The Pharaoh's Cat - Maria Luisa Lang

Synopsis:

The Pharaoh’s Cat, a tragicomic fantasy narrated in the present tense by the cat himself, tells of a free-spirited, wise-cracking stray in ancient Egypt who suddenly acquires human powers and immediately captivates the young Pharaoh, making him laugh for the first time since his parents’ death.

The cat becomes the Pharaoh’s constant companion and, at the royal palace and on a tour of Egypt, participates in the festivities, developing an insatiable appetite for good food, wine, and gossip. Gradually, he renews the Pharaoh’s ability to enjoy life and inspires him to become a stronger leader. The bond of selfless love they share will change Egypt’s destiny.

The cat has a good friend in the High Priest of the god Amun-Ra and seeks his help in solving the mystery of his human powers and the supernatural manifestations that plague him. He has a mortal enemy in the Vizier—the second most powerful man in Egypt--who hates him for his close relationship with the Pharaoh. The Vizier’s persecution of the cat ultimately results in his fleeing with the High Priest to present-day New York City, where they find an ally in an Egyptologist’s daughter.

Review:

First of all I want to thank Maria for providing me a copy of The Pharaoh's Cat in return for a honest review, I hope you enjoy.

The Pharaoh's Cat is such a lovely read, you can pretty much get through it in a day or 2 if you have some time to kill. I didn't really know what to expect from such a book with all the aspects of it combining bits of several genres but it was such a great read that I'm pretty attached to now. Its not simply a story about a cat, it is so much more, of love and friendship the repercussions of actions and most noticeably Egyptian history I suppose and even more messages about how actions can effect lives. These lessons and messages are not plainly put to you, they are so delicately woven into the storyline that is sweet and spans thousands of years.

The story told from the perspective of the cat, The Pharaoh’s Cat is made up of amusing moments. In both ancient Egypt and modern day New York, we get to play audience as the mystery surrounding the walking talking cat is unrolled and solved. Throughout, we encounter several interesting characters and watch as many wonderful and uplifting scenes unfold. It really does pull you in and I found myself simply unable or unwilling to put the book down for hours on end.

With the characters and the scenes I completely fell in love, to keep the story short some scenes that I wished had been plumped out more were short but still very adorable and vibrant. I got attached to everyone and thing, it was just too hard not to. Characters shown on the negative side had my bad emotions whilst every other character shown on the positive side got all of my great emotions and when plot twists came I'm sure both loads of emotions clashed and fought with each other for a long time. Although short and simple The Pharaoh's Cat made me laugh, cry, curse and simply just forget the real world for a while. I love the information about Egypt and how well it all fitted into the story.

Once finishing the story I moved right onto the second book and simply fell further in love. Short, sweet and simple this book gets a 5/5 from me. Even though some people saw parts as negatives which bumped down their ratings I simply just loved this book to much to not give it a 5/5. if you need a short book to fill in a hole, something to laugh at and love definitely check out this book and I hope it has the same effect on you as it did me.

Crimson Lake - Candice Fox

Synopsis:

12.46: Thirteen-year-old Claire Bingley stands alone at a bus stop
12.47: Ted Conkaffey parks his car beside her
12.52: The girl is missing . . .

Six minutes – that’s all it took to ruin Detective Ted Conkaffey’s life. Accused but not convicted of Claire’s abduction, he escapes north, to the steamy, croc-infested wetlands of Crimson Lake.

Amanda Pharrell knows what it’s like to be public enemy number one. Maybe it’s her murderous past that makes her so good as a private investigator, tracking lost souls in the wilderness. Her latest target, missing author Jake Scully, has a life more shrouded in secrets than her own – so she enlists help from the one person in town more hated than she is: Ted.

But the residents of Crimson Lake are watching the pair’s every move. And for Ted, a man already at breaking point, this town is offering no place to hide

Review:

So Ted Conkaffey is accused of abduction and rape of a young girl but isn't convicted due to the lack of evidence. After 8 months behind bars on remand he runs away to Crimson Lake near Cairns to try and rebuild his life from the foundations all the way to the very top. Neither his workmates, who are were fellow detectives on the drug squad in Sydney, nor his wife believe Ted was simply there at the wrong place at the wrong time. So labelled a paedophile he lost his job and access to his baby daughter and now he is living in fear of the case being reopened, he can barely function.

In Cairns he teams up with a private investigator his lawyer pointed him towards, her name is Amanda Pharrell, another damned soul who has served a prison term for murder. Together they combat the task of finding Jake Scully, a missing local author.

You do become fully immersed in the book,  with all of the vivid detail all the way from Amanda's colourful tattoos and outfits all the way down to the banks of crocodile infested waters. As the couple dive into Jakes background, his relationships and his fans, they both become interested in finding out more about the 'other' cases which neither wants to talk about. As a reader you too want to know all of the details but with the characters real not letting anything slip that adds to your knowledge so far, you really are just craving for one of them to just open up.

