20 Books of Summer Challenge 2018 #20BooksofSummer

Posted on May 31, 2018 by J-LBRBSBLOGS

20 Books of Summer from Cathy at 746Books

Well folks it’s that time of year again. So are you ready to join Cathy at 746 Books for this years #20BooksofSummer challenge? The challenge is to read your selected number of books, you can choose 10, 15 or 20, between 1st June and 3 September.

I’m joining in and this year I’m going for the full 20 books. I have a number of blog tours and quite a few reviews so, hopefully, I should be on-track to make it. I will be posting on each book but, because of this, I will do a monthly ‘round-up’ post on my progress through my reads and tweet my links, quick comments with the #20BooksofSummer hashtag.

Cathy is very easy-going on the ‘rules’ of this challenge you can do 10, 15 or 20 reads as your challenge and genre, swapping books are all ok. Do read Cathy’s post for all you need to know. So are you ready to join us? It’ll be great if you do and terrific to see what books you are reading and read your thoughts on them.

I’m hoping to stick to a monthly ‘plan’ so my reads are under the month’s heading. There are a few debut books, new releases amongst my reads. You will find mainly books from the crime fiction genre but the first will be a children’s story. Here’s my book list:-

June

Wojtek, War Hero Bear by Jenny Robertson

When a tiny orphaned bear cub is adopted by Polish soldiers during World War II, little does anyone know that little Wojtek will become one of the bravest fighters of them all.

The Tall Man by Phoebe Locke

A senseless murder. A terrifying legend. A family haunted.

The Killing Time by M J Lee

Shanghai 1932: Inspector Danilov hasn’t recovered from the death of his child… but across a Shanghai riven with communal tensions, children are going missing. Missing, and then murdered. Who is responsible? Why have the children’s bodies been exhibited for all to see?

Widows by Lynda La Plante

Harry Rawlins gang hijack a security van in the Strand Underpass – it would bring the gang thousands – but the job went disastrously and fatally wrong.

Dolly Rawlins had three options. She could give up, and hand over Harry’s ledgers to the police. She could hand them over to a bunch of thugs. Or she – and the other widows – could take the business over… and survive.

I Never Lie by Jody Sabral

Alex South is a high-functioning alcoholic who is teetering on the brink of oblivion. Her career as a television journalist is hanging by a thread since a drunken on-air rant. When a series of murders occur within a couple of miles of her East London home she is given another chance to prove her skill and report the unfolding events. She thinks she can control the drinking, but soon she finds gaping holes in her memory, and wakes to find she’s done things she can’t recall. As the story she’s covering starts to creep into her own life, is Alex a danger only to herself – or to others?

Oliver Twist and the Mystery of Throate Manor by David Stuart Davies

Bestselling crime author David Stuart Davies delivers a unique Victorian-set mystery, reimagining some of Charles Dickens best-loved characters in new and thrilling roles.

Sticks and Stones by Jo Jakeman

Imogen’s husband is a bad man. His ex-wife and his new mistress might have different perspectives but Imogen thinks she knows the truth. And now he’s given her an ultimatum: get out of the family home in the next fortnight or I’ll fight you for custody of our son.

In a moment of madness, Imogen does something unthinkable: she locks her husband in the cellar. Now she’s in control. But how far will she go to protect her son and punish her husband? And what will happen when his ex and his girlfriend get tangled up in her plans?

July

Dead of Night by Michael Stanley

When freelance journalist, Crystal Nguyen, heads to South Africa, she thinks she’ll be researching an article on rhino-horn smuggling for National Geographic, but within a week she’s been hunting poachers, hunted by their bosses, and then arrested in connection with a murder. And everyone is after a briefcase full of money that she doesn’t want, but can’t get rid of…

Fleeing South Africa, she goes undercover in Vietnam, trying to discover the truth before she’s exposed by the local mafia. Discovering the plot behind the money is only half the battle. Now she must convince the South African authorities to take action before it’s too late, both for the rhinos and for her. She has a powerful story to tell, if she survives long enough to tell it…

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot by Gina Kirkham

Our hapless heroine Constable Mavis Upton is preparing to step down the aisle with her fiancé Joe, but has to deal with her temperamental teen daughter, as well as investigate a serial flasher on a push bike. Throw a diva drag queen into the mix and readers can expect the usual hilarious Mavis mishaps that made the first book such a hit.

Disbelief by MTJ Meijer

Multiple mass-poisonings at pilgrimage sites throughout Europe. A serial killer, leaving dead bodies in five-star hotel rooms in the city of Amsterdam. It is up to Chief of Europol Dave Johnson and police consultant and psychic medium Ben Smit to figure out if both cases are connected. They must unravel the ties between past and present, or more lives will be lost. One thing is for certain – they won’t all make it to the finish line…

I Know Where She Is by S B Caves

Francine, on the tenth anniversary of her daughter Autumn’s abduction, receive an anonymous note containing just five words: I KNOW WHERE SHE IS
When a young woman approaches her claiming to be the one who sent the letter, Francine wants to dismiss it as a cruel, twisted joke. But the stranger knows things that only Autumn would know.
It soon becomes clear that Francine must go to dark places in order to learn the truth about her child’s kidnapping. She will discover that danger comes from unexpected sources. She will do things she never imagined herself capable of. But will Francine get her daughter back – or is it too late?

