Book Haul April Week 3 #BookMail #BookReviews

Hello everyone! Today I am posting my first official book haul. I will aim to post one at the end of each week if all goes well. I am receiving some epic books from publishers at the moment so it felt right to share them all with you here in a post.

So I will share each book I received and which publisher was kind enough to send it to me. I will also share a few details about why I am excited to pick up each book as soon as I can. Thank you for coming to check out these books, please leave a comment if you see anything you like or have read before. And as always, the book/publisher information is linked to the respective book title/publisher name.

DISCLAIMER – I do not own the rights to any of the imagery or synopsis’ shared on this post. They belong to the author’s/publishers. I have linked all the appropriate sites to the content.

Book Haul – April Week 3

Hunter’s Moon by David Deveraux 

Published by: Gollancz

I cannot wait to get started on this series. This is book one, I also have book two Eagle Rising. A magic/military tale, count me in.

Book Synopsis:

“My name is unimportant, but you can call me Jack. I’m a musician by choice, a magician by profession, and a bastard by disposition. I’d been doing the magic thing for about five years when they found me. They said I had a talent, that I was smart enough and fit enough and enough of a shit that I could serve my country in a way most people never even get to hear about. And I did want to serve my country, didn’t I? I didn’t really want to contemplate what might happen if I said no.”

And so Jack found himself on the front line of a secret war that most people simply wouldn’t believe was possible. Working for a secret organisation tasked with defending our country from whatever supernatural threat faces it. MI5 know nothing about and would laugh if they found out. Well at first they would . . .

Whether wiping out a group of demon summoners, infiltrating a coven determined to assassinate the PM or rooting out a neo-nazi sect who are trying to bring back Hitler from the dead Jack is a very modern sort of magician – trained in a variety of the dark arts but also a dab hand with a Heckler and Koch, skilled in unarmed combat and electronic surveillance.

David Devereux has combined the action writing of McNab and Ryan with dark supernatural thrills and produced a blistering new breed of supernatural thriller. This is Dennis Wheatley for the 21st century.

Eagle Rising by David Devereux

Published by: Gollancz

These are pretty small books. Pocket sized I would say. So I am sure they are going to be packed with action and interesting concepts. Both books look and sound awesome.

Book Synopsis: Jack’s back! And this time he must face a terrifying supernatural threat from Europe’s recent past.

Someone has been mad enough to revive the most terrifying evil of the last 60 years. And only one man is bad enough to stop them.

Eagle Rising takes Jack to the rotten heart of big business and the dark secrets of a neo-nazi magical sect intent on giving the world back to a terror from the darkest days of the 1940s. Jack must infiltrate the closed corridors of big business and reach the core of a conspiracy amongst some of the most high-pwered city executives in the country. A cabal of business men with occult interests and an insane hunger for the return of an old and dark order.

Described as a mix of Dennis Wheatley and Ian Fleming, Devereux lives up to the billing with his new novel.

The Resurrectionist by Jack O’Connell

Published by: No Exit Press

Noir thriller and mind-bending fantasy??? Yes please! Love the sound of this novel. Hope it is as hardcore as it appears to be.

Book Synopsis: Your only child is lost between this world and the next, and more than anything you want him back. A controversial doctor and a mysterious stranger claim they have the answer. Who do you trust? Are you willing to risk everything? Are you prepared to enter Limbo?

Part classic noir thriller, part mind-bending fantasy, The Resurrectionist is a wild ride into a territory where nothing is as it appears. It is the story of Sweeney, a druggist by trade, and his son, Danny, the victim of an accident that has left him in a persistent coma. Hoping for a miracle, they have come to the forbidding, fortress-like Peck Clinic, whose doctors claim to have ‘resurrected’ other patients who were lost in the void. What Sweeney comes to realize, however, is that the real cure for his son’s condition may lie in Limbo, a fantasy comic book world into which his son had been drawn at the time of his accident. Plunged into the intrigue that envelops the clinic, Sweeney’s search for answers leads to sinister back alleys, brutal dead ends, and terrifying corners of darkness and mystery.

