The Northern Witch's Book Blog

The Seawomen by Chloe Timms 5 out of 5 Synopsis Esta has known nothing but Eden's Isle her whole life. Raised by her grandmother, after a fire claimed her parents and scarred her face, she's instructed to piety, to deference, and acquiescence by a religious society that will not suffer anything else. Cut off from the moral iniquity of the mainland, the island believes it can stay free of the Seawomen - creatures from the water that came upon land to corrupt God's creation and Man. The inhabitants fear the water and believe the only way to remain virtuous is to never enter it, and for the women to conceive within 12 months of their appointed motheryear. If they do not conceive, they're cast back into the ocean as a sacrifice in an act called the Untethering. Esta witnesses such an act as a child. Her childhood growing up on the island is fraught with tension as she comes to the terms with the prohibitive malaise of the culture she finds herself in. Before long, she gets ...

Hidden by Shalini Boland 3 out of 5 Synopsis Falling in love has never been so dangerous... Madison Greene is in foster care until one day she inherits a fortune, she inherits a house, she inherits a cellar full of danger. Alexandre Chevalier lives in 19th century Paris. On an archaeological expedition, he discovers a lost underground city where his life changes forever. A romantic supernatural adventure that spans the centuries. Can a human save a vampire? Review A hidden history binds modern Maddie, with the hundred-year-old vampire, Alexandre. When Maddie inherits a house, she uncovers a locked room, filled with strange statues... I received a free copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Our main narrators are Maddie and Alexandre. Maddie is an orphan, living with her brother in London with their foster parents. Life is hard, and people are constantly judging Madiie before they know her. Her relationship with her foster parents is close to breaking, and Maddie is only ...

The Weekend That Lake. This house. His friends. They all know what happened to my boy. I know they do. And you... you have to help me find the truth... A weekend to remember… Ten years ago, deeply in love, I would have done anything for Thomas Kirkwood. But on the night of our graduation, fuelled by drink and drugs, Thomas’s lifeless body was found floating in the Kirkwood family lake. That weekend changed everything, and I swore I would never return to Kirkwood manor. A weekend to forget… Now, ten years later, I have been invited back to the place that holds such terrible memories for me, to a memorial weekend for Thomas, organised by his still-grieving mother Ada. But this is no ordinary weekend. This is a reunion to catch a killer…and I fear that I could be top of Ada’s list…. Perfect for fans of Teresa Driscoll, Sue Watson, Jackie Kabler and Kendra Elliot. Purchase Link - https://amzn.to/3OuGARE Author Bio As well as being the author of seven books, Stacey also works full time as a...

Narco Hotel by Wilmar Luna 5 out of 5 Synopsis Cindy Ames thought her days of assassination and crime fighting were over. Then the DeMarcos Cartel invaded New York City. Day by day they spread their corruption throughout the five boroughs, leading to a rise in beheadings, shootouts, drug overdoses, and police murdering innocent citizens. Even with the city decaying all around her, Cindy was terrified of transforming into the Silver Ninja. It would mean returning to a life of barely controlled rage and endless violence. Unfortunately for her, Commissioner Gates knows who the Silver Ninja is and her dark secret. If she doesn’t suit up and help him stop the DeMarcos, her secret will be exposed, and her family will suffer the consequences. The price for peace is blood. Review Cindy is back, and despite trying to avoid trouble and putting the Silver Ninja behind her, she is coerced into facing the gangs in her home city. I was a beta reader for this book, and my review is for the beta versi...

A Corruption of Blood by Ambrose Parry 5 out of 5 Synopsis Edinburgh. This city will bleed you dry. Dr Will Raven is a man seldom shocked by human remains, but even he is disturbed by the contents of a package washed up at the Port of Leith. Stranger still, a man Raven has long detested is pleading for his help to escape the hangman. Back in the townhouse of Dr James Simpson, Sarah Fisher has set her sights on learning to practise medicine. Almost everyone seems intent on dissuading her from this ambition, but when word reaches her that a woman has recently obtained a medical degree despite her gender, Sarah decides to seek her out. Raven’s efforts to prove his former adversary’s innocence are failing and he desperately needs Sarah’s help. Putting their feelings for one another aside, their investigations take them to both extremes of Edinburgh’s social divide, where they discover that wealth and status cannot alter a fate written in the blood. Review Dr Raven and Sarah have two sepera...

