I was delighted when a copy of A Life Without You by Katie Marsh arrived from Emma Knight at Hodder in return for an honest review, but it wasn’t until I’d finished reading in floods of tears that I read the acknowledgements and found myself mentioned – and promptly burst into tears again!

A Life Without You was published in paperback on 15th July 2016 and is available from Amazon, W H Smith, Waterstones and all good book sellers.

A Life Without You

Can you ever outrun the past?

It’s Zoe’s wedding day. She’s about to marry Jamie, the love of her life. Then a phone call comes out of the blue, with the news that her mum Gina has been arrested. Zoe must make an impossible decision: should she leave her own wedding to help?

Zoe hasn’t seen Gina for years, blaming her for the secret that she’s been running from ever since she was sixteen. Now, Gina is back in her life, but she’s very different to the mum Zoe remembers. Slowly but surely, Gina is losing her memory.

As she struggles to cope with Gina’s illness, can Zoe face up to the terrible events of years ago and find her way back to the people she loves?

A Life Without You is a stirring and poignant novel about the power of the past – and the possibilities of the future.

My Review of A Life Without You

When Zoe’s wedding day preparations are disrupted by the mother from whom she’s been estranged for years, she doesn’t fully realise the pull of family and how her life will be affected.

When you have so loved an author’s first novel (My Everything, my review of which is here) it is with trepidation that you read and review the second. My goodness I needn’t have worried. A Life Without You is just as emotional, just as stunning and just as beautifully written.

If I’m honest, I’m struggling a bit with this review. I don’t seem able to construct a sentence that conveys how affected I felt by reading Katie Marsh’s A Life Without You. It might be because my own father is no longer the man I have always known, following his terrible stroke a month ago that, although he and I have never been estranged like Zoe and Gina, I can relate to every difficulty Zoe and Lily face in the latter part of the book. I didn’t just read about their emotions. I felt them as if they were my own. But even readers with no experience of parental illness cannot fail to be engrossed in what happens to Gina.

There is a really well constructed plot in A Life Without You, with secrets emerging slowly that give insight into the characters and the real reason Zoe has shut Gina out of her life, but that is not the main feature of the story. It is the themes of love, the past, family and relationships that make this such a stunning read. I don’t know how she does it, but Katie Marsh seems to put on paper what the rest of us feel inside. There is also a lightness at times that balances the more emotional aspect so effectively. I think it is the realism of situations in A Life Without You that makes this such a powerful read.

I really enjoyed the structure of the writing. The more Gina slips into memory loss, the more of her letters to Zoe we read so that we gain a full understanding of who she is as a person. Gina’s relationship with Alistair must be so familiar to so many readers.

Indeed, even though Zoe is at the heart of the novel, her non-wedding being the catalyst for events, it is Gina who steals the show, perhaps giving us all an important message. When those we love are slipping into dementia or some other illness, they are still those we love, albeit changed.

I was incredibly moved by A Life Without You and the experience of reading it will stay with me for a very long time.

About Katie Marsh

Katie lives in south-west London with her family. Before being published she worked in healthcare, and her novels are inspired by the bravery of the people she met in hospitals and clinics across the country. Her first novel My Everything (available here) was picked by the Evening Standard as one of the hottest summer debuts of 2015.

She loves strong coffee, the feel of a blank page and stealing her husband’s toast. When not writing, she spends her time in local parks trying and failing to keep up with her daughter’s scooter.

You can follow Katie on Twitter, visit her website and find her on Facebook.

I’m delighted to be welcoming Maria Benson to Linda’s Book Bag today with a fascinating guest post all about how our past affects our present – including our mental health. Maria is joint author with A. L Ford of Driving Me Wild. Driving Me Wild was published in e-book on 3rd August 2016 and is available for purchase here.

Driving Me Wild

In a dating scene full of well-educated, ambitious and attractive players, is the “terminally single” woman her own worst enemy?

That’s the accusation hurled at Aimee Chase, a young Chicago sports marketing executive who finds herself confronted with professions of love from Michael Blake, a handsome but bland high school classmate. When Aimee tries but fails to let him down easy, habitually nice Michael hits below the belt, implying she’s too damaged to appreciate a good man. Check, please: An insulted Aimee showers Michael in her glass of sweet-but-smoky Merlot.