With The Resurrectionist, Jack O’Connell has crafted a breakout thriller that’s gripping, suspenseful, and all-out heart-pounding.

Netherspace by Andrew Lane & Nigel Foster

Published by: Titan Books

Interesting, thought-provoking and twisted science-fiction. Sounds like my cup of tea. Titan Books are consistently bring us brilliant sci-fi and fantasy novels. This should be just as good.

Book Synopsis: Aliens came to Earth forty years ago. Their anatomy proved unfathomable and all attempts at communication failed. But through trade, humanity gained technology that allowed them to colonise the stars. The price: live humans for every alien faster-than-light drive.

Kara’s sister was one of hundreds exchanged for this technology, and Kara has little love for aliens. So when she is drafted by GalDiv – the organisation that oversees alien trades – it is under duress. A group of colonists have been kidnapped by aliens and taken to an uncharted planet, and an unusual team is to be sent to negotiate. As an ex-army sniper, Kara’s role is clear. But artist Marc has no combat experience, although the team’s pre-cog Tse is adamant that he has a part to play. All three know that success is unlikely. For how will they negotiate with aliens when communication between the species is impossible?

King Death/I Am Still the Greatest Says Johnny Angelo by Nik Cohn

Published by: No Exit Press

I am always on the look out for spectacular cover art and these look awesome. It helps that the novels them selves are sounding very interesting too.

Book Synopsis: I Am Still The Greatest Says Johnny Angelo is Nik Cohn’s hymn to rock as myth, in all its crazed, absurd and glorious excess. Partly based on the legendary rocker, P J Proby, Johnny Angelo is the pop star to end all pop stars – narcissistic, mock-heroic, and massively destructive. The novel follows his progress from warped infancy to final messianic explosion. It is a top read, which David Bowie once claimed inspired Ziggy Stardust.

Despite persistent rumours of his death fifteen years ago, Johnny Angelo’s legend continues. Johnny Angelo is a rock singer, and this is his story from the beginning. As a child he is a dreamer and a solitary, a thief, a killer of birds and cats. As a man he is a god to his fans, an emperor to his cronies, a hoodlum to his enemies. Girls lie at his feet. He becomes rich. He commits murder. At the end, police shoot him down in the street.

King Death – Eddie is a strange man with an extraordinary talent that makes him the ‘performer’ he is. Eddie administers Death. His subjects, he explains, are not afraid, but are thrilled and transported. To Eddie, Death is completion, and he finds fulfilment, satisfaction, and pride in each job he carries out.

When Seaton Carew, America’s most successful TV entrepreneur, chances to witness Eddie in action, Eddie’s career is altered. Overcoming many obstacles, he and Seaton literally ride to glory on the Deliverance Special, a train carrying King Death and his huge entourage all over America. But then a disturbing change comes over Eddie and threatens to topple him from his grisly throne… King Death is part nightmare, part modern fairytale and wholly original.

Headbanger/Sad Bastard by Hugo Hamilton

Published by: No Exit Press

I don’t review heavy, gritty and sleazy crime fiction like this very often. But these two novels are definitely worth picking up. Looking forward to talking about these soon.

Book Synopsis: Headbanger – Garda Pat Coyne is a Dublin policeman who is passionately devoted to sorting out the world and its problems. For Coyne, such things as cars, crime, pollution and golf are all ominous signs of a disintegrating society. The world is committing suicide, with MTV droning in the background. Coyne’s principal mission is to deal with crime, Ireland’s biggest growth industry. Though only a cop on the beat, he decides to take on the notorious gang leader, Drummer Cunningham. When a murder investigation leaves detectives clueless, he enters into a personal feud with the underworld, resulting in disastrous consequences for himself and his family. Coyne is a Dublin Dirty Harry for whom everything begins to go wrong.

Sad Bastard – Garda Pat Coyne – aka ‘Mr Suicide’ is back. Injured in the line of duty, he is now out of work with too much time on his hands. Living alone, he’s become more obsessive and volatile, developing a fetish for women’s knickers. When a body washes up on the docks, the prime suspect is none other than the former Garda’s son, Jimmy. Like father like son, both Coynes are notorious for their sweeping spells of self-destruction. But while Pat’s motives lean toward cleaning up the world’s messes, Jimmy possesses a taste for mayhem. Coyne’s estranged wife blames him, his mother-in-law berates him, and his therapist labels him psychotic. But when a duo of criminal thugs try to kill his boy, Coyne decides that it’s up to him to straighten things out.

