Book Review – #TrustMe by @TMLoganAuthor @ZaffreBooks

Happy publication day to T.M. Logan for Trust Me. Thank you to Zaffre Books for allowing me to read an early copy via NetGalley. Before I give you my review, here’s the blurb.

The Blurb

TWO STRANGERS, A CHILD, AND A SPLIT SECOND CHOICE THAT WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING . . .

Ellen was just trying to help a stranger. That was how it started: giving a few minutes respite to a flustered young mother sitting opposite her on the train. A few minutes holding her baby while the mother makes an urgent call. The weight of the child in her arms making Ellen’s heart ache for what she can never have.

Five minutes pass.
Ten.

The train pulls into a station and Ellen is stunned to see the mother hurrying away down the platform, without looking back. Leaving her baby behind. Ellen is about to raise the alarm when she discovers a note in the baby’s bag, three desperate lines scrawled hastily on a piece of paper:

Please protect Mia
Don’t trust the police
Don’t trust anyone

Why would a mother abandon her child to a stranger? Ellen is about to discover that the baby in her arms might hold the key to an unspeakable crime. And doing the right thing might just cost her everything . . .

My Review

This is the third T.M. Logan book I’ve read and I think it’s my favourite one so far. Ellen Devlin is on a train back to London after being told the devastating news that she can not have children. It’s almost too much to bear when a young woman sits opposite her with a gorgeous baby girl. Despite her pain, Ellen can’t resist the smiley baby and when the young woman asks Ellen to hold her while she takes a phone call, Ellen is more than willing to help. But when Ellen sees the young woman get off at the next station, she wonders just what has she agreed to.

I loved this book mainly because I couldn’t work out what was going on! There is clearly something special about baby Mia because quite a few people seem to be after her. Is she a clone (seriously, I did consider this) or important in another scientific way, like gene therapy (I also thought this)? Or is there an angry, deranged father who wants to hurt her? T.M. Logan throws up so many ideas that it’s hard to know which one to catch.

The writing is superb and the tension remains strong throughout. Ellen is a great character. She used to be in the Royal Navy so she can definitely handle herself. And just as well. There are quite a few action scenes.

Although Ellen is the main narrator, we do hear from others in the story. But which narrator do we believe? Who can we trust? More importantly, who can Ellen trust?

Trust Me is a fast-paced, intriguing story that will keep you guessing until the end.

You can buy Trust Me here. Or check out your nearest independent bookshop.

The Author

TM Logan’s thrillers have sold more than a million copies in the UK and are published in 19 countries around the world including the USA, South Korea, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Hungary, Serbia, Romania, Greece and the Netherlands.

Tim’s brand new thriller, TRUST ME, begins when a woman is asked to look after a stranger’s baby on a train – only for the mother to vanish. When she looks in the baby’s things, she finds a note that says: ‘Please protect Mia. Don’t trust the police. Don’t trust anyone.’ TRUST ME will be published in the UK on 18th March, 2021.

His previous novel, THE CATCH, is about a father who becomes convinced his daughter is about to marry a man with terrible secrets. Terrified that his cherished only child is about to marry a man who is not what he seems, Ed sets out to uncover the truth – before it’s too late…

His thriller THE HOLIDAY was a Richard & Judy Book Club pick and spent ten weeks in the Sunday Times paperback top ten. THE HOLIDAY takes place over a sweltering summer week in the south of France, as four best friends see the holiday of a lifetime turn into a nightmare of suspicion, betrayal and murder. Tim’s debut LIES was one of Amazon’s biggest selling e-books of 2017 and was followed by 29 SECONDS in 2018.

Tim was a national newspaper journalist before turning to novel-writing full time. He lives in Nottinghamshire with his wife and two children, and writes in a cabin at the bottom of his garden.

For exclusive writing, new releases and a FREE deleted scene from Tim, sign up to the Readers’ Club: http://www.bit.ly/TMLogan. You can also follow him on Twitter @TMLoganAuthor, find him on Facebook at /TMLoganAuthor, on Instagram @TMLoganAuthor or on his website at http://www.tmlogan.com

Book Review – The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel @4thEstateBooks #TheMirrorAndTheLight

In some ways, Hilary Mantel doesn’t really need a review from me. But after spending two months reading The Mirror and the Light, I feel as though I should share my thoughts. It’s been a real time investment! Just in case you don’t already know, here’s the blurb.

