Virtual Tour: Foxglove Copse by Alex Beecroft ~ (Reviews, Guest Post + Giveaway)

About Foxglove Copse

After a massive anxiety attack, Sam Atkins left his high-powered job in the City and committed himself to life on the road in a small van. Six months in, he’s running out of savings and coming to the conclusion that he might have to go home to his emotionally abusive family.

Needing time to think, he takes a walk through a copse by the Cornish roadside, only to stumble upon the body of a ritualistically killed sheep. As he’s trying to work out what the symbols around the animal mean, the sheep’s owner, Jennifer, and her nephew, Ruan Gwynn, come upon him.

Ruan is a kind-hearted young man with a large supportive clan, and since he and Sam feel almost instant attraction, he doesn’t want to believe Sam is a sheep-killing cultist. In fact, the moment he lays eyes on Sam’s miserable solitary life, he wants to rescue the man. But as the killings escalate, he and Sam need to stop whoever is actually to blame before they can concentrate on saving each other.

GoodReads ~ Riptide ~ Amazon

4 Stars

Sam was a professional, as well as a whiz at computers. He led a good life and earned great money, but it all came at a steep price: His sanity. After a major anxiety attack brought on by work and family pressure, Sam has had enough. He quits his job and buys a van that has been custom outfitted with everything he'll need to start a new life, living off the grid. He's been traveling for a while when he lands in the small Cornish town of Porthkennack. He finds a small hideaway to park his van and settles in for a bit, but his peace doesn't last long when he discovers a gruesome satanic ritual, and as he is examining it he is in turn discovered by Ruan and his Aunt Jennifer, who owns the land he's set up camp on. They assume he is to blame for the dead sheep and have him arrested. Now that the police are involved, Sam will be forced to stay in town until he can be cleared of any wrong doing.

Ruan is lolling through life. He wants to be a tattoo artist, but isn't sure how to break into the business. He's pretty sure the only tattoo shop in town is just a front run by the the Lusmoore's, the local crime family. From the moment he and his aunt discover Sam, he believes him to be innocent and when his niece needs help with some online bullying, Ruan thinks he knows the perfect person for the job, plus it'll give him the chance to get to know the intriguing young man he finds himself attracted to.

I'll be honest, I wasn't so sure about this story at first, and truthfully, I continued to feel that way throughout a good portion of the story. While I love a good mystery, I'm not into gore and I found some of the descriptions of the satanic rituals to be described quite vividly and this is so not my thing. Although the author tied all the mysteries up nicely at the end, throughout the story it felt like there was too much happening, too many side stories taking place and it was all a bit overwhelming and confusing at times. But I can't deny the mysteries were interesting and well done. The author threw in some twists and turns that I never saw coming and kept me sitting on the edge of my seat biting my nails. At one point I thought I might join Sam in having an anxiety attack.

As for the romance portion, I loved both Sam and Ruan and I thought that they fit together very nicely. They had wonderful chemistry and while there is no on page sex, the romance was done well. Sam and Ruan brought out the best in one another and encouraged each other. They were likable characters you could really root for.

The story is fast-paced and well-written. It was interesting and the storyline was unique, to me anyway. Although I wasn't so sure about the story at first, it turned out to be an enjoyable read I'd definitely recommend, just beware of the gore.

*copy provided by author/publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

4.5 Stars

Sam ran away from a high-paying, highly stressful job and his family, after suffering a major anxiety attack. He sold almost everything he owned, bought a custom-equipped van and gave away most of his money. Now, six months later, he's nearly broke and afraid he might have to go back to his parents. He finds himself in Porthkennack, taking a walk to calm his anxiety, when he stumbles upon a sheep slaughtered in what looks like a satanic ritual and the land's owner and her nephew, Ruan, seem to think he might be involved. 

Ruan doesn't want to believe Sam is capable of doing something like this, and not only because he's instantly attracted to him. Sam just doesn't seem the type, so seeing as Sam has to remain in Porthkennack while the police investigate the matter, Ruan asks for Sam's help as a tech wizard to do a little investigation for his niece and friends, who are being bullied online. 

