I’m reviewing The Knife Maker of Venice by David Gilman #bookreview #blogtour

Here’s the blurb

A young Englishman captured by slavers must survive the snakepit that is seventeenth-century Venice.

1604. As pirates seeking slaves to sell in the markets of North Africa terrorise the coasts of Europe, headstrong Richard Sheriff and his sister Elizabeth are torn from their Devonshire home and thrust into a waking nightmare.

Richard’s skills as a blacksmith see him fetch a high price, but the pirate captain has other plans for Elizabeth and once they are separated, Richard has no idea of his sister’s fate. They must both learn to survive on a deadly voyage into the unknown.

Sold into servitude in Venice: glittering, vicious city of secrets, he is apprenticed to a knife maker. Richard’s talents soon win him renown… but haunted by his sister’s absence, he vows never to stop looking for her, knowing she would do the same for him.

First he must survive that city of ghosts. Will the siblings live to see each other again, or will they join the myriads lost to Venice, where life is cheap, profit is all, and escape nigh-on impossible?

A powerful historical adventure perfect for fans of Kate Mosse, Ken Follett and Robert Harris.

Purchase Links

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Knife-Maker-Venice-David-Gilman/dp/1035910373

https://www.amazon.com/Knife-Maker-Venice-David-Gilman/dp/1035910373

My Review

The Knife Maker of Venice is a chunk of a book, following the events that befall Richard and Elizabeth, starting with a good punch, before moving somewhat into the future.

It is fraught with peril for our two main characters, although they’re far from the only two voices we hear. Richard is almost unbearably headstrong, and gets himself into many scrapes. Elizabeth is far from the naive individual we might originally suspect, although her story is teased out more slowly than Richard’s.

What follows is a deeply researched tale of life in the early 1600s, thrusting the reader into the possibly previously unknown world of slavers and what happened to those stolen away from the Devonshire coast.

I listened to the audio book for the novel, and very much enjoyed the narrator as he expertly brought the characters to life.

This does take a while to get going – there is a lot of action in the first third, but much of it takes place on the high seas where the author ensures we all know how miserable the voyage is for the unfortunate abductees.

An engaging read.

Meet the author

David Gilman has enjoyed many careers, including paratrooper, firefighter, and photographer. An award-winning author and screenwriter, he is the author of the critically acclaimed Master of War series of historical novels, and was shortlisted for the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize for The Last Horseman. He was longlisted for the same prize for The Englishman, the first book featuring ex-French Foreign Legionnaire Dan Raglan. David lives in Devon. Follow David on @davidgilmanuk, http://www.davidgilman.com, and facebook.com/davidgilman.author

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I’m delighted to be reviewing House of Twisted Shadows by JH Mann, an extremely atmospheric story set in Cornwall #bookreview #blogtour

Here’s the blurb

A HOUSE ON THE EDGE
A DAUGHTER DRIVEN TO OBSESSION
A FORBIDDEN LOVE

Winter 1962. Amelia Tremayne has spent the past ten years in London trying to forget the lonely clifftop house where her father was killed. Tyler House was built shortly before the Second World War on Cornwall’s stormy coast by a wealthy German outsider. Its most unsettling feature is a vast glass dome that bends the light, casting twisted, elongated shadows across the walls.

Amelia’s father, Douglas Tremayne, a noted historian, was researching a controversial book about Tyler House’s Nazi origins – and its links to powerful figures in the local community.

As Amelia begins to uncover the truth about her father’s death, she is pulled into a web of buried secrets – and into a forbidden love that could destroy everything she holds dear.

INSPIRED BY A TRUE STORY

Praise for J.H.Mann:

‘Powerful, evocative and steeped in atmosphere – J.H. Mann vividly brings Cornwall’s wild, haunting landscape and its legends to life’ – Margaret James, bestselling author of the Denham Family Sagas

‘Vivid details of the landscape, eroding cliffs and crumbling house…the tension grips you and the atmospheric setting of Tyler House draws you in’ – Cheshire Novel Prize 

Purchase Links

https://www.amazon.co.uk/House-Twisted-Shadows-Wild-Cornwall-ebook/dp/B0H2WRJDTJ/

https://www.amazon.com/House-Twisted-Shadows-Wild-Cornwall-ebook/dp/B0H2WRJDTJ/

My Review

House of Twisted Shadows is an engrossing, claustrophobic historical thriller set in a bitterly cold winter in 1962.

