Although I review romance novels via Rachel’s Random Resources, I do read other genres as the fancy takes me. So for those who read my blog and reviews, it makes sense to show the books I buy for myself. I love a good charity shop rummage and have to limit myself otherwise I walk out with two large bags full.
I read mainly on my Kindle these days, and my e-library is growing rapidly, but I still like to have real thing. I picked up three quite different books, each dark in their own way and in varying degrees, from just a little bit dark through to OMG, Lock the Door! All from Oxfam. It’s just as well that I went into the charity shop after I’d been to the bookshop, but more of that in a later post.
I’ve given links so you can buy your own digital copies; they are all very cheap, falling between £1.59 and £3.32.
There is no way to calculate when I’ll read these, but I had to have them. One is certainly being saved for those dark winter evenings when no-one know what lurks in the bushes…
What I need is a very long holiday, somewhere off the beaten track, , so I can just relax and read, read, read.
Charity Shop
So, first out of the charity book haul gate is Skarlet by Thomas Emson.
Fear grips London as dozens of clubbers die after taking a sinister new drug. But that’s only the beginning. 48 hours later, the dead clubbers wake up – and it’s open season on the living, who are butchered for their blood. Soon, London gives a name to its terror:VAMPIRES
Jake Lawton, bitter and betrayed after the Iraq War, find himself fighting another battle – against the growing army of immortal hunters and their human cohorts. Lawton joins forces with the journalist who brought about his downfall and the dealer tricked into distributing the drug. And together they take on the spineless authorities, the ruthless cohorts, and the hungry dead. But the vampire plague unleashed in London is nothing to what lurks beneath the streets –
Waiting to be fed . . .
Waiting to be resurrected . . .
Waiting to reign again over a city of human slaves . . .
Just the tale to read on a dark winter’s night, curled up in your armchair, this one I’m saving for later in the year.
When it comes to the werewolf – vampire debate, I’m firmly in the vampire camp. I love a good neck-nibbler yarn! Years ago I enjoyed the original Vampire Diaries by LJ Smith, then came the Twilight novels, and more. See my recommended book post coming tomorrow.
Buy your own copy HERE
Next is The Witchfinder’s Well by Jonathan Posner
Tudor England – a dangerous world where a few wrong words can get you accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake. So when a freak electrical storm sends modern-day girl Justine Parker time-travelling back to 1565, she quickly becomes the target of sinister witchfinder Matthew Hopkirk. Justine must use all her cunning and ingenuity to keep one step ahead of Hopkirk. But not only must she save herself, she also has to save her new love, Sir William de Beauvais, from the early death she knows history has decreed for him. Can Justine save herself from Hopkirk? And what if she saves Sir William from one fate, only to pitch him into another, even more deadly?
Not really too dark a book, but it’s set in the Tudor period, and revolves around a Witchfnder. Given that being found guilty of witchcraft at this time could land you on top of a burning pyre, with the local peasantry screaming burn the witch, it’s fairly scary.
Buy a copy HERE
The final book is The Fantastic Book of Everybody’s Secrets from acclaimed, award-winning crime writer, Sophie Hannah.
The Secret’s finally out…but beware, once you’ve read Sophie Hannah’s fantastic stories, everyday life will never seem the same again… Everybody has their secrets, and in Sophie Hannah’s fantastic stories the curtains positively twitch with them. Who, for instance, is the hooded figure hiding in the bushes outside a young man’s house? Why does the same stranger keep appearing in the background of a family’s holiday photographs? Why does a woman stand mesmerised by two children in a school playground, children she’s never met but whose names she knows well? What is the former deputy director of a literature festival doing sorting soiled laundry in a shabby hotel? All will be revealed…but at a cost. As Sophie Hannah uncovers the dark obsessions and strange longings behind the most ordinary relationships, everyday life will never seem quite the same again.
Sends a thrilling chill down my spine. I’ve read a couple of Sophie Hannah’s books and thoroughly enjoyed them. As I’m partial to the odd short story, this falls into the realms of perfect reading for research trips.