Past Mortems by Carla Valentine

Published by: Sphere (Little, Brown)

I do enjoy a little bit of the bizarre and macabre. A memoir of a mortuary technician seems to satisfy both those criteria.

Book Synopsis: A day in the life of Carla Valentine – curator, pathology technician and ‘death professional’ – is not your average day. She spent ten years training and working as an Anatomical Pathology Technologist: where the mortuary slab was her desk, and that day’s corpses her task list.

Past Mortems tells Carla’s stories of those years, as well as investigating the body alongside our attitudes towards death – shedding light on what the living can learn from dead and the toll the work can take on the living souls who carry it out. Fascinating and insightful, Past Mortems reveals the truth about what happens when the mortuary doors swing shut or the lid of the coffin closes . . .

The Irregular by H. B. Lyle

Published by: Hodder & Stoughton

I absolutely love the concept of this book. Linking in with the Sherlock Holmes universe. I really hope this book is as good as it looks!

Book Synopsis:  London 1909: The British Empire seems invulnerable. But Captain Vernon Kell, head of counter-intelligence at the War Office, knows better. In Russia, revolution; in Germany, an arms race; in London, the streets are alive with foreign terrorists. Kell wants to set up a Secret Service, but to convince his political masters he needs proof of a threat – and to find that, he needs an agent he can trust. The playing fields of Eton may produce good officers, but not men who can work undercover in a munitions factory that appears to be leaking secrets to the Germans.

Kell needs Wiggins. Trained as a child by Kell’s old friend Sherlock Holmes – he led a gang of urchin investigators known as the Baker Street Irregulars – Wiggins is an ex-soldier with an expert line in deduction and the cunning of a born street fighter. ‘The best’, says Holmes.

Wiggins turns down the job – he ‘don’t do official’. But when his best friend is killed by Russian anarchists, Wiggins sees that the role of secret agent could take him towards his sworn revenge.

Tracking the Russian gang, Wiggins meets a mysterious beauty called Bela, who saves his life. Working for Kell, he begins to unravel a conspiracy that reaches far beyond the munitions factory.

Fast-paced, action-packed, full of twists and violent, sometimes poignant shocks, The Irregular: A Different Class of Spy marks the arrival of a brilliant new writer.

We All Begin As Stranger by Harriett Cummings

Published by: Orion Fiction

Love the cover art. Really excited about this book as not only is the concept brilliant, but it is also inspired by true events. Can’t wait.

Book Synopsis:  Heathcote, England – 1984

A mysterious figure is sneaking into homes through backdoors and open windows. Known locally as ‘the Fox’, he knows everything about everyone – leaving curious objects in their homes, or taking things from them.

When beloved Anna disappears, everyone believes the Fox is responsible.

For the villagers, finding Anna will be difficult – but stopping the Fox from exposing their darkest secrets might just be impossible…

(p) 2017 Orion Publishing Group Ltd

Dandy Gilver and a Spot of Toil and Trouble
By Catriona McPherson

Published by: Hodder & Stoughton

I read Dandy Gilver and A Most Misleading Habit for review and I really enjoyed it. So hopefully this book will be just as intriguing and amusing.

Book Synopsis: A delightful Dandy Gilver mystery by Catriona McPherson, set in 1930s Scotland. For fans of PG Wodehouse, Dorothy L Sayers and Agatha Christie.
Scotland, 1934.

Fair is foul and foul is fair as aristocratic private detective Dandy Gilver heads off to Castle Bewer to solve a mystery of a missing ruby necklace and a tragic family curse. She arrives as the residents are preparing to stage a production of Macbeth, yet sinister goings on seem to be more than amateur dramatics.

Thanks again for stopping by to check out some of the amazing books I have just added to my ever growing TBR pile. I aim to share every title I add to the list if I can so check back regularly for more updates.