Our main character, Amelia, is driven to finally discover the truth about her father’s murder, ten years earlier, no matter what it takes. Returning to the long-abandoned home, she’s met by firm resistance from all she hopes will aid her in the quest to discover her father’s last manuscript before the house finally crashes onto the coastline below the cliffs. Perhaps it’s mention of the German who built the house, or perhaps it’s the close-knit community who don’t want Amelia to prevail. Perhaps it’s because she immediately seeks out her former lover, now married with a child, and it stirs up resentment. Or perhaps, it’s the house itself, which is oppressive and filled with ghosts of the past, which doesn’t wish to give up its secrets.

This is a real race against time thriller, as the reader certainly knows the house isn’t going to stay standing for much longer as wild winter weather covers the land.

I really enoyed House of Twisted Shadows. It’s a fast-paced read, with some lovely elements to it, as Amelia confronts the ghosts of her past and the ghosts of many others as well.

I’ll be grabbing the rest of the books in this interlinked collection of novels by the author.

Meet the author

J.H.Mann is an award-winning journalist and writer living in the South West of England. His second novel, The Echoing Shore, was a Yeovil Literary Prize award winner and the Adult Fiction Winner of the 2025 Selfies Book Awards at the London Book Fair. His third novel, The Silver Tide, has just been shortlisted for the 2026 Selfies Book Awards. He has strong family links with Cornwall. His novels are inspired by the many stories told by his mother and father and his own experiences as a shore-based volunteer for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI). He lives with his wife, Nicola, and their lively whippet Patch.

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 www.jhmannauthor.com

You might well have read romantasy there and wondered what it was all about, but while this is certainly ‘my romance’ story, this book (which you may have read in a previous iteration), like my historical fiction novels, was most certainly inspired by my historical research. Read on…..

The setting for Dragonbound – the first book in the Ice and Fire series

The Ice and Fire series is set in my re-imaginings of an alternative Viking-age Iceland, with dragons (and a few other things going on too). So yes, this is potentially not a ‘normal’ inspiration for fantasy writers, but I’ve always been drawn to fantasy books that heavily rely on a historical setting (and very rarely a true medieval one, (although the PERN novels of Anne McCaffrey do perhaps fall into that category)). 

What drew me to this time and place was the stunning bravery of men and women who decided to risk it all and start afresh in an entirely new ‘land’ to the one they called their home. It’s always been said that Iceland was settled because those living in Norway didn’t wish to fall under the sway of ‘a’ king, and a king they were going to get in the final years of the 800s. While this is somewhat contested now, back then (last century when I first had the idea) this enthralled me. 

Iceland, when it was settled, is said to have been empty apart from one of two religious figures living at the extreme of the known world. Can you imagine being the first to step foot on that landscape? It must have been magical. But that wasn’t the only inspiring element. Those first settlers also undertook a number of endeavours that are unique. They wrote the Landnámabók (the book of Settlements)– a book detailing the land claimed by those settlers, and in that way recorded their history (astonishing). 

The Landnámabók begins, ‘In his book On Times the Venerable Priest Bede mentions an island called Thule, said in other books to lie six days’ sailing to the north of Britain. He says there’s neither daylight there in winter, nor darkness when the day is at its longest in the summer.’ (from the translation by H Pálsson and Paul Edwards.)

These settlers also vowed to have no one king and to rule largely through consensus (amazing). And they decided to live in an environment that was harsher than they were used to, even coming from Norway.

And so, I set my characters in an idea of what this might have been, adopting the customs, the ideas, the way they might have lived, but in an entirely fantastical world (unless, of course, there were dragons in Viking age Iceland). I do not profess that everything is accurate (it isn’t), it couldn’t be, but the beautiful, deadly landscape; the bravery of those men and women all inspired me to create the setting for the world of Ice and Fire (and, to be honest, earlier iterations stayed even more true to this setting and landscape, but have been somewhat relaxed to ensure this is a work of fiction). 

Here’s the blurb

The Long Night is ending. The dragon is waking.

Sereh is finally free — but the frozen wilds are just as deadly as the life she left behind. When she saves a mysterious stranger, she binds herself to a fate she doesn’t understand.

Erann has secrets. About the cold. About the land. About why the world is changing.

As the Long Night lingers and something ancient stirs beneath the frozen land, survival means staying together. And their fragile alliance turns into something neither of them can afford.

Because in a world of ice and fire, trust might be the spark that destroys them both.

This slow-burning Norse fantasy romance is perfect for fans of Robin Hobb, T. Kingfisher, S.L. Rowland and Anne McCaffrey.

Releasing 23rd September 2026

Check out the dedicated website for the Ice and Fire Series

Check out the Ice and Fire Series page on the blog

Buy direct from me