Title | Love You To Death
Author | Caroline Mitchell
Publisher | Bookouture
Source | Review Copy
My Rating | 5/5
BLURB
‘I’m not your mother. You’re a monster. I don’t want you’
Women who gave a child up for adoption are being killed. A knock at their front door begins a nightmare from which they will never wake up.
For Detective Ruby Preston and her team, it is a race against time to connect the dots before the killer can strike again. But when Ruby receives a sinister email, the case takes a terrifying personal twist.
Could the clues to the identity of the killer lie in Ruby’s own past?
Who can she trust with her secrets?
And could Ruby be next?
Love You to Death is a serial killer thriller packed with twists.
What Dawn-Tracy Thinks
I have been witnessing great things said about Caroline Mitchell yet I'd not read any of her work. I've read a couple of crime authors; Angela Marsons, Robert Bryzna, Kerry Wilkinson (All Bookouture authors), but I was lacking one in my collection. Fear of missing out (FOMO - is real you know), I decided that I wanted to dip my toe into her crime thrilling world and WOW was I rewarded for facing my fear.
Never before has a Crime Thriller had me so intricately hooked upon every single word and caused me to lay awake at 2-3am in bed just desperate to read more, but that is exactly what Caroline has achieved in Love You To Death. It's a storyline I've not had the pleasure of reading anywhere else before, so the fact that it had me tied to my bed, bound by the pages and words of this mind blowing story is a testament to the sheer impact this book will have upon you.
My initial response to having finished this book was posted on my twitter feed to Caroline and Bookouture was as follows;
"OMFG
just finished reading #LoveYouToDeath by @Caroline_writes ... What the hell do I do now I've finished?? 
@bookouture 
"So what caused this reaction in me?
Love You To Death is the first introductory book to DS Ruby Preston who is one of my new sheroes in the crime world - I think if she teamed up with badass DI Kim Stone (courtesy of Angela Marsons) there would be a whole new genre of wonder-woman heroes (Bookouture, we can do this can't we? We can get two fabulous authors team up for a ONE OFF special book can't we? - Do I need to get a campaign set up?) shaping up the crime thrilling fictional world.
I love Ruby because she is the girl who made a choice to better herself, she lived right next door to the criminal underground - literally - and happened to fall in love with their son, Nathan Crosby, and we see the delicateness of their fierce, protective love for one another throughout this book. It has a kind of Romeo and Juliet theme going in that it's a forbidden love, but as anyone who has ever been in love will say, sometimes you can't help who you fall in love with. Their bond is joined forevermore with the daughter, Lucy they had adopted.
But aside from her love life, Ruby has to contend with a serial killer named "Lucy" who is killing women who had their daughter's adopted. Is it the Lucy? Why is she doing this? Is it some sort of revenge? All Ruby can focus on is trying to save the next victim, and the victim after her and her daughter.
Ruby makes a deal with the devil aka Lenny Crosby (Nathan's brother) and asks him to hunt down her Lucy - she needs to know if it's her, but she should have known it would come at a cost, and a whole load of manipulation from the Crosby family - interfering "Mother-in-Laws" ring any bells?
Then she has her colleagues on her back or stabbing her in it! Can she trust anyone and if she can, just who has her back and who is the snake in the grass?
The twists and turns in this book are far to many to mention, but each grips you in and not once did I know who the killer was until the very end and the shock was explosive!
I'm glad Caroline left book 1 on a hook of how Ruby and Nathan's relationship and the revelation about their daughter hanging in the balance. I can't wait to pick up book 2 which Caroline has assured me today that is currently being edited!!!
OMG please don't make us wait much longer for book 2! This was incredibly twisted and tormenting with a satisfying breath of fresh crime thrilling air!
Title | The Cat of Yule Cottage
Author | Lili Hayward
Publisher | Hodder
Pages | 208 Pages
Purchase | Amazon
A magical tale of Christmas and cats, perfect for everyone who loves A Street Cat Named Bob and Alfie the Doorstep Cat.
It's nearly Christmas, and Jessamine Pike needs a serious life overhaul.
Jess moves into Enysyule, a centuries-old cottage in Cornwall, and begins the process of renovating the rundown house by day and finishing her novel by night, planning to have both finished in time for the holidays. She's got good company: a beautiful, arrogant tomcat stalks around like he owns the place, and seems very skeptical of Jess' tenancy.
But there's magic in the air... Local legends tell of a spirit that inhabits the area, and an ancient standing stone that keeps watch over the valley. As Christmas comes closer and closer, Jess uncovers treasures from Enysyule's past, and becomes involved in a fight for its future.
For Jess has stumbled into a story that's been going on for five hundred years. A story about land, love, friendship, the Yuletide... and one remarkable cat.
Guest Post
Dear Reader,
Today I have something rather wonderful for you to kick off my December posts and festivities here at A Page of Fictional Love. I am rather fond of books, crochet and cats as many of you will know of my beautiful fur baby; Magick, which is why this post is so extra special for me today.
