Wednesday 11 September 2019

Daisy Daydream - Sue Wickstead #BlogTour #Review


Daisy Daydream

Today I am pleased to be able to participate in the blog tour for Daisy Daydream by Sue Wickstead.  My thanks go to Rachel’s Random Resources. 


About the Book

Daisy was a happy red bus who loved travelling the busy streets of London.

When newer and shinier buses came along, the older buses like Daisy began to disappear.

Would Daisy become one of the forgotten buses, or was something else planned for her?

My Review

A delightful book about an old red routemaster bus who went from travelling the streets of London carrying passengers to becoming one of the buses no longer needed due to newer more efficient buses coming in.

Is Daisy going to be a bus that time forgets or will she get a new lease of life?

An excellent book full of lovely colourful pictures that explain the story as you turn each page. A lovely story of what happens to Daisy and one that children of preschool to approximately age 5 will enjoy.

I also have a review from my daughter who also read this book. 

Amelia’s Review

This was an amazing book to read and is aimed at preschool to Year 2 children.  This is a good way to teach children a lesson about looking after things and maybe learning them to recycle things that rarely get used that much. 

About the Author

I am a teacher and an author and have currently written six children’s picture books with a bus theme.

For over 20 years, alongside my teaching career, I worked with a Children’s Charity, The Bewbush Playbus Association, which led me to write a photographic history book about it.

I soon found that many children had never been on a bus before, let alone a ‘Playbus’ and they wanted to know more. I decided to write a fictional tale about the bus, his number plate JJK261 gave him his name.

‘Jay-Jay the Supersonic Bus,’ came out in print in 2014. It is the story behind the original bus and is his journey from a scrap-yard to being changed into a playbus for children to play in. From Fact to fiction the bus journey continued.


This story has now been followed by five more picture books.

I also undertake events and author bookings and love to share the story. There are also a few more stories in the writing process, with links to real events and buses.

The story has been read in many schools in the south-East of England, where I teach as a cover teacher, it is always well received and certainly different.

Social Media Links

Facebook: - Author Page http://bit.ly/2kEEhPq

To buy from:


Check out the rest of the blog tour with these fabulous blogs:  



My thanks to Sue Wickstead and also Rachel @ Rachel’s Random Resources for my spot on the blog tour.  

Tuesday 3 September 2019

Unseen Evil - Liz Mistry #BlogTour #Extract #GusMcGuire


Unseen Evil

Today I am pleased to be able to participate in the blog tour for Unseen Evil by Liz Mistry.  My thanks go to Sarah Hardy at Book on the Bright Side for my spot on the blog tour. 


About the Book

New Release from best-selling author Liz Mistry is number 6 in her D.I. Gus McGuire series.

Social Media can be the death of you …

The Snapchat
A twisted killer comes to the attention of DI Gus McGuire and his team when a teenager receives a Snapchat image of his murdered friend. 

The Killer
As the killer becomes bolder, using social media to publicise the murders, Gus fears there may be more than one murderer targeting young people.

The Stalker
Meanwhile, Gus comes under threat from a stalker who is not afraid to get up close and personal.

Can Gus protect his loved ones and catch the killer before another Snap is received?
  

Extract

Today I am pleased to be able to bring to you the Prologue from the new Gus McGuire book Unseen Evil.  I have had a bit of reading slump of late and due to other issues going on have taken a bit of a back seat from blogging.  I am pleased to say that I have started reading again and will be writing reviews for any book I have read, however, I could not let this blog tour pass without taking part one way or another.  Now if like me you are a big Gus McGuire fan but either a) haven’t got round to reading the book yet, b) are unsure whether to buy it well I think this little snippet will persuade you to do both. 



PROLOGUE
March 2018
The Zodiac Club



W
e had to have a headquarters. Somewhere we could meet. Somewhere we wouldn’t be seen and just by luck, while I was exploring, I found it. An old grocer’s store on a side road. No For Sale sign, no indication anyone was interested in it… Nothing. It was easy to get in.

The front of the property faced a busy side street, but the windows were covered by a metal shutter with Bradford City spray painted on in black. Some smart-ass had crossed out the ‘C’ of City with a black marker and replaced it with a ‘T’. How droll. I knew there was no way in from the front, so I wandered around the back. It looked promising, so I waited until dark and came back. Sure enough, the back of the shop had an enclosed yard with a sturdy door which was hanging off its hinges. But, more importantly, the properties behind it were also lying empty… apart from the druggies and tramps that occupied them by night. It was easy to get the gate fixed and I knew just the person to help me. A sturdy lock and we were sorted. Our own private space.

I love it. It’s well enough out of the way as to be discreet, but not too far out of the way as to be difficult to get to. The headquarters we call it… HQ. Nobody sees us coming and going because we’re invisible. Today’s important. Today is the day we extend our manifesto… make more plans… finalise things.

