Tag: Damppebbles

Blog Tour: ‘Foul Play’ card game

Something a bit different on the blog today – a blog tour stop for a new murder mystery card game!

This blog tour has been arranged by Damp Pebbles Blog Tours – with thanks to After Dark for my copy of the game in exchange for an honest review. As always, opinions are entirely my own.

From the Game Creators:

FOUL PLAY

The Murder Mystery Card Game

The Manor House Murder

A game for 2 – 5 players | Age 14 +

£8.95 + p&p

www.foulplaygame.co.uk

Facebook : @afterdarkmystery | Twitter : @afterdarkmurder | Instagram : @afterdarkmurder

Email : info@afterdarkmurder.co.uk

The Game

Welcome to Edwardian England. The Lord of the Manor is dead! The servants are our lead suspects and it’s up to you to unearth the evidence, seek out the suspects and catch the culprit in order to scupper the other sleuths, and win this game of murder!

There’s more than one way to catch a killer though. So what’s it gonna be? Good Cop or Bad Cop? These two game versions come with their own set of rules and tactics to crack the case and finger your suspect, but will you use fair play or FOUL PLAY?

The Game is Afoot! Playing as detective, you’ll need to find the three evidence cards that point to a specific suspect in order to catch a killer in this crazy criminal caper. Will you uncover them in the crime scene? Could the other detectives be willing to collaborate and share their findings? Or will you resort to more tricky tactics, and plunder the proof you need to solve this crime?

History of Foul Play

What’s a Murder Mystery Events Company to do?

With a pandemic sweeping the nation and no sign of being able to perform their confounding criminal cabarets or incredible interactive investigations any time soon, they needed to come up with a plan, another way to provide mystery to the masses (and provide income to keep themselves afloat)!

Well, lockdown does strange things to people, especially actors who can’t go out and perform. So one fateful evening, Ben & Lee Cooper-Muir decided to come up with a whole new way to murder people. Keeping their cards close to their chests they plotted and schemed until Foul Play : The Murder Mystery Card Game was born. So, what to do next? This is where After Dark enters the picture. After all, Ben and Lee were two of the operators of the infamous murder mystery company. Maybe they could collaborate to bring the game to the masses. When Lockdown restrictions were eased a top-secret meeting was held with the other criminal masterminds behind After Dark, Helen Burrows, Sophie Webster & Tom Fisher and a pact was made. The game would be launched and licensed under the After Dark banner.  In true After Dark style, the team burst into action and then began the beta testing, design updates, promotional planning, character changes, proofing, proofing and more proofing until finally all the kinks were ironed out, mysteries solved, and FOUL PLAY came to life!

We hope you enjoy playing it, and although we all hope to be back performing soon, WATCH THIS SPACE! Now we know we can create and produce games we’ve got a lot more fun things planned for the future! 

My Review:

I jumped at the chance to review a murder mystery card game on my blog – my family love a game and Cluedo is a favourite so I hoped we would enjoy this one.

The premise is easy to understand – you either play the ‘good cop’ version where you race to find the culprit, or ‘bad cop’ mode where you try to frame anyone you can!

We played the first go through as a bit of a dummy run but that was all we needed – after this, even my 10 year-old took to the game quickly and had no problems following play. The trickiest bit was working out the playing space with the ‘crime scene’ and other piles of cards. We did find the ‘bad cop’ version a bit easier to follow for the children though as this was more about collecting combinations of cards and so a bit simpler than competing to deduce the single solution in the ‘good cop’ mode.

The game itself isn’t complicated but takes a bit of brain-work and following the cards held by other players – if you lose concentration then you are in for a frustrating time as you chase clues and try to avoid the useless red herrings!

The game cards are well made and the illustrations are appealing – I loved the range of culprits and the way that the clues gradually narrow them down based on their clothes, physical appearance and other items in their pictures.

We played mainly as a 3 – me and my 12 year-old son and 10 year-old daughter. This worked really well and we had a lot of fun stealing clues from each other, collaborating or passing off the dreaded red herrings. The game worked well as a game for 4 too on the occasion we managed to rope in my husband for a round.

The game is suggested for those aged 14+ but my children had no problems picking up the game and there was no unsuitable content – nothing they aren’t already familiar with through Cluedo, anyway. In fact, my daughter won every single game we have played so far which is either incredible luck or more skill than the rest of us have!