In celebration of the publication of; The Cat of Yule COttage (the title is simply so dreamy!), I am handing over my blog to author Lili Hayward for the day as she shares with you her rather fun post 'Cats vs. Dogs'. It brought smiles and giggles to my face as I read it, and I hope it does for you too. Enjoy!
Today I have something rather wonderful for you to kick off my December posts and festivities here at A Page of Fictional Love. I am rather fond of books, crochet and cats as many of you will know of my beautiful fur baby; Magick, which is why this post is so extra special for me today.
In celebration of the publication of; The Cat of Yule COttage (the title is simply so dreamy!), I am handing over my blog to author Lili Hayward for the day as she shares with you her rather fun post 'Cats vs. Dogs'. It brought smiles and giggles to my face as I read it, and I hope it does for you too. Enjoy!
Cats vs. Dogs
Lili Hayward
Dogs are nice and all that. They have funny faces and are
sometimes useful and good for long walks. But for me, there’s no contest. I am
a fully paid up lifetime member of the Cat Club. Here are six reasons why(and a
liberal smattering of YouTube links):
1. Cats are keen on scientific
education
They regularly offer free anatomy lessons to their owners; without
them, how would you know what a mouse kidney looked like? They're strict on
timetables as well, and will often commence your lessons first thing in the
morning, by leaving a new exhibit (bird foot, decapitated mouse head) on the
rug next to the bed.
2. They encourage philosophical
thinking
And I’m not only talking about Schrödinger... Cats present daily paradoxes and conundrums to
test their owners, such as: My Cat
Refuses the Fancy Food Yet Feasts on Half a Dead Moth: Discuss. Or:The Only Water I Like to Drink is From the
Toilet or Your Glass: true or true?
For extra feline philosophy see Derrida’s cat in his
philosophical work: The
Animal that Therefore I am.
3. They hold down important jobs
Yet still manage to do almost nothing
at the same time. Take Tama, the
calico cat who was made Super Station Master at Kishi Station in Kinokawa,
Japan. Or Tuxedo Stan, who ran for
mayor in Halifax, Canada or El Candigato
Morris in Xalapa, Mexico, whose team pledged he would “rid the city of its corrupt
political rats”, and argued that voting for him was less of a joke than the
election itself.
4. Sometimes they even work for a living
Dogs aren’t the only ones who work. All
over the world, cats occasionally deign to accept employment. Take the
famous Tibs the Great, the Post
Office’s Number One Cat, who kept the HQ free from mice for fourteen years. Or
the many famous Ship Cats, like Able
Seacat Simon and Mrs Chippy. And
as for sniffer dogs, pah! At a police checkpoint in Stavropol, two Russian
cats, Barsik and Rusik, could sniff out smuggled cargos of black-market
sturgeon and caviar with astonishing accuracy, ousting the force’s sniffer dogs.
They were so successful, that eventually, they sadly became victims of a Mafia
hit.
5. They are celebrated in art
Forget “How Much is that Doggy in the
Window”. Cats have been inspiring works of art for thousands of years. Take the 9th
Century Old Irish poem “Pangur Bán”, written by a monk to his cat.
"Pangur" translates as “fuller” (e.g. someone who pounded woolen
cloth for a living: as anyone who owns a cat and has been subject to a vigorous
kneading can testify, it's an apt name) and Bán, meaning “fair” or “white”. And
then there's my personal favourite, Jeoffry the Cat, who kept poet Christopher
Smart company when his family had him incarcerated in an asylum. Smart
dedicated a whole section of his 1762 poem Jubilate Agno to Jeoffry: “For
he is a mixture of gravity and waggery... For by stroking him I have discovered
electricity”. From illuminated manuscripts to the magnificent Japanese Edo-era ukiyo-e woodblock
prints,
artists and cats go together like claws and the bottom of the sofa.
6. They Keep Writers Happy
Every writer needs a cat. Cats have
carefully honed the art of focus training, and frequently test a writer’s
determination to keep writing by time-honoured exercises, such as Walking Across the Keyboard, Sleeping on the Laptop, or Must
Sit on the Lap Now. Sometimes, they'll encourage you to take a break and
stretch your back and neck muscles by mewing loudly and persistently for food.
Writers are often odd creatures, who –
speaking for myself –require bothhours of solitude and sudden bursts of human
interaction. Who can better understand that than a cat? Alan Ginsberg, Joyce
Carol Oates, Mark Twain, Patricia Highsmith, Tove Jansson, Ernest Hemingway,
Neil Gaiman, Doris Lessing, Philip K. Dick, Edgar Allen Poe... Cat-lovers, all
of them. Over and out.
“You
belong to another time. You are lord
of a place bounded like a dream.”
—Jorge Luis
Borges, “To a Cat”
Please consider making a donation to your local animal
rescue centre (such as Cats Protection) this Christmas!
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