7(1/2) Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

Somebody’s going to be murdered at the ball tonight. It won’t appear to be a murder and so the murderer won’t be caught. Rectify that injustice and I’ll show you the way out.’

It is meant to be a celebration but it ends in tragedy. As fireworks explode overhead, Evelyn Hardcastle, the young and beautiful daughter of the house, is killed.

But Evelyn will not die just once. Until Aiden – one of the guests summoned to Blackheath for the party – can solve her murder, the day will repeat itself, over and over again. Every time ending with the fateful pistol shot.

The only way to break this cycle is to identify the killer. But each time the day begins again, Aiden wakes in the body of a different guest. And someone is determined to prevent him ever escaping Blackheath…

The Wrong Man by Kate White

Bold and adventurous in her work as owner of one of Manhattan’s boutique interior design firms, Kit Finn couldn’t be tamer in her personal life. While on vacation in the Florida Keys, Kit resolves to do something risky for once. When she literally bumps into a charming stranger at her hotel, she decides to make good on her promise and act on her attraction. But back in New York, when Kit arrives at his luxury apartment ready to pick up where they left off in the Keys, she doesn’t recognize the man standing on the other side of the door. Was this a cruel joke or part of something truly sinister? Kit soon realizes that she’s been thrown into a treacherous plot, which is both deeper and deadlier than she could have ever imagined. Now the only way to protect herself, her business, and the people she loves is to find out the true identity of the man who has turned her life upside down. Adrenaline-charged and filled with harrowing twists at every turn.

Corkscrew by Peter Stafford-Bow

The highly improbable, but occasionally true, tale of a professional wine buyer.

August

If You Knew Her by Emily Elgar

Cassie had it all – the fairytale wedding, the stunning home, the perfect husband. But when she arrives on the intensive care ward at St Catherine’s hospital in a coma, it soon becomes clear that she has a secret; a secret that changes everything.
Alice, the chief nurse on the ward begins to feel a connection with Cassie and can’t help but wonder if things are not quite as they seem.
Frank, another patient, can hear and see everything around him but cannot communicate. He understands that Cassie’s life is in danger and only he holds the truth, which no one can know and he cannot tell . . .

No Ordinary Killing by Jeff Dawson

The book is the first in a series starring reluctant sleuth Ingo Finch, in the very final hours of the nineteenth century, is serving as a doctor with the Royal Army Medical Corps during the PR disaster that is the Boer War. On leave in Cape Town, things take a strange twist when Finch is asked by local police to identify the body of a murdered British officer. Shocked by the identity of the victim and fobbed off with a too-convenient resolution to the crime, he decides to investigate further. From then on, Finch is in way over his head, plunged into a web of deceit and intrigue involving military intelligence and the very power brokers of the Empire, forced on the run alongside Australian nurse Annie Jones — his accidental and rather bolshy accomplice.

Strangers on a Bridge by Louise Mangos

The story is set in central Switzerland. It is about English-born Alice who while running one day near her home, sees a man about to jump from a notorious suicide bridge. She talks him out of going through with it, but he misinterprets her euphoric relief as budding affection, and begins to stalk her.

Nothing Stays Buried by P J Tracy

A serial killer in Minneapolis, Magozzi and Gino enlist Monkeewrench to help stop the rampage. Gina and the crew are working on a private missing persons case. As a baffling tangle of evidence accumulates, the cops and Monkeewrench make the unlikely connections among a farmer’s missing daughter, a serial killer, and a decades-old stabbing that brings them face-to-face with pure evil.

The Guilty Dead by P J Tracy

Gregory Norwood, wealthy businessman and close friend of Minnesota’s leading candidate for Governor, is found dead on the first anniversary of his son’s drug overdose. It seems clear to Detectives Gino and Magozzi that grief drove him to suicide. Until they realise the left-handed man seems to have used his right hand to pull the trigger. And they find the second body. As the seemingly open-and-shut case becomes a murder enquiry, the detectives begin to delve into the dark secrets of one of the city’s most powerful families. It seems the murders are not the first in the Norwoods’ tragic story – and they won’t be the last . . .

Eyes Turned Skyward by Ken Lussey

This novel reflects on the rumours and theories surrounding a number of real-life events, including the death of the Duke of Kent and the aircraft crashes of Short Sunderland W4032 and Avro Anson DJ106.

Wing Commander Robert Sutherland has left his days as a pre-war detective far behind him. Or so he thinks. On 25 August 1942 the Duke of Kent, brother of King George VI, is killed in northern Scotland in an unexplained air crash; a second crash soon after suggests a shared, possibly sinister, cause.

Bob Sutherland is tasked with visiting the aircraft’s base in Oban and the first crash site in Caithness to gather clues as to who might have had reason to sabotage one, or both, of the aircraft. Set against the background of a country that is far from united behind Winston Churchill, and the ever-present threat from the enemy, we follow Bob as he unravels layers of deceit and intrigue far beyond anything he expects.

So that leaves me 1-3 September, just in case, to finish reading any of my chosen books. Feel free to make a comment on my books it would be great to hear from you.

Well, with all those books, I’m off to read. I hope you enjoy the challenge if you join us but mainly just enjoy reading.