The case itself which they are working on is very interesting I have to admit, this author has seemingly gotten up and walked out of the house and left in one of the cars and vanished, there is no sign of him what so ever until a crocodile close by reveals a clue, but is everything really as simple and clean cut as it seems? Its full of twists and turns you don't really see coming and the conclusion really blew me away and I think part of me is still digesting it. It was just so good watching it unravel and the pieces falling into their places.

Candice had built up 2 great characters here, Ted the tough cop who's life has been turned upside down and has to deal with the local cops picking on him at every chance they get. Amanda is mysterious, unbalanced and fragile at times but she is also fearless and tough as old boots. I fell in love with both characters, they are very much portrayed in a way for you to do that but I feel like even if they weren't written for you to do that, I would anyway because they're both struggling in their own ways and I just feel connected to that part. They are both very similar in ways they don't see but its glorious to watch them develop over the span of the book.

I would 100% want to see more adventures with these pair to see how their relationship blossoms because I really felt like they were a great match of character because after what is really a short time they went from not really wanting to be around each other and hating the quirks of the other, to not really minding being in each others company and even picking up some of the quirk they once disliked.

I'd love to pick up more of Candice' work because this book just simply blew me away so I bet the other pieces of work would too. It's an easy 5/5 from me and I hope anyone who like a thriller/crime will give this book a shot.

Top Ten Tuesday- Books I'd Buy My Mother

This post was originally posted back in November of 2016 but it's still relevant.

Stay Dead by Jessie Keane

The Wronged - Kimberley Chambers

Wrongful Death - Lydia La Plante

Snatched - Mandasue Heller

Betrayal - Martina Cole

In The Morning I'll Be Gone - Adrian McKinty

The Redbreast - Jo Nesbø

Perfidia - James Ellroy

The Thicket - Joe R. Lansdale

When Will There Be Good News? - Kate Atkinson

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke And The Bookish

City of Drowned Souls (Elisenda Domènech Investigations #3) - Chris Lloyd

Synopsis:

When a child disappears, the clock starts ticking
Detective Elisenda Domènech has had a tough few years. The loss of her daughter and a team member; the constant battles against colleagues and judges; the harrowing murder investigations… But it’s about to get much worse.

When the son of a controversial local politician goes missing at election time, Elisenda is put on the case. They simply must solve it. Only the team also have to deal with a spate of horrifically violent break-ins. People are being brutalised in their own homes and the public demands answers.

Could there be a connection? Why is nobody giving a straight answer? And where is Elisenda’s key informant, apparently vanished off the face of the earth? With the body count threatening to increase and her place in the force on the line, the waters are rising…

Be careful not to drown.

The stunning new instalment of the gripping Elisenda Domènech crime thrillers for readers of Ian Rankin, Henning Mankell and Andrea Camilleri.

Review:

It felt so good to be back with Elisenda and the team again, since the last book its been a few months and people have clicked on that Elisender is still struggling with the lost of her daughter years before. The book begins with a small few pages that you need to keep in your head because they are so relevant when you get near the end of the book. When we do get to Elisenda, she has been put on leave and forced into bereavement counselling every morning, However, just days into being on leave the disappearance of a controversial politicians son leads her back into the filed at the same time she and her team are trying to solve and stop to violent burglaries of houses.

The team is split in 2, one set are working the missing child case whilst the other works the violent burglaries case. Elisender is also looking for her informant who gave her bad intel before disappearing off of the face of the earth. There are a lot of strands in this book, your pretty much have to follow each lead with the strands as far as you can before it snaps. There are avenues of investigation that have to be covered or are covered just to make sure and it really is a book that you actually don't get lost in because it all makes perfect sense.

As for the characters there are a few new characters here, we see the controversial politician Susanna Miravent and her husband Marc Comas, also her campaign leader  Francesc Bofarull. Jauame is the missing child and what makes this case even more important and yet confusing is their eldest son Albert had gone missing 5 years previous. With so many threads to pull at I'm surprised to have seen the team stay sane.

We have the regular POV's of the team members and also a mystery POV that you pretty much assume is a certain someone once you read it.

What's great about this book is the path of it because you automatically believe what you have been lead to believe, you don't question it at all, you just go with it. In the end I must warn you not everything is as it seems. The paths of 2 cases could be linked or the people involved with either case might be linked to the other you just don't know until you read the whole book. Its beyond gripping and I fell in love. Even though I struggled with the first book City Of Good Deaths I'm far beyond in love with the series now since I've read the following two books.

