Blog Tour Review: Trickster by Sam Michaels

Trickster by Sam Michaels

Published: 16th April 2019

Publisher: Aria

Pages: 367

Available on Kindle

Order now from Amazon

Rating: 4/5

Blurb

To be ruthless is to be powerful, at least it is on the Battersea streets...

Georgina Garrett was born to be ruthless and she’s about to earn her reputation.

As World War One is announced a baby girl is born. Little do people know that she's going to grow up to rule the streets of Battersea. From a family steeped in poverty the only way to survive is with street smarts.

With a father who steals for a living, a grandmother who’s a woman of the night and a mother long dead, Georgina was never in for an easy life. But after a tragic event left her father shaken he makes a decision that will change the course of all their lives – to raise Georgina as George, ensuring her safety but marking the start of her life of crime…

Review

Trickster is the debut novel from Sam Michaels set in the gritty crime-ridden streets of Battersea just as World War One is breaking out and follows the story of Georgina Garrett.

Georgina didn’t have the best start in life as her mother dies when she was born and then she was kidnapped as a toddler and abused. After that her dad decided she was safer to be brought up as a boy and follow him into the thieving trade. George as she then became was tough and took no nonsense from anyone, even the local bully Billy Wilcox and his gang.

The story follows George through her life until her early twenties during this time she experience many brushes with the law, threats from Billy Wilcox and even heartache as she watches her best friend Molly Mimple suffer in squalor, but George emerges a strong, smart and ruthless young women who has learnt to hide her emotional scars from those she cares about.

Sam Michaels has done a great job capturing the realism of this time period. It was a harsh time for the poor of London, often resorting to prostitution and thieving just to survive. The fear people had of heavy gangs such as the Wilcox’s and equally the police resonates throughout the book. For this reason, I did find this a tough book for me to read as it deals with many sensitive subjects such as domestic abuse, rape, child abuse and murder which are written about in enough detail to make me feel squeamish on more than one occasion.

I enjoyed reading this book and seeing how George developed as a character. I was thrown by the last few chapters where she suddenly decides to become Georgina again and finds herself a love interest. I did feel some of her rough and ready attitude melted away in his presence and was very out of character, perhaps this is a storyline which will develop in the next book.

Talking of the next book I’m intrigued to see where Sam Michaels will take Georgina next as I felt Trickster ended with a dramatic conclusion for all the characters.

Thank you so much to Aria and Netgalley for sending me a copy to review and for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the Author

Sam Michaels lives in Spain with her family and plethora of animals. Having been writing for years Trickster is her debut novel.

Follow Sam:  

Facebook: @SamMichaelsAuthor

Twitter: @SamMichaelsGG

Buy links:

Amazon: https://amzn.to/2Upnb7S

Kobo: http://bit.ly/2UsPiTE

iBooks: https://apple.co/2HmWLA7

Google Play: http://bit.ly/2H8HrI3

Follow Aria

Website: www.ariafiction.com

Twitter: @aria_fiction

Facebook: @ariafiction

Instagram: @ariafiction

Blog Tour: The Silver Ladies of London by Lesley Eames, Guest Post

The Silver Haired Ladies of London by Lesley Eames

Published: 1st July 2018

Publisher: Aria

Available on Kindle

Order now from Amazon

Blurb

1920’s London. Featuring four attractive heroines, a scandal, a secret and a silver Rolls Royce.

Dismissed without references when their employer’s valuable necklace goes missing, friends Ruth, Lydia, Jenny and Grace try to rebuild their lives far from home in London.

A surprise inheritance of a beautiful silver Rolls Royce leads them to set up in business as female chauffeurs. But they soon discover that driving is a man’s world and find themselves facing a future fraught with constant challenges.

Soon their business; romances and even their friendship are under threat.

This is a heart-warming story of friendship, loyalty, courage and love. Perfect for the fans of Elaine Everest and Daisy Styles.

Guest Post

The Silver Ladies of London by Lesley Eames

For me, writing a story is like walking into the biggest, most gorgeous sweet shop in the world and gazing in wonder at jar after jar of exciting possibilities. Pear drops, pineapple chunks, mint imperials… Or in my case characters, plot, setting…

I’ve written dozens of short stories for the women’s magazine market but in writing my saga, The Silver Ladies of London, I had a bigger sweetie bag to fill than ever before. Bliss!

Terrific characters are a must as far as I’m concerned: I want readers to enjoy my characters and to care about them as they work through their personal issues and the obstacles they encounter. 

For my lead characters I chose Ruth, Lydia, Jenny and Grace. These young working class women have very different personalities with different strengths, weaknesses, aspirations and goals. They also have different problems in their lives but the friendship they develop as they work together in service at Arleigh Court, a prosperous household in provincial England, helps them to cope – until their circumstances change quite dramatically. Friendship, courage and loyalty were themes I wanted to explore as the story developed.

I set the story in the early 1920’s because this was a fascinating period in British history. The Great War was over and prosperity was returning to the country, bringing with it fashion, fun, jazz clubs, cocktails and glamorous cars. For some people, that was. For others there was grinding poverty with slum housing, precarious health and precious little in the way of employment rights or state financial support. Women had to contend with discrimination too, despite the vote having been given to some but by no means all of them. This social landscape offered a rich source of challenges and opportunities for my four girls to navigate, together with some fascinating themes for me to explore.

