Run Rabbit Run (Sophie Green Mysteries 5) - Kate Johnson

'I had to fall in love with someone who gets nearly killed three times a year.'

Sophie is an ex-spy who is having a very bad day indeed. She was the last person at the scene of the murder of an MI5 officer and despite her protested innocence, everything points to her being guilty of the crime; he was shot with her gun, and her fingerprints are found in his office. Now she's on the run, and trying to discover who has set her up.

Her boyfriend Luke Sharpe works for MI6, and he swore he'd never get involved with a woman like Sophie, but then: 'Hurricane Sophie had blown into his life, the levees had cracked, and a lifetime of emotion had unleashed itself...now the strength of his feelings terrified him'. He has fallen in love with her, and sets about trying to help her find out what has happened. 

Sophie meets Jack in a very entertaining way. He is wanted for a crime in the USA that seems all too similar to what Sophie is alleged to have done. Could the same person or people have set them both up? And can Jack be trusted? 

I think Sophie is a very likeable, highly entertaining and fun character, and despite the amount of trouble she seems to attract and the sometimes rather daft actions she takes, you get the feeling she would be a very interesting person to be around, and life would certainly never seem to be boring with her. She watches 'Buffy as a kind of therapy.' Sometimes she acts before she thinks, making her dangerous too. When a friend asks Luke if he intends to marry Sophie, the thoughts that run through his head give us a detailed picture of this larger than life lady who he loves:

'She was a lunatic. She had no prospects, even when she wasn't on the run. His family hated her. She was fast-mouthed and sharp-tongued and soft-hearted, and she'd turn his home into a lost-cat sanctuary given half a chance. She was young, irresponsible, bright, mad, and everything he'd spent his life ordering himself to believe he'd never wanted.'

The story concentrates alternately on Sophie's escapades, and then on what Luke is getting up to. The writer develops both characters, so we have both a heroine and hero whose points of view we get to know in this story. There is always something happening to keep the reader interested. I love how they travelled around and so we get many different locations in the story. There is also some lovely witty humour at times. This is a romantic story with two handsome heroes and a good deal of adventure and mystery woven in. I would have liked it to be perhaps a little bit more intricate on the mystery side and perhaps a little tighter in the middle, but the novel for the most part is fast-paced and Kate Johnson keeps us guessing and interested in what is coming next.

As mentioned in the title, this is number five in the Sophie Green mysteries series. I haven't read the other books in the series, but I enjoyed this one very much without any knowledge of her previous encounters. There are occasional mentions of past episodes in her life and career which adds a bit of background for those of us who are new to her adventures having only started with this book.

A fun read full of antics, dilemmas, disguises, mystery and romance featuring 'the stubborn, contrary, brilliant, corkscrew-brained entity know as Sophie Green.' 

Published by ChocLit and available now in paperback and ebook formats.


You can follow the author on twitter @K8johnsonauthor and visit her blog and website here.

Thank you very much to the publisher for sending me an ebook of this novel to read and review.


3.5/5

Fable's Fortune - Sue Johnson

'My life began like a fairytale - I was born under a roof of stars in the plum orchard at the bottom of the garden.'

Fable spent her early years living happily with her mother Jasmine, and Lily, who she knows as Gangan and who is like a grandmother to her, in a house called Starlight. Then, when she was ten, her father Derek snatched her away one day to live with him at the vicarage and refused to let her mother see her anymore, claiming she was ill and unfit. Fable is now grown-up and married to Tony and has a teenage daughter of her own, Cara, who unkindly tends to defy her mother and side with her father against Fable. Her daily life is monotonous and unrewarding though, her husband is spiteful and unkind, she is like a prisoner and her spirit is stifled.

The story sees Fable decide to look back upon her life, remembering magical days from her early childhood, her days with her father, the time with her first love Tobias, then pondering her unhappy marriage, and looking for a new way forward, a way to find herself again:

'I decided what I'd do was go back to the earliest time in my life that I could remember and unravel the memories locked inside my head, pulling the threads until they came loose. Maybe as I rewrote my own story, I'd find the place where the pattern had gone wrong and recreate my life.'