After all the mystery and tension I definitely didn't see the end coming and I know I say that about a lot of book but this one really was that good. I didn't at all expect it to unfold the way it did. Its an easy 5/5 for this book and I definitely recommend this to anyone who wants an immersive thrilling mysterious read and has the time to read it. As this is, for now the end of my journey with Elisender and the team I feel it has been a great journey so far, I'm thankful for it and I cant wait to see them again in the near future hopefully.

Top Ten Tuesday - Ten Things I'd Love To See More Of

More PoC characters

More representation of the LOGBTQ+ community including those after the +

More gender neutral activities

More depictions of religions and history

More education on politics to inform readers of any age in an engaging and easy to understand way.

More showings of day to day struggles

Inclusion of the worlds problems

More acceptance between characters; no fat shaming, slut shaming, height shaming? Less discrimination.

More characters with all of their quirks no matter how unusual or uncommon they may be.

Even more love  💕 and friendship

The Broke and The Bookish hosts Top Ten Tuesday Weekly

The Puppet Master - Abigail Osborne

Synopsis:
Manipulated by fear and love...could you cut the strings and take back control?

Billie’s hiding from the world, believing it to be the only way to take control of her life as she lives in fear of the man who nearly destroyed her. But what she doesn’t realise is that she’s exactly where he wants her; isolated and afraid. A chance meeting with budding journalist Adam sparks a relationship that could free her from the terror that controls her. But will Adam be able to see the real Billie buried under her terror and pain?

Adam knows exactly who Billie is and is determined to expose her and get justice for the lives she ruined. But first, he needs to convince her to open up to him but as unwanted attraction and feelings blossom between them, Adam is forced to realise that all is not as it seems.

Most of their lives have been unknowingly governed by the desires and needs of someone who considers himself their master. He has influenced and shaped them for years, meticulously weaving a web of lies and control around them. Can Billie and Adam survive the betrayals in store and cut the strings that bind them?

One thing is for sure. The master wants his puppets back – and he’ll do anything to keep them.


Review:

So this book is actually told through 3 points of view, our main character Billie, our supporting character as I like the call them, Adam and then a point of view you don't know who's it is until near the end I suppose.

Automatically we are thrown into the world of Billie and you can tell straight away she has had a terrible past in the way she lives and interacts with everyone around her, its soon in the story that you meet Adam in her perspective and It seem like they both get along quite nicely until the POV changes and you can suddenly tell that Adam has ulterior motives for striking up conversation with her.
 Billie has a past she wants to escape, she's learnt to lock it away and she is just getting by living but as soon as Adam appears everything begins to change.

What's great about these characters is that Adam is persistent and funny, handsome and intelligent and very much protective but also he is easily angered but also gets what he wants. Billie is very excluded from the world, she's not exactly happy and she haunted but around Adam she comes out of her shell and they're literally opposites of each other and you know what they say, Opposites attract. Throughout the story Adam tries to get Billie to open up to him about her pat because he knows there's something in there he needs to know but all the way she refuses to open up even when he opens up first hoping to lure her out. eventually sparks begin to fly between the pair and they both have conflicting feelings about it because Adam doesn't want to love her but he can not and Billie loves him but knows she is in danger if she does.

There's a lot of build up to the end that I feel is 100% worth it. When Billie finally feels comfortable enough to open up and the suspense is at what you think is the most it can be we finally get to see what has traumatised Billie for so long and what has really given Adam motivation in his actions. I physically felt my heart drop and my anger bubble in my blood, it hit me so hard and made me angry because of the other characters that were portrayed in Billies past, if you ever read this book you'll know why, I just hate characters that are so oblivious, rude and horrific.

The book begins in the present day then visits early years and then back to the present day once we have all the information we need, even though the transitions are quite large its very easy to keep track and build up both characters and see them for who and what they really are. The story does have some twists and turns surprise wise for the reader, the author really holds your attention and immerses you into the story where you feel like you're in the scenes, not in physical form but you can see it unfolding like you're invisible right next to them if that makes sense.

I have to give this book a 4.7 out of 5, it's definitely a great read however I just found that it didn't particularly blow me away hard enough to get a 5/5 yet it wasn't a waste of my time to read to get anything lower than a 4,but I enjoyed it none the less. As this is Abigail's debut novel I cant wait to see what else she comes up with because I'll definitely be looking out for her.

If you do want to read this book I don't want to spoil it for you but it doesn't contain the grooming and mild description of child molestation so that is just a warning. I do recommend it to anyone who really loves trying to figure out things just because I was totally unable to do so until the book literally spelt it out for me. Thank you to Faye Rogers who supplied me with a free copy of the book in exchange for a honest review.

Top Ten Tuesday - Cover Freebie

So I really could not think of a cover freebie topic that really gave me 10 books to list or any past 2 really that I just really didn't want to waste your time.

Please feel free to tell me what topics you chose and the books you matched to it.

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted weekly by The Broke And The Bookish.