I’d recommend this as a fun family card game. It doesn’t take long to learn to play and I think it has plenty of scope for repeated playing – each round would be different and varied. It certainly was a winner with my family and will be a game we play many more times over this Christmas period.

Blog Tour: ‘The Wrong Sort to Die’ by Paula Harmon

Welcome to my stop on the Damp Pebbles blog tour for ‘The Wrong Sort to Die’ by Paula Harmon. This engaging and lively historical mystery was published by January Press in paperback and digital formats on 30th May 2020.

Book Blurb:

June 1910.


Fighting her corner in a man’s world, Dr Margaret Demeray works as a pathologist in a London hospital for the poor. Suppressing her worry that she’s breaching confidentiality, Margaret gives a stranger called Fox information about a dead down-and-out, in the hope he’ll use it to raise awareness of bad working conditions.

But when a second man appears to die the same way, Margaret starts to wonder why the enigmatic Fox keeps turning up to ask ever more complex questions.

She decides to work alone, uncertain of his motives and wary of her attraction to him. Once she starts investigating however, her home is burgled, she’s attacked in broad daylight and a close friend becomes distant. Fox offers the chance to forge an alliance, saying he knows why the men have died but needs her to find out what is killing them and who is behind it.

Yet how come the closer she gets to him the more danger she faces? And how can a memory she’d buried possibly be linked to the deaths?

Margaret must discover the truth before someone – known or unknown – silences her for good.

My Review:

I love a good mystery book. I also love historical fiction. Furthermore, I love a sassy and strong female protagonist, especially those pushing at societal boundaries, so choosing to read this book was a no-brainer for me!

I really loved the character of Dr Margaret Demeray who works as a pathologist in a London hospital for the poor – this was unknown for women at this time and it seemed a regular occurrence in the novel that men visited the hospital expecting to meet a male Doctor – it was frustrating to both Margaret and me that she was often treated as a nurse or some kind of helper!

When the death of what appears to be a rough-sleeper is brought to Margaret’s attention, she investigates his lungs for signs of disease as was common among those suffering poverty in London. However, she is mystified to find signs of another issue, almost a kind of poisoning of the tissue, and worries that it is caused by working conditions.

When another body is discovered with the same signs, Dr Margaret Demeray becomes embroiled in a mystery that proves dangerous to her personally. Her only ally seems to be a man called Fox, about whom she knows nothing other than he helps her out and keeps digging for information.

As Margaret is led into ever-more perilous situations, I couldn’t wait to turn the pages and race through the book to find out what happened. I really liked the fact that – although she faces some real danger – Margaret is a heroine that rarely needs saving by a man! Instead, she is tough and makes considered and thoughtful decisions – and she can see off an attacker if needed!

The plot is well-paced and the clues gradually begin to add up to something that is much beyond Margaret’s expectations. As the events of the novel began to race towards a denouement, I had everything crossed for Margaret! I wasn’t sure how the strands of the story would come together but they do – and well.

I would heartily recommend this to anyone who likes intelligent historical fiction with a crime and mystery element. This is no cosy crime – the diseased lungs and pathology put paid to that idea early on – but it is an engaging and lively novel with a heroine who is to be admired.

About Paula Harmon:

Paula Harmon writes chiefly but not only historical mysteries. Paula Harmon was born in North London to parents of English, Scottish and Irish descent. Perhaps feeling the need to add a Welsh connection, her father relocated the family every two years from country town to country town moving slowly westwards until they settled in South Wales when Paula was eight. She later graduated from Chichester University before making her home in Gloucestershire and then Dorset where she has lived since 2005.

She is a civil servant, married with two adult children. Paula started making up stories before she could write but didn’t take the plunge and do it seriously until 2015. Now she has several writing projects underway and wonders where the housework fairies are, because the house is a mess and she can’t think why.

Social Media:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Paula_S_Harmon

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pg/paulaharmonwrites

Website: https://paulaharmon.com/

Amazon Author Page: https://amzn.to/37wEXzm

Purchase Links:

Amazon UK: https://amzn.to/2TioPJu

Amazon US: https://amzn.to/2HsTwcg

WWW Wednesday: 11th November, 2020

WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted at Taking on a World of Words. Anyone can take part and it is a great way of sharing what you have just finished reading, what you are currently reading and what is next on the TBR.

Links are provided for books already published/pre-orders – thanks for supporting my blog with any purchases (at no extra cost to you!)

What have you recently finished reading?