AG Meiers has a new MM contemporary suspenseful romance out: Night Watch . And there's a giveaway! A romance at midnight, but happily ever after at dawn? Complicated… Hunter Jones is stalling. One day, he’ll be a lawyer in his family’s prestigious firm, but just not yet. Instead he is working the nightshift at the Burlington Inn. It’s the perfect place to hide from everything that’s wrong with his life. Once—just once—he did something reckless and it has haunted him ever since. Romance is the last thing he needs. But then a tall, dark, and sexy stranger checks into the hotel... Detective Cole Sawyer’s life is a complete clusterfuck of his own making. His lies have ruined his chances at a fresh start, and his anger and insomnia constantly get the better of him. Cole has no business getting involved with the honey-sweet night auditor. But with every late night encounter staying away gets more and more difficult. When a dangerous stalker targets Hunter, Cole realizes just how far he’s...

Night Watch by A.G. Meiers 5 out of 5 Synopsis A romance at midnight, but happily ever after at dawn? Complicated… Hunter Jones is stalling. One day, he’ll be a lawyer in his family’s prestigious firm, but just not yet. Instead he is working the nightshift at the Burlington Inn. It’s the perfect place to hide from everything that’s wrong with his life. Once—just once—he did something out of character and it has haunted him ever since. Romance is the last thing he needs. But then a tall, dark, and sexy stranger checks into the hotel... Detective Cole Sawyer’s life is a complete clusterfuck of his own making. His lies have ruined his chances at a fresh start, and his anger and insomnia constantly get the better of him. Cole has no business getting involved with the honey-sweet night auditor. But with every late night encounter staying away gets more and more difficult. When a dangerous stalker targets Hunter, Cole realizes just how far he’s willing to go to protect the man he never shoul...

Judgement Day by Josie Jaffrey 5 out of 5 Synopsis Vampires don't get happily ever afters. Jack Valentine finally has her shit together. She has a great job, great friends (well, one at least) and a girlfriend whom she loves, even if she can't work up the courage to tell her that yet. Unfortunately, she also has an archnemesis who's about to punish her crimes in the worst possible way: by making her spend time with him. Which she could cope with, maybe, if she didn't have problems at work as well. When the body of a human judge is found in a locked library, there's no denying that she was murdered by one of the Silver – by a vampire – and the evidence points worryingly close to home. If that wasn't bad enough, some of Jack's least favourite people are opening a new blood bar in Oxford with questionable motives. For Jack and her team, it's becoming increasingly hard to separate allies from enemies. With conspiracies on every side, the simmering tensions i...

Dead & Talking by Des Burkinshaw 4 out of 5 Synopsis If a ghost appeared from nowhere, rescued you from suicide and then ordered you to start solving crimes to help dead people, what would you do? When it happens to Porter Norton, he just wants to put his head in his hands and have nothing to do with it. But now he has to atone for the family curse that has seen all the men die at their own hands for five generations. The Gliss, the sarcastic spirit that rescues him, says he can now and see and hear the Dead - if he’s close to their remains. Porter has to use his unwelcome gift to clear up past injustices. Or else. Forced to investigate the murder of a WW1 British Tommy executed for spying in 1917, he begins to suspect the case has links to his own family history. Along the way, Porter enlists the help of a bickering group of misfits, who struggle to stay involved - because only fools believe in the supernatural, don’t they? Full of pop culture references, banter and twists, the st...

Miniskirts are Murder Porter Norton, his friends and his sarcastic spirit guide, The Gliss, are on the trail of a young actress who went missing in Soho, London, in the Swinging Sixties. Still recovering from their last adventure in the battlefields of WW1, the gang are confronted by a transatlantic conspiracy. Purchase Links UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/Miniskirts-are-Murder-investigation-Investigations-ebook/dp/B08THXTBGB     US - https://www.amazon.com/Miniskirts-are-Murder-investigation-Investigations-ebook/dp/B08THXTBGB   ~Review~ Author Bio Des, 52, is a former Times journalist/BBC TV producer. Miniskirts are Murder is the second in the Porter and The Gliss Investigations series, following Dead & Talking in 2019.  Des likes to live out as much of the stories as possible and spent 3 months in the US researching this novel. He runs a film school in London and has just been commissioned to write a limited season TV series intended for Netflix. He is also a ke...

