Book Extract Blog Tour | Bone Deep by Sandra Ireland

Today, I'm very excited to be part of the blog tour with Love Books Group for Bone Deep by Sandra Ireland and I have a great extract to share with you all. Bone Deep is a Psychological Thriller/Suspense novel and is available to buy in paperback or ebook format! Here is a little bit more about the book before I share my extract. 

Synopsis

What happens when you fall in love with the wrong person?

The consequences threaten to be far-reaching and potentially deadly. Bone Deep is a contemporary novel of sibling rivalry, love, betrayal and murder. It is a dual narrative, told in alternative chapters by Mac, a woman bent on keeping the secrets of the past from her only son, and the enigmatic Lucie, whose own past is something of a closed book. Their story is underpinned by the creaking presence of an abandoned water mill, and haunted by the local legend of two long-dead sisters, themselves rivals in love, and ready to point an accusing finger from the pages of history.

Extract

Lucie

You started it.

You're to blame.

You have to end it before the guilt destroys you.

A bird sets up an agitated calling on the far bank, making me jump. End it . . . end it . . .  end it . . . What sort of bird sings at night? One who can't sleep. Fuck it, I shouldn't be out here.

I stuff the pad back into my pocket and get to my feet. Floss appears like magic, and as I bend to pat her head, a heavy splash startles me. The noise reverberates through my system, but when I spin towards it, there is nothing to be seen but the water spreading slowly in neat circles. What the hell was that? What size fish would you need to make that kind of noise? Floss whines. I hold my breath and wait, all my senses straining. I'm never at my most comfortable near water, but the added dimension of something unknown lurking beneath the surface makes me want to run screaming for home. There's nothing to see but faint circles in the water, the gentle slop against the bank.

I search for a rational explanation. Maybe there are pike in there? You read about people netting monster pike all the time. I have an image in my head of some weird prehistoric-looking fish, lurking in the muddy deep. The moon slinks behind a cloud and everything is swallowed up. Only sparkles remain – glints and droplets and the paleness of leaves. My eyes are fixed on the spot where the thing disappeared. That splash, such a heavy weight . . . 

My vision blooms in the dark; my eyes grow wide. Out there, something surfaces. A glimmer of yellow. Something yellow, floating just beneath the surface. Then it sinks slowly out of sight. Not everyone can float.

I run.

I run all the way back to the cottage, skidding on the mud, tripping over the thorny snakes of brambles, with Floss galloping at my heels. I have no idea what I've just seen in the pond – that heavy splash, the glimmer of yellow – but all I can think of is Jane and that stupid yellow cardigan. I run straight to her bedroom, wilt outside the door, my breath coming in short gasps and my heart thudding with terror. I know it's not her. Didn't I say goodnight to her just an hour ago? But I'm afraid to open the door. I am so afraid to see an absence of Jane, when for all these months I've been praying for just that. All those times I've wanted my sister to disappear off the scene . . . My head is filled with that yellow cardigan, imagining it saturated with pond water, weighing her down . . . I burst into the room. Jane is asleep, as I knew she would be, breathing deeply and evenly. Relief washes through me until I feel weak from it. I retreat silently and close her door.

About the Author

Sandra Ireland was born in Yorkshire, lived for many years in Limerick, and is now based in Edinburgh. She began her writing career as a correspondent on a local newspaper but quickly realised that fiction is much more intriguing than fact. In 2013 Sandra was awarded a Carnegie-Cameron scholarship to study for an MLitt in Writing Practice and Study at the University of Dundee, graduating with a distinction in 2014. Her work has appeared in various publications and women's magazines. Her debut novel was Beneath the Skin (Polygon, 2016).

Check out the rest of the Blog Tour below!

BOOK REVIEW | Billionaire's Banquet by Ron Butlin

Genre: Literary Fiction/Humour

Publication Date: 15th April 2017

My Rating: ★★★★

Goodreads Page

Link to Buy: Amazon

Goodreads Summary:

1985, Edinburgh. Thatcher's policies are biting deep - fat cats and street kids, lovers, losers and the rest struggle to survive. Hume sets up a business catering for the rich and their ever-growing appetites. But by the new millennium, these appetites have become too demanding.

Powerful, challenging and very funny, Billionaires' Banquet is an immortality tale for the 21st century.

About Ron Butlin

With an international reputation as a prize-winning novelist, RON BUTLIN is a former Edinburgh Makar/Poet Laureate. Now over to Ron -

Before becoming a writer, I was a pop-song lyricist (3 records and a brief appearance in a justly-neglected film. I was also a footman attending parties for the great and good, the rich and bad (see my forthcoming novel 'Billionaire's Banquet'), a barnacle-scraper on the Thames and a male model. My work has been widely translated, and 'The Sound of My Voice' has been twice been awarded a ‘Best Foreign Novel’ prize as well been made into a film, a rather short film.

I am a novelist, poet, children's author, opera librettist, playwright - one of these, on a good day. I have been auctioned twice for charity, and put in a cage outside parliament for The Day of the Imprisoned Writer. All very character-building. I have given readings world-wide including at the House of Lords, John Knoz's pulpit in St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh, and an Arab tent in Bahrain.

I live in Edinburgh with my wife, the writer Regi Claire, and our dog (Note - Nessie, as she's called in the book, features in my first novel for early teens, 'Steve & FranDan Take on the World' which is due out this spring. She is great fun on paper and in real life).

**No Spoilers**

I’m thrilled to be on the blog tour with Love Books Group for Billionaire's Banquet by Ron Butlin today and to have a spoiler-free review of the book to share. Thanks so much to the lovely Kelly from Love Books Group for sending me a copy of this book to review!

This book is a humorous literary fiction novel that follows an interesting group of Edinburgh students living in Thatcher’s Britain in the 1980s: Hume, Cat, St Francis, DD and Electric Boy. All of them are dreaming of wonderful futures they think their lives will hold, while in the present they are enjoying the drink, fun, and shared accommodation of their youth. This is a very character-driven story and focuses mostly on their dreams and hopes. I loved Butlin's characters, they were so three-dimensional and well created. They were all equally flawed but also fascinating to follow. I especially enjoyed the female characters in the book as they were so vastly different and always reacted as I expected them to. Butlin is great at making a social commentary using his characters and that can be seen throughout this book.

One thing that I didn't expect, but still absolutely loved, with this book is the jump to present-day Edinburgh. It was so interesting to see the characters so many years later and to see how much the city and its inhabitants changed (or didn't change) in that time. There is so much dark humour woven within the story as it portrays the measures of 'success' through wealth and how the characters see themselves.

Having only been to Edinburgh a couple of times in my life, I wasn't able to fully appreciate the setting as much as I'd hoped. However, Butlin does create a vivid picture of many areas in the city and I found myself frequently looking them up to see where the characters were in relation to what I knew. I'm sure someone who knows Edinburgh more than me would really appreciate Butlin's beautiful descriptions of the city.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I found the characters to be incredibly engaging and the story kept me hooked as I wanted to know what happened next. I found this to be very reminiscent of The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst so I would definitely recommend this book for anyone who was a fan of that! I will warn that there is explicit content in this book so if you're younger then please be aware of that!