Welcome to my spot on the blog tour for Life Ruins and Someone Who Isn’t Me by Danuta Kot. Thank you to Zooloos Book Tours for the spot on the tour. Read on for more info and my reviews of both books!
In a small northern town, girls are disappearing.
You won’t see it in the papers and the police aren’t taking any notice, but the clues are there if you know where to look.
Becca sees that something is wrong, but she’s been labelled ‘difficult’ thanks to her troubled past. So when a girl is so savagely beaten she can’t be identified, and Becca claims she knows who she is, no one will believe her.
With the police refusing to listen, Becca digs for evidence that will prove what she is saying. But her search for justice will put herself and those closest to her in danger – and once she finds the truth, will anyone even listen?
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Review:
Life Ruins is my first read by Danuta Kot and I thought it was very well done. Set on the Yorkshire coast, this story is very character driven and quite bleak.
Kay, Jared, and Becca are the three characters we focus on. Their pasta and presents are well written, making them rounded characters. As they work together to solve the mystery of this story, it is interesting to watch their relationships.
The writing gives us a sense of place. I was thoroughly wrapped up in the story, because it was easy to visualize what was happening. I liked this one a lot and would recommend it.
Thank you to Zooloos Book Tours for the review copy and the opportunity to honestly review this book on the blog tour. All opinions are my own and unbiased.
Rating:
4/5☆
When everyone hides the truth, who do you turn to?
Becca’s had a hard time of it, but she has finally got her life together. She has a nice little flat, a steady job pulling pints, and she’s even seeing someone new: Andy, who keeps his private life to himself but is always good for a laugh. And then Andy vanishes. When his body turns up on isolated Sunk Island, Becca learns Andy wasn’t just another punter. He was a police officer, deep undercover, investigating a drugs ring that he believed operated out of Becca’s pub.
Staggered by the betrayal, Becca turns to the only person she thinks she can trust: her foster mum, Kay. But Kay has problems of her own. She’s just moved into a short-term let in the hopes of finding some peace and quiet. But peace and quiet are hard to come by on Sunk Island . . .
Before long, both women are drawn into a terrifying world of drugs, money and death.
Buy on Amazon UK
Buy on Amazon US
Review:
Someone Who Isn’t Me is the sequel to Danuta Kot’s Life Ruins. I would recommend reading these in order because there are returning characters. I think it is nicer to get their character development from the first book, so you can continue learning about them.
Danuta Kot writes very character driven stories, as proven by both of these books. In this, characters from the previous book return, and we see how their lives have changed. The good and the bad. And how they are brought together again by a dangerous situation. There are also other characters in this story who are just as well written. It’s a wonderful thing when I read a character driven story. I was drawn in by how real they felt.
Crime and mystery, Someone Who Isn’t Me had me hooked from page one. I really enjoyed the writing and would recommend this one.
Thank you to Zooloos Book Tours for the review copy and the opportunity to honestly review this book on the blog tour. All opinions are my own and unbiased.
Rating:
4/5☆
Danuta Kot (who also writes as Danuta Reah and as Carla Banks) grew up with stories. Her Irish mother and her Polish father kept their own cultures alive with traditional tales they shared with their children. For many years, she worked with young people in Yorkshire who were growing up in the aftermath of sudden industrial decline. She uses this background in her books to explore some of the issues that confront modern, urban society: poverty, alienation and social breakdown, using the contexts of the modern crime novel. She now works as a senior education consultant, work that involves travel to establish education and training in other parts of the world. She is a regular academic speaker at conferences and literary festivals and has appeared on radio and television.
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Jessica Belmont 
Thank you so much for both these fab reviews, so glad you enjoyed them! Thank you for taking part in the tour today x
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Thank you for another awesome tour!
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