about the ‘missing’ child who never came back, get too gruesome or gory, if they are discussed, against the rules, by the remaining group at the reunion dinner.
I am already wondering if the kidnapper was ever arrested and is now free again, or if they have been on the streets for those 20 years, planning their comeback revenge crime.
The warped and over active part of my imagination is already asking the question, what if the kidnapper was someone a little closer to home than anyone of them might envisage and is this new kidnap attempt totally unrelated or not?
This sounds quite good, Yvonne! I see that it’s listed as book one in a series, so that’s another plus. Hopefully it will make its way up your TBR pile before too long.
Hi Kelly,
I definitely need to begin this series from the beginning, as judging by almost every other fictional Detective, Sasha Dawson is sure to have a past and plenty of excess baggage to cope with, as the reading audience gets to know her (I have to admit that I have taken a sneak peek at a couple of the other extracts on the Blog Tour!).
This cast of dinner friends certainly seem like a strange and eclectic mix of people, but then I guess that past events will have shaped much of their lives. It does sound as though they can only tolerate each others company for this dinner date once a year and I am surprised it is a meeting they still keep up, some twenty years after their ordeal!
Looking forward to sharing more posts from this book and getting it to the top of my TBR pile 🙂
Wow! That is some book tour. Hats off to Vicky for organising it.
What struck me first about this book?
Honestly?
I couldn’t help but think of the comment you had made about another book’s cover and how you had noticed so many covers featuring the back of someone running away. Not something I had particularly noticed … until then. And yeah, you are right.
What sounds like a read I’d enjoy. It all starts off so innocently with someone adjusting the place mats … I can’t imagine it remains like this for long.
Hi Felicity,
Oh Gosh! I never meant for my throwaway comment about cover art to have stuck in your mind quite so much, but it just suddenly struck me and now it is a recurring phenomenon for so many thrillers everywhere I look!
In some ways, the cover art of some of the vintage crime books can be much more appealing, but I guess they are simply not ‘trendy’ enough for a modern audience!
I am rather assuming that the missing Lydia is the one who witnesses Sammi’s kidnapping, however given what Karin thinks about her state of mind, I am wondering how reliable a witness she will make and will the facts as she tells them be the whole truth?
Now you watch me be completely wrong, with my overactive imagination.
Thanks for stopping by 🙂