Fatal Inheritance

Fatal Inheritance by Rachel Rhys

Published by Doubleday

July 2018

London 1948: Eve Forrester is trapped in a loveless marriage, in a gloomy house, in a grey suburb. 
Out of the blue, she receives a solicitor’s letter. A wealthy stranger has left her a mystery inheritance but in order to find out more, she must travel to the glittering French Riviera. 

Eve discovers her legacy is an enchanting villa overlooking the Mediterranean sea and suddenly, life could not be more glamorous.

Alone in paradise, Eve must unlock the story behind her surprise bequest – before events turn deadly…

This is the second novel by Rachel Rhys (a.k.a. the crime writer Tammy Cohen) following her fabulous debut Dangerous Crossing last year and it doesn't disappoint.  Set in the French Riviera at the end of the second world war, the book is atmospheric, gripping and totally believable.  Sitting in the garden with the English sunshine this week I could almost feel myself transported to the heady coast of Southern France where the sky turns everything pink and everyone is beautiful.  

France in 1948 is nothing like its English counterpart.  Where rationing and make-do-and-mend are still in place in Britain, along the coastline of Cannes there is still a world of glitz and glamour and the rich and famous arrive there in droves expecting to be fully entertained.  

When Eve Forrester is summoned to a meeting with a solicitor she has never heard of before, it is not to expect to be travelling to France to discover what she is about to inherit.  Her dull, and quite frankly, annoyingly controlling husband Clifford doesn't want her to go, claiming it will all be a waste of time, but Eve is intrigued by the bequest and heads off alone to France to find out more about her surprising inheritance.

When she discovers she has been left a share in a beautiful villa overlooking the Riviera, she is suitably shocked, as are the family who own the rest of the property.  They presume that Eve has had an affair with the deceased, Guy Lester but Eve is more surprised than any of them, as she has never heard of this man before, let alone met him.

The family want nothing more than to sell the house and take the cash it will provide them, but slowly day after day, Eve begins to fall in love with the house and her new life.  However her refusal to part with her share in the property will lead to her downfall because someone wants her inheritance; with or without her permission, and Eve isn't as safe as she once thought she was.

With a whole host of glamorous characters in a fabulous setting, Fatal Inheritance is the perfect read for the summer but can you work out who is out to get Eve Forrester?  I certainly didn't!

Happy Reading

Miss Chapters x 

Sleeper 13

Sleeper 13 by Rob Sinclair

Published by Orion

June 2018

Smuggled to the Middle East as a child.

Trained as one of the most elite insurgents of his generation.

Forced to do things no one should, for a cause he couldn't believe in.

But as his brothers were preparing to kill, he was looking for a way out.

Now, on the eve of the deadliest coordinated attacks the world has ever seen, he finally has his chance.

He will break free and hunt down those who made him a monster.

He must draw on all his training to survive.

He is SLEEPER 13.

Now I'll be honest with you all, I'm not really a thriller so-of fan but Sleeper 13 sounded interesting enough for me to request to be part of the blog tour.  I've not read any of Rob Sinclair's books before (he's written a few others) so I can't comment on any of  his earlier works.  This book is set across the globe as there are a number of central characters, all seemingly unrelated but as you progress with the book you soon realise that they are connected in more ways than one.  

Aydin Torkal begins our story in France where he is desperate to leave the group where he is solely referred to as number thirteen; one of a group of children who have been brought up by the Teacher to kill those who do not follow their faith and beliefs.  Aydin knows that this move will not be easy, for the group will not just let him walk away without so much as a backward glance; in fact the only way in which the group will let Aydin leave will be by his death.

Across the globe in the Middle East we have Rachel Cox, a British secret service agent who has spent years tying to track down a group of children she believes have been trained and smuggled out of the area and who are plotting to carry out an horrific attack.  However those higher up than her are starting to believe that the evidence she has is not strong enough for her to continue her work - until that is the death of one of her informants, a charity worker called Nilay; a woman that Rachel believes has more information on this group of boys than anyone else she has met.

So how does this tie together you may be asking yourself?  Nilay is infact the twin sister of Aydin and when he learns of her death he vows revenge on those who carried it out.  So now the hunted becomes the hunter and Rachel Cox is going to find herself caught somewhere in the middle!

This is a great story, full of twists and turns and a real page-turner as you don't know where the story is going to take you to next.  What I can say is that there is a follow-up novel and I can't wait to find out what is going to happen in the sequel.

Happy Reading

Miss Chapters x