Buy a copy HERE
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Sun Chara, an Amazon top 100 bestseller, writes sexy, hip ‘n fun contemporary romance, and romantic comedies w/a divine twist for HarperImpulse. She makes her home in southern California, and has appeared on stage/film to rave reviews in How the Other Half Loves, General Hospital, and McGee and Me. She has a Masters Degree in Education and membership in SAG/AFTRA and Romance Writers of America. Sipping Frappuccinos topped with whipped cream/sprinkles, and dancing on the beach make everyday a celebration!
Encounters with a pair of supersized Y-fronts; a humourless schoolmarm with an unfortunate name and monstrous yellow incisors; and a tut-tutting, big-breasted, modern-day gorgon are the norm for Ruth Roth. She’s used to crazy. Her mum squawks like a harpy and her dad has a dodgy moral compass. Add in daily face-offs with a relentlessly bitchy mirror, and Ruth’s home life feels like a Greek tragicomedy.
Paula Houseman was once a graphic designer. But when the temptation to include ‘the finger’ as part of a logo for a forward-moving women’s company proved too much, she knew it was time to give away design. Instead, she took up writing.
Life as a duchess…
Virginia Heath lives on the outskirts of London with her understanding husband and two, less understanding, teenagers. After spending years teaching history,she decided to follow her dream of writing for Harlequin. Now she spends her days happily writing regency romances, creating heroes that she falls in love with and heroines who inspire her. When she isn’t doing that, Virginia likes to travel to far off places, shop for things that she doesn’t need or read romances written by other people.
A summer wedding, fifty cupcakes and a man she thought she would never see again … 
And the cake!
With cake.
Did I mention cake?
Kirsty Ferry is from the North East of England and lives there with her husband and son. She won the English Heritage/Belsay Hall National Creative Writing competition and has had articles and short stories published in various magazines. Her work also appears in several anthologies, incorporating such diverse themes as vampires, crime, angels and more.
The Uprising Series tells the story of three freedom fighters and their friends in high – and low – places that come together to overthrow a vainglorious Emperor and his militaristic Cabal to restore the city, and the way of life, they once knew and loved. 
With an impressive list of credentials earned over the course of two decades, Bernadette R. Giacomazzo is a multi-hyphenate in the truest sense of the word: an editor, writer, photographer, publicist, and digital marketing specialist who has demonstrated an uncanny ability to thrive in each industry with equal aplomb. Her work has been featured in Teen Vogue, People, Us Weekly, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Post, and many, many more. She served as the news editor of Go! NYC Magazine for nearly a decade, the executive editor of LatinTRENDS Magazine for five years, the eye candy editor of XXL Magazine for two years, and the editor-at-large at iOne/Zona de Sabor for two years. As a publicist, she has worked with the likes of Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson and his G-Unit record label, rapper Kool G. Rap, and various photographers, artists, and models. As a digital marketing specialist, Bernadette is Google Adwords certified, has an advanced knowledge of SEO, PPC, link-building, and other digital marketing techniques, and has worked for a variety of clients in the legal, medical, and real estate industries.
Two women from different generations brought together by another’s wrongdoing.
Michelle Vernal is a Harper Collins author who loves a happy ending. She lives with her husband, their two boys and a needy three-legged black cat in Christchurch, New Zealand. She’s partial to a glass of wine, loves a cheese scone and has recently taken up yoga—a sight to behold indeed. She is a freelance writer for a Canterbury lifestyle magazine who is currently working on her seventh novel. Michelle’s a firm believer in happy endings, and all of her stories are written with humour and warmth.
It’s time to come home to Cornwall
Jane Linfoot is a best-selling author, who lives in a muddy cottage, up a steep hill in Derbyshire, with her family, their pets, and an astonishing number of spiders. Although she loves seeing cow noses over the garden wall, she’s happy she can walk to a supermarket.