• Author Interview with Marianne Holmes

    Author Interview with Marianne Holmes Hello everyone! How have you been this October? Hope all is well with y’all! It is my pleasure to invite and introduce Marianne Holmes today at Syllables of Swathi! She is none other than the author of the best selling Literary Fiction A little Bird Told Me, that released earlier this year! Click here to read my full review of the book, and enjoy the blurb of it! Read further to learn more about this Marianne and her lovely book. She also shares her writing experiences, and talks about her inspiration, favorite authors and her pet fishes – Infinity Flame and Mars!!! Author Biography: Marianne…

  • Author Interview with Amanda Reynolds

    Today I had the pleasure of talking to Amanda Reynolds about her debut book CLOSE TO ME. She also talks about her favorite books and genre – to read and write. She then reveals her writing habits, and some heartfelt advice to new authors! Read along to know more about this lovely person, and more details about her book by the end of the page.

  • Book Recommendation – Open Your Eyes by Paula Daly

    Haven’t we all wanted to pretend everything is fine? Jane Campbell avoids confrontation at any costs. Given the choice, she’ll always let her husband, Leon—a bestselling crime writer—take the lead, while she focuses on her two precious young children and her job as a creative writing teacher. After she receives another rejection for her novel, Leon urges Jane to put her hobby to rest. And why shouldn’t she, when through Jane’s rose-tinted glasses, they appear to have the perfect house and the perfect life?

  • Book Recommendation: Pieces of Her – Karin Slaughter

    What if the person you thought you knew best turns out to be someone you never knew at all . . . ? Andrea Cooper knows everything about her mother, Laura. She knows she’s spent her whole life in the small beachside town of Belle Isle; she knows she’s never wanted anything more than to live a quiet life as a pillar of the community; she knows she’s never kept a secret in her life. Because we all know our mothers, don’t we? But all that changes when a trip to the mall explodes into violence and Andrea suddenly sees a completely different side to Laura. Because it turns out…

  • Book Review – November Road – Lou Berney

    Everything changes in an instant, and few events have had more far reaching impact than JFK’s assassination. When the shots rang out Frank Guidry, top lieutenant in Carlos Marcello’s New Orleans based crime organization, realized he helped to orchestrate the president’s murder and that there was now a very real target on his back. For Charlotte in small-town Oklahoma, it was the moment that crystalised the end of her marriage. She had to take her daughters and leave her husband—no small thing in 1963. Both fleeing their past lives, Frank and Charlotte meet in a roadside hotel in New Mexico, and see in one another their only hope of safe…

  • Book Review – The Darkest Place – Jo Spain

    'Island of the Lost was the isle's name long before the hospital was built. In winter, they say the fog falls so heavy there that you can't see your hand in front of your face. Storms rage so forcefully you can be blown from the cliffs. Once St. Christina's was built, the name took on a new meaning. Very few who went into that place ever left.' Christmas day, and DCI Tom Reynolds receives an alarming call. A mass grave has been discovered on Oileán na Caillte, the island which housed the controversial psychiatric institution St. Christina's. The hospital has been closed for decades and onsite graves were tragically common.…

  • Book Review – The Secrets We Carried – Mary McNear

    A young woman travels home to Butternut Lake, confronting her past and the tragedy she and her friends have silently carried with them for over a decade while also facing an unknown future Butternut Lake is an idyllic place—but for one woman, her return to the lake town she once called home is bittersweet… Sometimes life changes in an instant.

  • Giveaway|Book Review – A Fatal Obsession by James Hayman

    Zoe McCabe is a beautiful young actress on the verge of stardom who has been basking in the standing ovations and rave reviews she’s been getting from critics and fans alike for her portrayal of Desdemona in an off-Broadway production of Othello. As she takes her final bows, Zoe has no idea that, seated in the audience, a man has been studying her night after night, performance after performance. A man whose carefully crafted plans are for the young actress to take a starring role in a far deadlier production he has created just for her.

  • Book Review – A Little Bird Told Me by Marianne Holmes

    Besides, if you were one half evil, wouldn’t you want to know about the other half? In the scorching summer of 1976, Robyn spends her days swimming at the Lido and tagging after her brother. It’s the perfect holiday – except for the crying women her mum keeps bringing home. As the heatwave boils on, tensions in the town begin to simmer. Everyone is gossiping about her mum, a strange man is following her around, and worst of all, no one will tell Robyn the truth. But this town isn’t good at keeping secrets… Twelve years later, Robyn returns home, to a house that has stood empty for years and…

  • Giveaway|Book Review – The Last Weekend of the Summer by Peter Murphy

    They have been coming to their grandmother Gloria's lake cottage since they were babies. Now Johnnie and Buddy have families of their own and C.C. has a life full of adult drama and adventure. And this trip – the only stated purpose of which is to bring the family together for the last weekend of the summer – seems full of portent. Gloria has been hinting that there's more on the agenda than grilling and swimming, and when the three siblings learn that their estranged father will also be in attendance, it becomes clear that this weekend will have implications that last far beyond the final days of the season.