I have finished reading ‘The Wrong Sort to Die’ by Paula Harmon, a historical mystery novel that is for a blog tour with Damp Pebbles. It’s an engaging story about a pioneering female pathologist in Edwardian London. My review will be on the blog tour next week.

Then I read ‘The Cousins’ by Karen McManus, a YA thriller, for a blog tour at the end of November with The Write Reads. This one is a twisty story of family lies and long-buried secrets in a small island community on Gull Cove Island in America.

Another blog tour book also turned up this week and I devoured it in one sitting! ‘How Love Actually Ruined Christmas (or Colourful Narcotics)’ by Gary Raymond is a hilarious skewering of the 2003 Richard Curtis film, ‘Love Actually’. It made me laugh so much and nod in agreement. My (extremely gushing) review will be on the blog later in the month as part of the Damp Pebbles tour.

What are you reading now?

I’ve joined a reading group on Twitter in order to (hopefully) knock through some of the NetGalley backlog – this was set up by the lovely Emandherbooks and is a supportive group of bloggers working on #NetGalleyNovember2020.

Due to them, I’ve made excellent in-roads to Laura Purcell’s ‘The Shape of Darkness’ which I am absolutely loving! It’s a historical, spooky, gothic tale involving spiritualism and murder – right up my street! This one will be published in January 2021.

I’m also reading ‘Rebecca’ by Daphne du Maurier with the fabulous bunch at The Write Reads. It’s a book that (I’m ashamed to say) I’ve failed to read on two previous occasions but I’m making progress this time.

I’m still reading ‘Pandora’s Jar’ by Natalie Haynes. I’m enjoying it but can’t seem to make much progress as it is packed with ideas and interesting stuff. I keep having to put it down to digest bits!

Finally, I’m still working my way through the audiobook of Jasper Rees’ ‘Let’s Do It’, the biography of Victoria Wood that is read by so many famous voices. Although I love the narration, I am finding it quite slow going and – coming in at about 21 hours – I have a long way to go. I’m not sure I’m going to make it.

What do you think you will read next?

I’ve just taken on another blog tour for Damp Pebbles as there was a date that needed filling so my next read is ‘The Heat’, a crime novella by Sean O’Leary.

Then it’s back to NetGalley and the brilliant ARCs vying for my attention! Top of the pile at the moment (but always subject to change) are these gems:

  1. ‘Hyde’ by Craig Russell – I loved ‘The Devil Aspect’, his previous novel, and cannot wait to immerse myself in Victorian Edinburgh with this one
  2. ‘The Dead of Winter’ by Nicola Upson – I love this detective series in which the sleuth is crime writer Josephine Tey and this is the latest
  3. ‘Lie Beside Me’ by Gytha Lodge – the latest instalment of another brilliant crime series and the blurb on this one is incredible!
  4. ‘Threadneedle’ by Cari Thomas – I’ve seen a lot about this book all over Twitter and it sounds magical
  5. ‘Nick’ by Michael Farris Smith – a novel focusing on the narrator of ‘The Great Gatsby’ before the events of that story

As always, thanks for reading and following my blog!

With thanks to the blog tour hosts, publishers, authors and NetGalley for providing me with the books in exchange for honest reviews. The only book not provided for free in this week’s round-up is ‘Rebecca’ by Daphne du Maurier.

Header photo with thanks to Jessica Fadel for sharing their work on Unsplash.

August Wrap-Up and September TBR

It’s been another busy month on the blog…soon to be scuppered by my return to work in September.

Once I’m back teaching full time, there’s no way I’ll be reading as much!

Still, for now, let’s look at what I read last month and what I’d like to read in September.

I read 14 books this month and am now on 80/100 on my Goodreads challenge.

AUGUST’S READS

‘The Child Who Never Was’ by Jane Renshaw

This twisty psychological thriller about a missing child and mental health was the focus of my first ever blog tour for Damp Pebbles Tours. You can read my review here.

‘Evil Things’ by Katja Ivar

Gifted to me by Bitter Lemon Press, this is an excellent historical crime novel set in 1950s Finland. The bleak and remote conditions of Lapland make an eerie setting and Inspector Hella Mauzer is one to watch! You can read my review here.

‘The Betrayals’ by Bridget Collins

A fabulous historical novel with a similar feel to Collins’ first novel, ‘The Binding’. Far too intricate to do justice here, I’ll be reviewing this on the blog closer to the publication date in November.