Truth is, Michael’s accusations drew blood. With a romantic history littered with cheaters and bad boys–including a married one with a very big job who is still in her life–Aimee fears that she has sabotaged her chances of ever finding the right guy. Months later, as her career implodes and she finds herself enveloped in a high-profile scandal, she’s not sure what to think when a suddenly captivating Michael reappears.

Thrilled to find that this “safe” guy now makes her weak in the knees, Aimee ultimately has her ecstasy interrupted by the revelation that Michael has transformed into a promiscuous, cold-hearted pick-up artist he thinks women like Aimee want. When he’s caught with related baggage but declares his fidelity, should Aimee toss aside a promising relationship, or just accept that “it’s complicated?”

A First Step to Relationship Happiness

A Guest Post from Maria Benson

Working in the mental health field for the past decade has led me to one universal truth: We are all products of our environments.

In my work as a therapist, I often hear people deny the role of the past in present-day problems via comments like, “That doesn’t matter anymore- I’ve put it behind me,” or “I just try not to think about it.”

The bottom line is, you shouldn’t be asking yourself if past experiences affect you today. You should be examining how your past experiences are affecting you.

Refusing to look inward and really discover what makes us tick- our passions, fears, triggers, and vulnerabilities- will, without fail, cause us to sabotage relationship after relationship. Often without us even really understanding where it went wrong.

In my new novel, Driving Me Wild, the lead protagonist Aimee Chase is blindsided by present-day dysfunctions caused by her past experiences. Aimee is a wildly successful young executive who is rocking it professionally, but early on she’s confronted with the inconvenient fact that every important male relationship in her life – whether with her neglectful father, her high-profile but married boyfriend, or with Michael, the “sweet but boring” guy trying to win her heart – is a train wreck.

Sound familiar?

Our personalities are pieced together by so many factors- genetics, our families, societal pressures, prior failed dating relationships, and so on. When we counter imperfections in any of these factors, we develop the dreaded baggage. This baggage drives our behavior before, during and after each relationship. It’s why we’re always searching for a new boyfriend instead of taking time to be alone with our thoughts, or it’s why we settle for those we know deep down aren’t right for us.

Whether we find ourselves sabotaging good relationships OR allowing abusive behaviors to develop and persist, the solutions often lie in the roots of the past experiences that generated such behavior. Confronting that past is the first step of someone who believes they deserve to be happy.

By the time clients come to me, they are taking this crucial first step, but years of toxic behaviors influenced by the past have greatly complicated their relationships.  Whether they are dealing with serial infidelity, an inability to communicate due to fears about being emotionally vulnerable, or unpredictable rage and violence, the road to healing can be a long one.  How much heartache might they have been spared if they had known years earlier how to address the impact of the past – and its associated baggage – on their approach to relationships?

I can’t be there at the front end for every client, but as an author I’d like to think that I can reach people earlier. By telling stories about the search for love, I can encourage readers to think proactively about how the past impacts their present relationships.This can be a key step in saving your marriage, freeing you from a destructive relationship, or just getting into the healthiest state possible while awaiting your future partner.

Her journey is full of tears, laughter, betrayal and trauma, but the willingness to do this hard work helps Driving Me Wild‘s Aimee ultimately find the path – and romantic relationship – that is right for her.

So, do you believe that tackling the reality of your past is a first step to happiness? If so, how are you acting on that today?

To read an extract from the first chapter of Driving Me Wild please click here.

About the Authors

Maria Benson is a graduate of Hanover College and the University of Indianapolis. She has dedicated her Indianapolis-based practice to helping women find their identity and voice in the face of adversity. A licensed mental health counselor, Maria is also an experienced practice administrator, adjunct professor and trainer.

You can find out more on Maria’s website and follow her on Twitter.

Published by Random House/Villard, Penguin/NAL and Grand Central under pseudonyms, A.L. Ford’s seven prior novels include the bestselling and the critically acclaimed, and have been favourably reviewed in prestigious publications. A high technology marketing professional and an MBA, his most important job today is passing along life lessons to his son and daughter. He and his family live in southwest Ohio.