In my stories, characters, setting and storyline influence each other but as a writer I also have two magic words that I can summon to open up a whole host of ideas and potential directions. These words aren’t Abracadabra and Shazam but What if? Having decided on my characters, setting and themes, I summoned up the magic to ask myself a whole series of questions:

-        what if the girls are involved in a scandal?

-        what if they’re dismissed without references and forced to return to their homes and the problems they’re trying to escape or manage?

-        what if they can’t find new jobs locally because their reputations are in ruins?

-        what if they try their luck in London instead?

-        What if they use the surprise inheritance of a silver Rolls Royce to set up their own business – chauffeur-driven car hire with themselves as chauffeurs – in what is basically a man’s world?

-        What if love comes calling but is… complicated?

-        And what if one girl has a secret that threatens romances, business and friendship alike?

Answers rushed back at me and gradually Silver Ladies began to take shape. Not that it was an entirely smooth process. Certainly there were times when the dinner burned because I was so engrossed in my characters’ adventures but there were other times when I wanted to take an axe to my computer in frustration because I couldn’t get the words to flow in the way I wanted.

Writing is an emotional process for me. I get caught up in my characters’ tears and laughter, and I also have to process my own excitement and fears over how the story is – or might not be – developing. Whether I’m high or low on the emotional spectrum, writing is compulsive, however, and there’s nothing more rewarding. Except for my lovely family, of course (better say that in case they’re reading this).

Sometimes readers ask me questions and one question I’m being asked at the moment is which of the four girls is my favourite? It’s a question I can’t possibly answer because I like and admire all of them.

Another question I can’t answer is which of their love interests do I like best? How can I choose between dashing American, Harry James Dellamore, and shrewd Owen Tedris? Or between glorious Johnnie Fitzpatrick and everyone’s friend, Luke Huxtable?

Although I can’t choose between them I’m keen to hear what readers think of all the characters in the story, even the minor ones. There I have to confess to a teeny, tiny bit of favouritism because I had especially good fun writing about two of the minor characters: forthright Maggie O’Hara and granite-faced Lady Violet. I hope readers enjoy them too.

Lesley x

About the Author

Born in Manchester but currently living in Hertfordshire, Lesley’s career has included law and charity fundraising. She is now devoting her time to her own writing and to teaching creative writing to others. In addition to selling almost 90 short stories to the women’s magazine market, Lesley has won the Festival of Romance’s New Talent Award and the Romantic Novelists’ Associations Elizabeth Goudge Cup.

Follow Lesley

Twitter: @LesleyEames

Facebook: @LesleyEamesWriter

Buy now links:

Amazon: mybook.to/SilverLadies

Kobo: http://bit.ly/2sXL6zw

iBooks: https://apple.co/2t9HJFb

Google play: http://bit.ly/2sXBl4r

Follow Aria

Website: www.ariafiction.com

Twitter: @aria_fiction

Facebook: @ariafiction

Instagram: @ariafiction

The Girls from See Saw Lane by Sandy Taylor

The Girls from See Saw Lane by Sandy Taylor

Published: 4th December 2015

Publisher: Bookouture

Pages: 350

Available in Paperback and on Kindle

Order now from Amazon

Blurb

Brighton 1963. Mary Pickles and I walked along the street with our arms linked, looking in shop windows. We were best friends and together we were invincible.

Dottie and Mary forged a friendship over a bag of penny sweets when they were eight years old. They’ve shared everything together since then – the highs and lows of school, family dramas, hopes and dreams and now, at seventeen, they’re both shop girls, working at Woolworths.

As they go out in the world in pursuit of love and happiness, the simplicity of their childhood dissolves as life becomes more complicated. The heady excitement of first love will consume them both, but the pain of unintentional betrayal will test their friendship in ways neither of them could ever imagine…

A charming, heart-breaking and ultimately uplifting novel which brings a bygone era vividly to life.

Review

The Girls of See Saw Lane by Sandy Taylor tells the tale of Dottie and Mary, who’ve been best friends since age seven when Mary moved onto See Saw Lane. This is a tale of friendship, betrayal, romance, growing up and tragedy, it’s a story which seems so ordinary yet it is so well written that it will totally absorb you and capture your heart.

Both main characters Dottie and Mary are very likeable and although very different they have the kind of close friendship many of can be envious of. Mary is a dreamer and artistic and she longs to travel the world and attend art school in Paris. She infatuated with bad boy Elton and longs for him to whisk her away from Brighton. Dottie is the more sensible one, she enjoys her job at “Woolies” and all she really wants in life is to get married and have her own family, but she’s happy to follow along with Mary and her dreams.

When their friendship suffers the ultimate betrayal can they survive? Can one girl get over the betrayal and forgive her friend or can she move on and make a life on her own? What does the future hold for these two girls?

I loved the descriptions of life for the girls in 1960s Brighton, their work in “Woolies” where they encounter the latest make-up, to the record shop where they listened to their latest rock and roll heroes, to the chips the bought on the pier. It really made me feel like I was there with them experiencing everything.

I loved this novel so much, even though it’s probably the most heart-breaking story I’ve read all year. It left me sad but in a good way and I’m eager to read the next book “Counting Chimneys” to see what happens next.

I’d like to thank Bookouture and Netgalley for the review copy and rate this heart-breaking and beautifully written novel 5/5.