‘Their Silent Graves’ by Carla Kovach

The latest installment of the excellent police procedural series featuring DI Gina Harte. This one is all-out scary as a serial killer starts to bury the inhabitants of Cleevesford alive at Halloween! This is to be published on 17th September so my review will be on the blog then.

‘Longhand’ by Andy Hamilton

This is for a blog tour in early September for Random Things Tours, so watch this space for my review of this funny, poignant, bizarre and truly wonderful novel.

‘People of Abandoned Character’ by Claire Whitfield

This is a brilliant take on the Jack the Ripper story set on the streets of Victorian London. Refreshingly focused on the plight of the women and with a strong heroine, this is one to watch for. Due for publication on October 1st so review will follow closer to that time.

‘The Quickening’ by Rhiannon Ward

A gorgeous, gothic tale of séances and spookiness! The dual narrative flits between 1896 and 1925 with a story about a crumbling family estate and the pregnant female photographer who has been commissioned to work there. You can read my review here.

‘The Watcher’ by Kate Medina

Another blog tour read (for Random Things Tours) so watch this space for my review of this tense and terrifying crime novel!

‘The Great Godden’ by Meg Rosoff

A lovely coming-of-age novel in which the narrator grapples with an obsession with the glorious Kit Godden over a long, hot beach summer.

‘Shakespearean’ by Robert McCrum

One of the many books to be released on 3rd September, this one is a lively and informative jaunt through Shakespeare’s plays and the legacy of the man himself. Packed with historical context and literary criticism, this book also details the way that McCrum turned to Shakespeare in the aftermath of his stroke. Review to follow on the blog this week.

‘State of the Union’ by Nick Hornby

This was (I think) the only Nick Hornby book I haven’t read so thought I had better complete the set! It follows ten conversations between a couple who meet in the pub before their weekly marriage guidance sessions in which they are working through some big issues. As with all Hornby’s writing, it is relateable and witty.

‘A Girl Made of Air’ by Nydia Hetherington

Another one of the huge number of books due for release on 3rd September, this one is about a circus performer on a quest for a missing child in post-war England and America. It is an immersive and engaging read and my review of it will be on the blog next week.

‘Women Don’t Owe You Pretty by Florence Givens

I’m always up for a feminist tome and this one is fabulously illustrated. As someone of the *ahem* slightly older generation of feminists, there wasn’t much new here for me, but this would make excellent reading for all young women.

‘A Chip Shop in Poznan: My Unlikely Year in Poland’ by Ben Aitken

Ahead of the publication of Aitken’s new book ‘The Gran Tour’ next week (review to follow), I thought I’d read this one which was given to me as a birthday present. It’s an interesting and engaging insight into Poland and its people as Aitken spent a year in the country.

SEPTEMBER’S TBR PILE

I find it really hard to commit to a selection of books as I’m very much a mood reader. However, these look amazing and I really want to get through them (if my workload permits!)

‘Unto This Last’ by Rebecca Lipkin

This MASSIVE novel about John Ruskin is for a blog tour so I’ll definitely be reading this one soon. It sounds perfect for me – a Victorian setting, Pre-Raphaelite art and the promise of an insight into this intriguing figure from history.

‘The Devil and the Dark Water’ by Stuart Turton

Highly anticipated book from the writer of ‘The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle’ which I loved! I have a NetGalley copy, but I’ve also pre-ordered the gorgeous hardback with sprayed edges from Forbidden Planet. That’s how confident I am that it’ll be good!

‘And Now for the Good News’ by Ruby Wax

I chose this because we all need good news right now! Although it was written before the pandemic, Wax offers us a cheerful view of the world and the progress humanity has made.

‘Pandora’s Jar’ by Natalie Haynes

Carried over from last month’s TBR but still there! I love a myth retelling so am excited to read this.

‘Maiden Voyages’ by Sian Evans

Thanks to Erwan Hesry for sharing their work on Unsplash.

This looks to be fascinating – an account of a selection of the women travelling by ocean liner during the interwar years. I love history and even more so when it focuses on women’s lives so I am looking forward to reading this.

‘The Sanatorium’ by Sarah Pearse

This one isn’t due out until 2021 but it has rocketed up my TBR pile because it looks brilliant! A thrilling mystery set in a remote hotel (ex-sanatorium) high in the Swiss Alps…what’s not to like?

With thanks to NetGalley, Random Things Tours, Damp Pebbles Tours, Bitter Lemon Press and my friends and family for keeping me in books! As always, opinions are entirely my own.

Header photo with thanks to Nong Vang for sharing their work on Unsplash.