My thanks to Alison Davies at Atlantic books for a copy of If I Forget You by T C Greene in return for an honest review. If I Forget You is published by Corvus, an imprint of Atlantic, on 1st September 2016 and is available for purchase on Amazon, Waterstones and other good book sellers.

If I Forget You

When Margot and Henry meet, they fall deeply in love.

And then they lose each other.

But Henry can’t forget Margot and Margot is haunted by her memories of Henry. They live in each other’s minds.

Twenty-one years later, they meet, by chance, on a Manhattan street. And that’s where their story truly begins…

If I Forget You is a beautiful exploration of what it means to find the person you are destined to be with, but then spend a lifetime apart.

My Review of If I Forget You

In 2016 Henry spots the love of his life from 1991, Margot. She sees him but she runs away, leaving him wondering what might have been.

T.C. Greene is a consummate writer. Given that Henry is a poet, Greene’s writing matches the intensity and quality a reader might expect from Henry. Having read the first few pages of If I Forget You, I knew I was going to be captivated by the style. The continuous present tense suggests that, despite everything, the love between Henry and Margot has endured the intervening years.

I don’t usually enjoy plots that go back and forth in time, but this one worked so well, gradually peeling back the time and memories so that a full picture is given to the reader. I think those wanting a racy, thrilling plot will be disappointed. This is not what If I Forget You is about as it builds more quietly into a hugely satisfying read.  However, I had several ‘Oh no!’ moments where I wanted events to turn out differently and this made me read on rapidly as I needed to know the outcomes.

What I thought was interesting about how much I enjoyed If I Forget You, was the fact that I didn’t much like Margot and yet I still wanted to know what happened to her and cared about how she was affected by events. I think it takes a highly skilled writer to be able to hold the reader’s attention this way.

I also loved the setting. The backdrop of New York took me back to living and working there and I thought T.C. Greene presented it perfectly. I rarely mention artwork but I thought the cover for the book portrayed New York wonderfully.

However, what moved me most about If I Forget You was the intensity of emotion. The rawness of grief, guilt, obsession and love mix with indifference and the euphoria of joy to create a wonderful picture of humanity.

Anyone who has loved and lost cannot fail to be moved by this If I Forget You.

About T.C Greene

Thomas Christopher Greene is the author of three novels, Mirror Lake, I’ll Never Be Long Gone, Envious Moon and most recently The Headmaster’s Wife. He is the founding president of Vermont College of Fine Arts and lives in Montpelier, Vermont with his wife and daughter.

You can find out more on T.C Greene’s website.

I’m very pleased to be hosting Michael J. Sahno on Linda’s Book Bag today as I was interested in why Michael has chosen an insurance company setting for his latest novel Miles of Files. Luckily Michael agreed to write a guest post to explain. Miles of Files is available for purchase in e-book and paperback on your local Amazon site.

Miles of Files

In Miles of Files, the main character, Paul Panepinto, an employee at Flambet Insurance, learns that his manager Graham Woodcock is stealing from the company. Paul struggles with whether or not to report the boss at the risk of losing his position.

Eventually, Graham fires Paul anyway and Paul is forced to pursue justice, but the story doesn’t end as expected.

Readers move through a fast-paced adventure with many twists and turns, including high points, drama, comedy, and an edge that Sahno captures through his writing.

Why An Insurance Company?

A Guest Post by Michael J. Sahno

Recently, I was asked why I chose the world of insurance as my setting for my third novel. Did I want to surprise readers? Did I feel it was a microcosm of society in general? Or did I have a personal experience I wanted to use?

It’s an interesting way of looking at a book: why would you put your protagonist in a job that looks incredibly boring, working in an industry that most people probably don’t really want to read about?

I had to admit I was somewhat taken aback. I had barely considered it. In fact, my own work experience over about a twenty-year period had barely touched on the insurance industry, falling more into the mortgage industry and market research. Upon reflection, however, I recalled just how I put the setting into motion: having worked in stressful, tedious settings, I wanted to convey the experience – and also show that there’s plenty of drama there below the surface – without being blatantly autobiographical. Thus was born Flambet Insurance, which the main character thinks of as “an insane asylum, a place where even the most well-adjusted among them ate antacids like candies and ran from task to task taking desperate sips of coffee from Styrofoam cups.”