Thinking about the time spent living with her father, she recalls how unhappy she was then, and she felt 'this wasn't really me...soon I'd wake up in my bedroom at Starlight and be my true self again.' She refuses to love her father because of what he has done in separating her from the people she has grown up with and who she loves and trusts. She tries but fails to escape. Fable experiences an all-too-brief but magical period of happiness in her life when she meets and falls in love with Tobias, but this loving relationship is sadly not destined to last, and that she is to experience more than one tragic loss in her life.

Then she meets Tony, and believes that this is her destiny. But he is a mean-spirited, self-centred and controlling man, who doesn't seem to expect Fable to have any life of her own outside their home, just to cater to him and behave as he expects. This leads to Fable feeling so trapped and unhappy. 'Our marriage felt like being in one of those horror films where the walls were closing in and there was no excape.' She is scared to take action because he threatens that she will not see her daughter if she does.

I love the way Fable associates taste with words, she will say this word tasted to her like a certain food, and I also loved how hawthorn always reminds her of Tobias later in her life. Fable is energised by the sunrise at the start of the book: 'the renewal of the earth's energy...matched the need for change inside me', this reminds her how, when she was little, they would elebrate the Winter Solstice and have tarot readings, and these things have remained important to her, such as tarot readings informing her life, though concealed from her husband.

Fable starts creative writing at the local library, and it is through this means of escape and expression that she at last finds solace, and an outlet for her feelings, and where she begins to meet kindred spirits like Linnet and Liam who treat her with kindness and offer her friendship and positivity.

Sue Johnson has created a moving and inspirational story of love, loss, sadness and hope. The time Fable spent with Tobias and the joyful feelings she experienced then are beautifully conveyed by the author. There is tension in the plot when Fable is trapped first with her father, and then with Tony. The fact that Fable finds an eventual way to happiness could be an inspiration to anyone even if they have felt trapped in an unhappy situation for a long time. This story reminds us that it is within us all, with a bit of love, support and encouragement from other kind souls, to find the courage to change our lives and make them better: as Gangan says, 'Magic happens, Fable dear...but you have to help yourself.'

Published by Indigo Dreams.


Thank you to the author for kindly sending me a copy of this novel to read and review.


You can follow the author on twitter @SueJohnson9 and visit her website, the Writer's Toolkit  where she offers tips and advice on writing.


Sue is part of loveahappyending click the link to find out more. 


4/5

The UnTied Kingdom - Kate Johnson

Eve is a has-been celebrity who was in a girl band, now starring in a reality television show, when she falls through a hole or portal in the world, and when she comes to, she finds herself in an England very different from the one she left behind. Here, the country is under military control and is at war with Coalitionist fighters. Everyday things are no longer available – telephones are scarce and only owned by the very rich, hardly anything is known about computers, and even more frighteningly for Eve, history as she knows it has been rewritten – there was no British Empire, and England is not a major power in the world, in fact it is a much more primitive place.

Eve is found by Major Will Harker, and ends up under his wing. Those around her initially view Eve with suspicion. What are all these things that she speaks of, which to them sound so peculiar, or are completely unknown? Is she a spy or an alien? How do they deal with this woman who is evidently so unfamiliar with their world, and how does she try and comprehend them when everything seems the same and yet totally different – is she mad, is this a parallel universe? Harker has his own problems, with Sholt, the man he despises, looking to get promoted, and now his boss wants him to run a mission to find a computer, using Eve to help him and his team, since she knows all about them, whereas to Harker and his crew, they are totally unknown. 

This is an appealing romance novel with a twist – a clever concept that makes it an original, exciting, and dramatic read too! I love the premise behind this book and I like the clever title. It’s intriguing and if you can suspend disbelief, it really makes you think about how life could be very different. Eve makes for a clever, spirited heroine who takes a full part in the adventure, and we feel how unsettled she is to find that the London, the England she knows, its history and culture has all changed. Why doesn’t anyone recognize the songs she sings to them? Harker is a strong, formidable man, a loyal and proud leader, but he has a soft, sensitive side which is revealed to the reader, as, despite the internal conflicts regarding who she is and where she has come from, his romantic feelings for Eve develop. There is an interesting supporting cast of characters including Harker's ex-wife and her sister, who he takes under his wing. There is so much more to this read than romance, it is also very much an adventure story, a wartime drama, with a paranormal/fantasy element, all of which the author has cleverly combined.  

4/5

Published in the UK by ChocLit and available now.

Find out more about the author here and more about ChocLit here.