‘Neck it! Neck it! Neck it!’

Their chants are like hooligans at a football match as they loll about on the carpet, sprawled over the cushions, intent on getting pissed. Leo, dark eyes all sparkly, cheeks flushed, hands clapping in time with the chants, is the most drunk. Pisces is a little less so… nervous, maybe? Picking those oozing pussy spots and licking cracked lips – yuk, enough to make me want to barf, but I cover it up… for now. Instead, I move my phone, taking in our handiwork… all this will go down in history… saved for posterity. I smile a little. I remember when I used to muddle that word with posterior… but that was a long time ago.

The items pinned to the wall document the progress we’ve made. A timeline of charts, newspaper clippings, photos… Each one evidence. Each one a piece of the plan. Ambling round the room I zoom in on my favourites.

First there’s the list:
Sumaira Begum
Shannon Oyando
Billy Clark-Thompson
Becky Easton
Imran Sajid
Suki Singh

It’s so satisfying to see them all crossed out. Next there’s the first lot of evidence… the photos. Sumaira Begum, when she found the bacon in her locker… that was brilliant. She was hysterical… crying and yelling as if someone was stuffing the rasher down her throat. It served her right telling Ms Copley about me smoking in the girls’ toilets. The one of Shannon Oyando with her tits out – ’cept they weren’t really hers – we’d photoshopped over hers, printed them out, and stuck them up in the lads’ toilets.

The other two are still necking the voddie… Leo’s really flushed now and Pisces, all bleeding pox and nervous eyes, is getting there too. I’ll call the meeting to order in a bit, but for now, I record the last few items… the newspaper clippings… Fame! I love the way we’ve moved on… the way we’ve developed. Progress… you can’t whack it.

November 2017
Local Teacher Convicted of Grooming Students
Craig Borthwick, a teacher at a local secondary school, pictured here entering court, today received a ten-year sentence after images showing him booking into a low budget hotel with a fourteen-year-old student were anonymously uploaded to the Internet.

We did that! We made that happen. That snooty little bitch got what she deserved when that picture of her snogging Mr Borthwick went viral. That taught her. The way she dumped Leo, like a sack of hot potatoes, all the time on her phone sexting that dirty old perv. Served her right… served him right too.

All I can say after reading that is thank goodness I have a copy of this book waiting on my kindle after pre-ordering the same in readiness to read.  I can’t wait to start reading this in the next few months, once the back to school routine has been finalised, my daughter is off to high school this time so a new change is afoot and one which will involve certain changes around the house, most importantly a reading hour which has been introduced in our house to ensure that we can all wind down from our busy days and chill with no electronic devices allowed and no TV on.  All I can say is it’s pure BLISS!!!

About the Author

Born in Scotland, Made in Bradford sums up Liz Mistry’s life. Over thirty years ago she moved from a small village in West Lothian to Yorkshire to get her teaching degree. Once here, Liz fell in love with three things; curries, the rich cultural diversity of the city … and her Indian husband (not necessarily in this order). Now thirty years, three children, two cats (Winky and Scumpy) and a huge extended family later, Liz uses her experiences of living and working in the inner city to flavour her writing. Her gritty crime fiction police procedural novels set in Bradford embrace the city she describes as ‘Warm, Rich and Fearless’ whilst exploring the darkness that lurks beneath.

Struggling with severe clinical depression and anxiety for a large number of years, Liz often includes mental health themes in her writing. She credits the MA in Creative Writing she took at Leeds Trinity University with helping her find a way of using her writing to navigate her ongoing mental health struggles. Being a debut novelist in her fifties was something Liz had only dreamed of and she counts herself lucky, whilst pinching herself regularly to make sure it’s all real. One of the nicest things about being a published author is chatting with and responding to readers’ feedback and Liz regularly does events at local libraries, universities, literature festivals and open mics. She also teaches creative writing too. Now, having nearly completed a PhD in Creative Writing focussing on ‘the absence of the teen voice in adult crime fiction’ and ‘why expansive narratives matter’, Liz is chock full of ideas to continue writing.


In her spare time, Liz loves pub quizzes (although she admits to being rubbish at them), dancing (she does a mean jig to Proud Mary – her opinion, not ratified by her family), visiting the varied Yorkshire landscape, with Robin Hoods Bay being one of her favourite coastal destinations, listening to music, reading and blogging about all things crime fiction on her blog, The Crime Warp.

Social Media Links

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LizMistrybooks/ @LizMistrybooks

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LizMistryAuthor @LizMistryAuthor


Check out the rest of the blog tour with these fabulous blogs: 


My thanks to Sarah Hardy at Book on The Bright Side for my spot on the blog tour.