Of course, there were major considerations far beyond that of the setting or the jobs the characters held. In my first novel, Brothers’ Hand, I began with no plan, no outline, and no character sketches…just scenes that unfolded naturally. It was a very organic process. I used the first-person point of view for my second novel, Jana, as the main character speaks to the reader directly.

For Miles of Files, I wanted to paint with a broader palette, and I actually had a few things in mind. For one, I wanted to have tiers of characters like Charles Dickens did in Dombey and Son: primary, secondary, and tertiary. The tertiary characters are mainly commentators, who pass on information about primary and/or secondary characters. I wanted to make sure each character was unique and different enough from the others that the reader could easily identify them, so I went through the Myers-Briggs personality types and assigned them accordingly. It was kind of fun, and it also enabled me to really differentiate each character from the next.

The thing that became of great interest as I moved forward in the narrative was the fact that I was actually writing my first crime novel. I always find the research portion of novel writing to be quite interesting, even though it’s not necessarily fun to do. You need to know a lot more than your reader does, so if you’re writing about an unfamiliar industry, you’d better get it right!

In the book, the main character, Paul, finds out his boss, Graham, is stealing from the company retirement plan, but not in a traditional embezzlement: he’s actually created these fake employee files, complete with nonexistent social security numbers, to make it look like he’s paying out benefits to former employees. On top of that, Graham also sets up a “blackout” period during which employees cannot monitor their 401(k) plan…thus enabling Graham to not only steal a lot of money from the owner but also to steal a little bit of money from each employee. It’s (evil) genius.

Working on the forensic computer analysis aspect of this, along with the law enforcement angle, was like going down the rabbit hole. I was surprised by some of what I learned, and the reader will be too. It’s probably considered literary fiction by most, but I certainly think people will find the narrative a compelling one as well.

About Michael J. Sahno

Michael J. Sahno was born in Bristol, CT. He earned his Bachelor’s from Lynchburg College and his Master’s in English from Binghamton University. Sahno has been a professional writer since 2001. His novels cater to an imaginative audience, particularly those who enjoy literary fiction with a twist of drama and plenty of humor. Sahno is a member of the Florida Writers Association and American Library Association, and the founder of Tampa Literary Authors.

You can follow Michael J. Sahno on Twitter, find him on Facebook and visit his website.

I am absolutely thrilled to be welcoming Steven Dunne to Linda’s Book Bag today. I love featuring authors I’ve actually met and when they are as talented as Steven Dunne, the excitement is doubled. Today, Steven’s latest book in the DI Damen Brook series, Death Do Us Part, is released in paperback. Published by Headline Death Do US Part is available for purchase from Amazon, Waterstones, Hive and all good book sellers.

It gives me great pleasure  to be hosting a guest post from Steven Dunne today all about why murderers kill.

Death Do Us Part

DI Damen Brook is on a rare period of leave and determined to make the most of it by re-connecting with his daughter Terri. But with her heavy drinking proving a challenge, Brook takes the opportunity to visit a local murder scene when his help is requested.

An elderly couple have each been executed with a single shot to the heart and the method echoes that of a middle-aged gay couple killed the previous month.

With the same killer suspected and the officer currently in charge nearing retirement, Brook knows that he has little choice but to cut short his leave when forced by his superiors to take the lead on the case.

Brook believes that he can catch this ruthless killer, but already distracted by Terri’s problems, is he about to make a fatal mistake and lead the killer right to his own door?

Murder by Death

A Guest Post by Steven Dunne

One of the most frequently asked questions of a crime writer is, ‘What is your favourite way to kill people?’ When asked I always end up explaining what I write and why the deaths in my books about serial killers in the East Midlands generally fail to be exotic. I’m not alone in this. I know Agatha Christie wasn’t averse to a dramatic poisoning or two in her work but, in the main, victims are dispatched without fuss. The reason for this is that Christie, like me, was interested in the psychology behind why people kill, particularly those who are actually planning to murder someone. Anyone can kill, given the right circumstances, but to plot someone’s demise and then act upon it requires a degree of evil which sets the perpetrator apart from the majority of the human race. This is what fascinates and appals about serial killers.