When Angels Fear She runs from a terrifying past, to a village with problems of its own   Exhausted, desperately seeking sanctuary, Emma arrives at the pretty English village of Flammark.  But she cannot rest. A strange sleeping sickness stalks the village and a young woman has disappeared. Why won't the police investigate? As events unfold, Emma becomes embattled yet again, compelled to fight for her life against a deadly curse linked to a past about which she had no knowledge. She is the only one able to vanquish the evil but doing so will entail confronting an horrific and all-too-familiar enemy. The question is, will she be strong enough? Purchase Link http://getbook.at/WhenAngelsFear ~Review~ Author Bio I've been writing blogs and stories off and on for years, but quite new to writing novels. My background is in teaching - I ran my own English and Drama departments in three inner city schools - then became the owner of a radical bookshop. Now I write full time. I love sup...

When Angels Fear by P.J. Mordant 3.5 out of 5  Synopsis Exhausted, desperately seeking sanctuary from a terrifying partner, Emma arrives in the pretty English village of Flammark. But she cannot rest. A strange sleeping sickness stalks the village, and a young woman has disappeared. Why won't the police investigate? As events unfold, Emma becomes embattled yet again, compelled to fight for her life, against a deadly curse linked to a past about which she had no knowledge. She is the only one able to vanquish the evil, but doing so will entail confronting an horrific and all-too-familiar enemy. The question is, after all she's been through, will she be strong enough? Review Emma runs from her violent ex and hides in a small town, only to find herself in more danger. Sickness and violence are creeping in, and a family curse may be the cause of it. I received a free copy in exchange for an honest review. After suffering at the hands of her abusive ex, Emma flees to town picked at ...

Preserved  by Fiona Sherlock  2 out of 5  Synopsis  He’s watching her unfold his masterpiece, but her time is almost up. When a local farmer announces on social media that he has discovered a bog body in Ardee, the world’s historians are keen to explore the secrets of the life and grisly death of the victim. Antique journalist January Quail is fighting to keep her newspaper job and uncovers far more than she bargained for. The victim is actually a recent murder, and January uses her nose for the truth to investigate the County Louth town. From shopkeeper to the publican, everyone is a suspect, but when the Gardai can’t find the killer, can January? Once she sets down the liqueur glass, January gains the confidence of the lead garda investigator. Within days, the case unravels into a much more dangerous situation with a killer on the loose. Despite the risk, January is electrified that this newest discovery has come at the perfect time to inject some colour into her f...

May Day  by Josie Jaffrey  5 out of 5  Synopsis  If the murderer you’re tracking is a vampire, then you want a vampire detective. Just maybe not this one. It’s not that Jack Valentine is bad at her job. The youngest member of Oxford’s Seekers has an impressive track record, but she also has an impressive grudge against the local baron, Killian Drake. When a human turns up dead on May Morning, she’s determined to pin the murder on Drake. The problem is that none of the evidence points to him. Instead, it leads Jack into a web of conspiracy involving the most powerful people in the country, people to whom Jack has no access. But she knows someone who does. To get to the truth, Jack will have to partner up with her worst enemy. As long as she can keep her cool, Drake will point her to the ringleaders, she’ll find the murderer and no one else will have to die. Body bags on standby. May Day is the first book in Josie Jaffrey’s Seekers series, an urban fantasy series set i...

Preserved She's stuck in the past, the killer wants to immortalise his future. When a local farmer announces on social media that he has discovered a bog body in Ardee, the world’s historians are keen to explore the secrets of the life and grisly death of the victim. Antique journalist January Quail is fighting to keep her newspaper job and uncovers far more than she bargained for.  The victim is actually a recent murder, and January uses her nose for the truth to investigate the County Louth town. From shopkeeper to the publican, everyone is a suspect, but when the Gardai can’t find the killer, can January?  Once she sets down the liqueur glass, January gains the confidence of the lead garda investigator. Within days, the case unravels into a much more dangerous situation with a killer on the loose.  Despite the risk, January is electrified that this newest discovery has come at the perfect time to inject some colour into her flailing career. January relinquishes her old...

The Magpie Society: One For Sorrow  by Zoe Sugg & Amy McCulloch  2 out of 5  Synopsis  The brand new series from Zoe Sugg and Amy McCulloch Illumen Hall is an elite boarding school. Tragedy strikes when the body of a student is discovered at their exclusive summer party - on her back is an elaborate tattoo of a magpie. When new girl Audrey arrives the following term, running from her own secrets back home in America, she is thrown into solving the case. Despite her best efforts to avoid any drama, her new roommate Ivy was close to the murdered girl, and the two of them can't help but get pulled in. The two can't stand each other, but as they are drawn deeper into the mystery of this strange and terrible murder, they will discover that something dangerous is at the heart of their superficially perfect school. Welcome to The Magpie Society. One for Sorrow will be told via the alternating first person perspectives of the lead characters Audrey - written by Amy - and...