 

The Blurb

‘If you cannot speak truth at a beheading, when can you speak it?’

England, May 1536. Anne Boleyn is dead, decapitated in the space of a heartbeat by a hired French executioner. As her remains are bundled into oblivion, Thomas Cromwell breakfasts with the victors. The blacksmith’s son from Putney emerges from the spring’s bloodbath to continue his climb to power and wealth, while his formidable master, Henry VIII, settles to short-lived happiness with his third queen, Jane Seymour.

Cromwell is a man with only his wits to rely on; he has no great family to back him, no private army. Despite rebellion at home, traitors plotting abroad and the threat of invasion testing Henry’s regime to breaking point, Cromwell’s robust imagination sees a new country in the mirror of the future. But can a nation, or a person, shed the past like a skin? Do the dead continually unbury themselves? What will you do, the Spanish ambassador asks Cromwell, when the king turns on you, as sooner or later he turns on everyone close to him?

With The Mirror and the Light, Hilary Mantel brings to a triumphant close the trilogy she began with Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. She traces the final years of Thomas Cromwell, the boy from nowhere who climbs to the heights of power, offering a defining portrait of predator and prey, of a ferocious contest between present and past, between royal will and a common man’s vision: of a modern nation making itself through conflict, passion and courage.

My Review

The name ‘Thomas Cromwell’ has become synonymous with two very different people in recent years. I’m not sure anyone will forget the shock on Danny Dyer’s face when he was told on Who Do You Think You Are? that he was related to Thomas Cromwell and then through his son, Gregory, related to royalty. In some ways, Danny Dyer is the epitome of young Thomas Cromwell, the lad from Putney with humble beginnings; the rough diamond just waiting to be cut and polished, the spark of brilliance already showing. Then, of course, we have Hilary Mantel. Her Wolf Hall trilogy has done more for Thomas Cromwell’s reputation than the best PR company ever could. Instead of just being the man who got rid of the monasteries and lost his head over his Anne of Cleves blunder, Hilary Mantel has made him a very real and complex figure.

The story begins where it ended in Bring Up The Bodies – a sword slicing through the air, taking Anne Boleyn’s head off. Cromwell’s position is now secure. By writing in the present tense, we, the readers, are immediately there in Tudor England, the action happening all around us. Although some characters are fictional, there are plenty of familiar historical names – Thomas Howard – the Duke of Norfolk, Charles Brandon – the Duke of Suffolk and Thomas Cranmer – the Archbishop of Canterbury. Of course, foremost, is Henry VIII. Mantel has created a very complicated Henry – a real mixture of self-importance and vulnerability, and open to manipulation with the right whispers in his ear. I can’t help but wonder how much Henry regretted his decision to execute his right-hand man. Without doubt, no one else ever had as much power as Cromwell did during the rest of Henry’s reign.

This is a beast of a book and could easily have been three, making it a five part series instead of a trilogy. It would probably have earnt Hilary Mantel a lot more money if she had done so. As it stands, this third instalment is the equivalent of an eight course menu, with each dish as large and rich as the one before. I have to be honest and say I took a break halfway through as I had another book to read and review. The break did me good. Instead of feeling bogged down, I came back to it fresh and continued to enjoy the Tudor world. As the end approached, I found I didn’t want to leave that world, not least because I knew what the end would bring. 

So I’m bereft at leaving Thomas Cromwell behind. He may not be fully redeemed but I think he’s more understood. And in the historical notes at the end, Hilary Mantel cleared up something I had always wondered about. It turns out Thomas Cromwell was an ancestor of Oliver Cromwell. It’s ironic to think that after the worries and concerns of the nobility that Thomas Cromwell wanted to rule England himself, one of his descendants managed to do so. Of course, trying to turn Oliver Cromwell into a likeable figure might be a step too far. He cancelled Christmas after all.

You can buy The Mirror and the Light here.