Since The Reaper was released in 2009 up to my sixth novel Death Do Us Part – out this month – I have not been exploring so much the who and how of serial killers but the much more interesting question of why. Why do men and women cold-bloodedly and with malice aforethought, plan to kill their fellow human beings? Often with Christie, serial murder had a profit motive with the killer positioning him or herself to claim an inheritance by eliminating a wealthy relative. Having set events in motion, subsequent murders were then committed to advance the cause or to cover tracks. One of my favourite examples of this template is Death on the Nile, one of her best works.

Obsessive love and revenge also feature heavily in her work but it took Christie’s genius to turn what are usually spur of the moment crimes, committed in moments of great passion and thus invariably messy and bloody, into cold blooded acts planned down to the smallest detail. The Murder on the Orient Express has a revenge plot at its heart, carried out with such unbelievable precision that even the world’s greatest detective is sorely challenged to solve the case.

My own work has a fiendish Christie-style mystery at its heart but my detective, DI Damen Brook, chases modern serial killers. And each killer I create has started with a simple question that I’ve asked myself before I write a word. In The Reaper it was, “How can I make a serial killer seem like the hero to readers?” The question for Death Do Us Part was, “How can I create a serial killer who thinks they’re doing the victims a favour?” From there, I can build a psychological profile of my killer which informs me how and who they would kill. The profile leans heavily towards motive and away from any salacious interest in method of killing. My serial killers don’t derive pleasure from the act of killing but from the removal of their victims.

Perhaps it’s my past career as a teacher that requires my killers never to take a casual attitude to the taking of a human life without some kind of reason, however twisted it may seem to us. Thus the killers that DI Damen Brook of Derby CID is hunting are more concerned with speedy and efficient deaths, leaving no trace and few clues so the killing can continue. Of course, the more planning that goes into a crime, the harder it is to catch the killer which requires a very special detective. Christie knew instinctively that it’s pointless having two superstar sleuths like Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot if you plan to pit them against clumsy villains like armed robbers or impulse killers. In all my work, DI Brook must stretch himself to the limit and use “the little grey cells” to solve the fiendish puzzle and bring the killer to justice.

About Steven Dunne

Steven has had a variety of jobs including Public Relations Consultant, freelance Journalist and supply teacher. In 1988, he began teaching English in Croydon before moving to Derby in 1996, where he began to think about writing a novel. in 2015, Steven’s book A Killing Moon won the East Midlands Book Award.

You can find out more about Steven Dunne and his writing by visiting his website, following him on Twitter and finding him on Facebook.

I am thrilled to be part of the celebrations of Blood and Bone by Valentina Giambanco. Already available in hardback and e-book, Blood and Bone is published in paperback by Quercus Books on 25th August 2016 and is available for purchase on Amazon, from Waterstones and all good book sellers and directly from the publisher.

To celebrate the paperback publication of Blood and Bone, Valentina Giambanco is sharing a fabulous experience with us on Linda’s Book Bag today: Walking with Wolves.

Blood and Bone

Detective Alice Madison is back in a gripping new thriller, perfect for fans of Angela Marsons, Kathryn Croft and Sharon Bolton.

After two years in the Seattle Police Department, Detective Alice Madison has finally found a peace she has never known before. When a local burglary escalates into a gruesome murder, Madison takes charge of the investigation. She finds herself tracking a killer who has haunted the city for years – and whose brutality is the stuff of myth in high security prisons. As she delves deeper into the case, Madison learns that the widow of one of the victims is being stalked – is the killer poised to strike again? As pressures mount, Madison will stop at nothing to save the next innocent victim . . . even if it means playing a killer’s endgame.

Walking with Wolves

A Guest Post by Valentina Giambanco

You’re walking on a country path. It’s a sunny day; you’re at the edge of a reservoir and your dog – a black and white springer spaniel – it’s straining to get to the cool water. There are grassy hills all around you and no one else about except for a solitary fisherman a few yards away. The sky is blue and the mountains in the distance a dark hazy green. A perfect afternoon. Now, change a single minor detail: instead of the springer spaniel, at the end of the lead you have a hybrid wolf whose hackles come up to your hip, whose head is a third bigger than a German shepherd because his brain is thirty percent bigger, and whose back muscles are so powerful that there are two of you hanging on for dear life to the twenty foot lead. As he pulled to go forward, the panting from the wolf was deeper than a dog’s because their lungs are larger and their voices darker. It was an exotic sound and, for the first few minutes, not a little menacing. A week ago I went walking with wolves, and it is not a metaphor.

