Burning Secrets – Ruth Sutton
Today I am pleased to be able to
participate in the blog tour for Burning Secrets by Ruth Sutton. My thanks go to Damppebbles Blog Tours.
About the Book
It’s the spring of 2001 and
Foot & Mouth disease is raging across Cumbria.
Twelve-year-old Helen Heslop
is forced to leave her family farm and move in with relatives in a nearby town
because the strict quarantine means she can’t travel back and forth to school
in case she inadvertently helps spread the disease.
As the authorities and the
local farming communities try desperately to contain the outbreak, tensions run
high and everyone’s emotions are close to the surface.
And then Helen disappears.
The police search expands all
over the northwest coast where farms are barricaded, and farming families have
been plunged into chaos - not least the Hislop family, where potentially
explosive fault lines are exposed.
Under the strain tensions
build inside the police team too, where local DC Maureen Pritchard is caught
between old school DI Bell and new broom DS Anna Penrose.
Will Helen survive? And can
life for the Heslop family ever be the same, once burning secrets are
discovered and old scores settled?
My Review
Burning Secrets is the first book
I’ve read by Ruth Sutton.
I found this book to be a sheer
delight to read. I know it is a crime /
thriller book and most people wouldn’t use the words “sheer delight” but that
the tame version of the words I’d use!
The book is set in the beautiful
part of the country called Cumbria, however this is during the foot and mouth epidemic
that was in the news in 2001. Added to
that we have the disappearance of a 12-year-old girl.
Helen the 12-year-old girl is
sent to live with family members whilst the farm she normally lives on is on
lockdown due to foot and mouth. Helen
doesn’t particularly like living in the house so when Alex (who advises he is a
friend of her mums) tells her he’ll take her back to her mum, she jumps at the
chance. Little does she know what’s
going to happen next.
I found this book had just the
right amount of suspense to keep me turning the pages and despite have an
inkling about how things were going to pan out, was surprised to say I didn’t
fully work it out until towards the end of the book.
All in all an enjoyable read and am
looking forward to more by this author.
About the Author
Ruth is a very independent
person, which – like many things – is good up to a point but can get tricky
sometimes. She lives in a very beautiful place, but it’s a long way to a
cinema, or a big supermarket, and if the time comes when she can’t or doesn’t
want to drive, she’ll have to move as there’s no public transport. She
qualifies for a bus pass, but there aren’t any buses. Her daughter and her
family live quite close by, and she loves to see her two grandchildren. After
decades on her own, she has a partner whom she loves. They each have their own
house, 40 minutes apart, and this life style suits them both. Ruth wrote her
first novel after she was 60.
In addition, Ruth has
self-published a trilogy entitled Between the Mountains and the Sea; A Good Liar tells
the story of Jessie who risks career and independence with a love affair,
whilst her secret past draws ever closer. Forgiven is set among the coal mines
and fells of the Cumberland coast. Jessie’s struggle for happiness continues. Fallout features
the nuclear disaster at Windscale, which brings a compelling stranger into
Jessie’s world.
To connect with the
Author
Links to Buy
Check out the rest of the blog
tour with these fabulous blogs:
My thanks to the publisher’s Fahrenheit press and also Emma Welton @ Damppebbles Blog Tours for my spot on the blog tour.
Thanks so much for being a part of the blog blitz, Bev x
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