By the way, the wolf – Maska – was only humouring us by allowing us to hold the lead. We knew – and I think Maska knew – that he could shake us off in a nanosecond and go off his merry way.  My theory is that he did not out of respect for his two handlers and out of pity for us puny humans who had apparently joined his pack for the afternoon.

Why was I holding a strap attached to over 70lbs of wolf? Because I write novels set in the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. and they have wolves there. My character, Alice Madison, is a detective in the Seattle Police Department Homicide Unit but a good chunk of the stories is set in the wilderness, in the forests of the Olympic peninsula and in the mountains on the border with Canada. Their wilderness has no comparison with ours and when I found out I had the chance to meet a wolf – two, actually, four year-old brothers – there was no way I would not.

Maska and Kajika’s owners/handlers have had them since they were puppies and have treated them like the wolves they are and not tried to turn them into pets (they are mostly wolf with a tiny genetic bit of wolfdog which makes it legal for us to meet them in this open manner).

There was a structure to our meeting: first, we had to be sniffed so that they would know who we were. Normally a wolf would greet another member of the family by licking around their face and mouth but since Health & Safety would have something to say about that kind of introduction I put my hands flat against the metal mesh at the back of the pick-up truck and the wolves darted forward and pushed their noses close to my skin.

When the door was opened the wolves jumped out so quickly it was a blur of grey fur. The first surprise was how big they were, the second how unlike dogs they behaved: dogs want you to like them, they interact with you and are determined to make friends – people made sure they behaved that way through centuries of breeding for that particular trait. Wolves don’t care about making friends.  Maska and Kajika were more interested in the surroundings, profiling the ground and the bushes around us, looking for voles and other small creatures that might cross their path. They were aware of everything, especially of each other. Kajika always walked a few feet ahead of his brawnier brother because he was higher in the family hierarchy. If we let Maska lead the small group we were told that the brother would put him in his place later. We were told that they are so close they would never stray more than a hundred meters from each other.

Once we were on the path and away from the road we were given the leash to hold and we started walking together. I asked if it was okay to touch them and, yes, it was. The tips of my fingers brushed the thick coarse fur. Maska did not react at all, he was heading for the lake and I was merely along for the ride.

For an hour we watched them run, dive into the water, play with each other and roll into the grass to dry themselves. On the way back, Kajika stopped by a gate and peered at a few cows at the other end of the field. ‘No, we don’t eat the cows today.’ Her handler said and gave a strong pull of the lead to let him know we should move on. The brothers eat four and half pounds of meet a day as it happens and need hours of exercise to keep them happy and interested – you really don’t want a bored wolf on your hands.

The truth is that it is far more likely to be bitten by a dog than by a wolf that would only attack a person if he felt the person presented a danger to the pack. People get bitten, and worse, by dogs all the time, sometime their own dogs.

The myth of the big bad wolf is still out there but for my part I found them a true marvel: beautiful and powerful, self-contained and yet bound by deep familial bonds; we even got to hear them howl when we said goodbye – the family bonding howl. Amazing.

I walked with wolves. I’m glad for the pictures I took or it would seem like a dream.

Maska and Kajika live in the ‘Predator Experience’ Zoo in Cumbria and their owners Daniel Ashman and Dee Ashman have years of experience in animal management, especially birds of prey.

About Valentina Giambanco

Valentina Giambanco was born in Italy. After her degree in English and Drama at Goldsmiths, she worked for a classical music retailer and as a bookseller in her local bookshop. She started in films as an editor’s apprentice in a 35mm cutting room and since then has worked on many award-winning UK and US pictures, from small independent projects to large studio productions. Valentina lives in London.

You can follow Valentia on Twitter and visit her website. There is also more with these other bloggers:

I am indebted to Karen Duffy at Atlantic Books for a copy of The Lovers’ Guide to Rome by Mark Lamprell in return for an honest review. The Lovers’ Guide to Rome was published by Atlantic in paperback on 12th August 2016 and is available for purchase from Amazon, Waterstones and from all good booksellers.

The Lovers’ Guide to Rome

This is the place where passions are aroused, senses inflamed, and lovers fall into each other’s arms. It all appears to unfold like magic – but I will tell you what really happens. Rome – glorious, eternal, intoxicating. Could there be a better place on earth to fall in love?

Young artist Alice has come to Rome for adventure before settling down with her safe boyfriend. But when fate intervenes to show her there really is such a thing as love at first sight, will she find the courage to follow her heart?

Meg and Alec fell in love in Rome many years before and have returned to rekindle their amore, but have they left it too late?

Connie and Lizzie are in Rome to scatter the ashes of Connie’s beloved husband Henry, who’s also Lizzie’s brother. But Lizzie doesn’t know the real story of how Connie and Henry met there decades before, nor what long-hidden secrets lie waiting to be unearthed.

And what of Rome itself? It turns out that the Eternal City has secrets only lovers can glimpse. The magic of Rome is also the magic of the human heart.

My Review of The Lovers’ Guide to Rome

There’s a presence in Rome that controls far more than Alice, Lizzie, Constance, Meg and Alec realise.

I absolutely loved The Lovers’ Guide to Rome. I was completely charmed by the quality of the writing. There’s an understated wryness that really appealed to my sense of humour, especially when quite startling details are dropped into the narrative as if in passing, but there’s also a depth of understanding and emotion too – especially in the relationship between Meg and Alec. I laughed aloud throughout the book and shed a tear at the end.

The Lovers’ Guide to Rome explores perfectly love at its beginning, its middle and its end. When I was reading I was reminded (if I don’t sound mad in putting it this way) of a waterfall with one sparkling moment, line or description cascading after another that held me captivated. I couldn’t wait to finish the story to find out what happened, but at the same time I didn’t want it to end.

I thought the characterisation was perfect. I found myself exclaiming aloud to them, so engrossed was I in their adventures, particularly when they made what I felt to be a mistake. I have every intention of becoming a ‘girlie’ like Lizzie or Constance. But it is Rome who (and I use ‘who’ advisedly) steals the scene. The way in which Mark Lamprell combines historical and geographical detail in with the flow of the narrative is pure genius. It is obvious that the author’s background in film and television has influenced the fabulous descriptions so that I could imagine every detail. There’s a cinematic feel where colour and sound reverberate and add depth to a fast paced and action packed story narrated by the somewhat capricious spirit of Rome.

I also thought the quotations at the start of each chapter were so well chosen to reflect the plot and they added to my enjoyment of the read because they were from so many of my favourite authors.

The Lovers’ Guide to Rome is witty, sharply observed and a delight to read. I highly recommend it.

About Mark Lamprell

Mark Lamprell works in film and television. He co-wrote the film Babe: Pig in the City and wrote and directed the award- winning feature My Mother Frank. His first novel, The Full Ridiculous, was published last year and has been sold to the United States, Canada, Poland and Israel. Mark has holidayed in Rome for many years.

You can follow Mark on Twitter.

I’m delighted to be sharing with you The Memory Box by Eva Lesko Natiello on Linda’s Book Bag today. I had hoped to read The Memory Box for review by now but events have somewhat overtaken life at the moment and I haven’t had chance.

The Memory Box is available for purchase in e-book and paperback from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Kobo and Smashwords.

The Memory Box

What would you do if you Googled yourself and uncovered something shocking?

In this gripping psychological thriller, a group of privileged suburban moms amuse themselves by Googling everyone in town, digging up dirt to fuel thorny gossip. Caroline Thompson, devoted mother of two, sticks to the moral high ground and attempts to avoid these women. She’s relieved to hear her name appears only three times, citing her philanthropy. Despite being grateful that she has nothing to hide, a delayed pang of insecurity prods Caroline to Google her maiden name—which none of the others know.

The hits cascade like a tsunami. Caroline’s terrified by what she reads. An obituary for her sister, JD? That’s absurd. With every click, the revelations grow more alarming. They can’t be right. She’d know. Caroline is hurled into a state of paranoia—upending her blissful family life—desperate to prove these allegations false before someone discovers they’re true.

The disturbing underpinnings of The Memory Box expose a story of deceit, misconceptions, and an obsession for control. With its twists, taut pacing, and psychological tenor, Natiello’s page-turning suspense cautions:  Be careful what you search for.

About Eva Lesko Natiello

Eva Lesko Natiello is the award-winning author of the Number One bestseller The Memory Box, a psychological thriller about a woman who Googles herself and discovers the shocking details of a past she doesn’t remember. She is a speaker and essayist whose work can be found on her blog, Writing from the Intersection of Oops, Yikes & Awe where she writes about writing, creativity, parenting, food, fashion and humor. Eva is a former Estee Lauder communications executive and graduate of the University at Albany.

You can find Eva on Facebook, follow her on Twitter and visit her Goodreads page.

Today it is my very great pleasure to welcome Anoushka Beazley, author of The Good Enough Mother, to Linda’s Book Bag. Anoushka has kindly written a very personal piece all about how the lines between fiction and life become blurred – and how that experience might be just what we need.

The Good Enough Mother was published in e-book and paperback by Larchwood Press on 9th July 2016 and is available for purchase here.

The Good Enough Mother

Gatlin – a leafy, affluent town: Chelsea tractors and ladies who lunch. However all is not as it seems. Drea, a most unnatural mother, struggles to find private school fees for her step-daughter Ava after her boyfriend leaves her for another woman. Watching the yummy mummies she becomes inspired, hatching a daring and criminal plan…unleashing all hell in the quiet town of Gatlin. Can Drea survive the fallout and the wrath of the PTA? A satirical and hilarious black comedy about love, motherhood and the human condition.

How the Lines Between Fiction and Life Become Blurred

A Guest Post by Anoushka Beazley

Writing comes easily to me. There is much in life that does not. Like a sense of contentment. I often feel burdened by the necessity of life. The relentless way it seems to continue in the face of all that could deter it.

It’s no secret my experience of high school – formative years –  were hideous. Bullying is a bloodsport and the scars are indelible. I started writing as a young child and such escapism allowed me to leave my world and enter new ones where people behaved very differently. The characters I wrote about were witty, complex, vulnerable bleeding hearts and viewing them from an authorial perspective, honesty seemed their greatest virtue. People in the real world rarely said what they were actually feeling but creating a character and fleshing them out so they live and breathe from every angle meant that my characters were always saying what they were feeling.

Then there is the subject of pain. Wounds that don’t heal but that we learn to carry which are exorcised through embodying a character with your pain, your journey. Being in control of your fictional worlds can birth a disillusionment with the real world, the world we are expected to actually live in. A divine discontentment; G.K Chesterton writes, “That’s the feeling that there is more to this life than just living. It’s the nagging that this world is not our home. It’s the romance of the heart from the Almighty.”

My debut novel The Good Enough Mother, was born from such discontentment. When my father passed away nearly five years ago, through the tears I would drive my children to school every day, passing his house and the places he would walk. Needless to say, I started to hate the school run more than I did already. To distract from the unbearable and overwhelming pain, hoping for a moment’s reprieve from my own bleakness, I began to write, and, in a moment of ‘divine’ discontentment and as the lines between fiction and life blurred, my character Drea came into her own.

As a person, and I should point out at this juncture that I was an actress prior to becoming a writer but the artistic neurosis is the same, I have always oscillated between great highs and great lows and the parts at rest in the middle seem to create a sense of unease rather than comfort. In my experience my extremes are where I work best, where I am most frightened, where I am most happy, where I learn the most, where the lines are the most blurred and if I cannot tell which world I’m living in, fiction or reality, where I’ve got the best chance of feeling like I’m doing a bit more than just living.

About Anoushka Beazley

Anoushka Beazley, born Anoushka Kanagasabay and served for a while as Anushka Dahssi while treading the boards. A BA in Film Theory from the University Of Kent, a Postgraduate in Acting and a MA in Creative Writing makes for a life lived in fiction as much as written. She is currently based in London, England with her husband, three children and a posh cat.

You’ll find Anoushka on Twitter, Facebook and on her website.