I loved Sam, my heart broke for him when I saw how bad his anxiety attacks could be and how badly his family treated him. Even when he ran away from his work and living with them, he couldn't quite break that link with them. I adored Ruan, too. He was supportive and sweet and a bit reckless. I loved that he was willing to go against tradition to help Sam. I adored the two of them together. They seemed to complement each other quite nicely from the start, working together to solve Ruan's niece's problem. While there's no on page sex, I could feel the connection, attraction and love growing between them. 

I am not a fan of gory/horror elements in my books, and this one had some very vivid descriptions, so if you're like me, just be warned that they're not pretty at all. *shudders* 

Anyway, even with the gore, Foxglove Copse was enthralling and engaging, with several storylines that kept my interest throughout the book and that were resolved very interestingly (if not fully satisfyingly). Very recommendable!

*** Copy provided to the reviewer via NetGalley by Riptide Publishing for my reading pleasure, a review wasn't a requirement. ***

About the Porthkennack Universe

Welcome to Porthkennack, a charming Cornish seaside town with a long and sometimes sinister history. Legend says King Arthur's Black Knight built the fort on the headland here, and it’s a certainty that the town was founded on the proceeds of smuggling, piracy on the high seas, and the deliberate wrecking of cargo ships on the rocky shore. Nowadays it draws in the tourists with sunshine and surfing, but locals know that the ghosts of its Gothic past are never far below the surface.

This collaborative story world is brought to you by five award-winning, best-selling British LGBTQ romance authors: Alex Beecroft, Joanna Chambers, Charlie Cochrane, Garrett Leigh, and JL Merrow. Follow Porthkennack and its inhabitants through the centuries and through the full rainbow spectrum with historical and contemporary stand-alone titles.

Check out Porthkennack! Riptide

When I made Ruan Gwynn, one of the heroes of Foxglove Copse, a tattoo artist, I thought his choice of profession would be more central to the book. I'm a great fan of tattoos myself, and am going in to my preferred shop to talk about designs for a half-sleeve next week. I felt it was something I could talk about with some level of enthusiasm.

I'd also come across the idea of magic tattoos, though the person I saw talking about them was talking about Harry Potter and saying how great it would be to have a tattoo that moved, as the pictures in the magic world of Hogwarts move.

That made me very excited to try to think up a means to bring magic tattoos into real life. Maybe – I thought – you could put a spell on the ink, and then via tattooing you could actually embed that spell in a person's body. I ought to clarify right now that I know nothing at all about modern witchcraft and am not putting this out there as something that would work in real life.

In fact I should probably clarify right now that none of what passes for witchcraft in Foxglove Copse bears any resemblance to modern witchcraft as practised by pagans in the UK now. I didn't want to paint any actual magic practising communities as villains. Although there must be bad people in that community (because there are bad people in every community), the last thing I wanted was to perpetuate a stereotype where witch = evil.

In fact neither Sam Atkins, my hero, who is self-taught and stumbling his way toward becoming a mage by virtue of accident and good intentions, and my villain, represent any real-life magic tradition. They are people who have found information on the internet and are using it to their own ends without guidance or context. Which doesn't mean that their magic doesn't have power in it, because any exercise of the human will contains power for good or for ill.

But you see here – I started off talking about tattooing and ended up talking about magic. It was the same with the novel. I thought the tattooing would be more important, but after it had introduced the idea of sub-dermal protection spells, it more or less faded away.

Those of you who know me by now, know how hard it is for me to keep to one genre. Certainly our villain's magic came in as a result of my attempt to give the novel a Gothic feel. But our heroes' magic arrived as part of my own fascination with all things supernatural. I can't get by without a dose of fantasy. I remember hating Scooby Doo, because every episode there would be something exciting, like a wolf-man or a mummy or a swamp monster, and every episode they would reveal at the end that it was actually someone completely mundane in disguise.

Ruan's tattoos and Sam's little rituals are my reaction to that kind of miserly disenchantment of the world – my way of saying “no. 'There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy.' And I like it like that.”

About Alex Beecroft

Alex Beecroft is an English author best known for historical fiction, notably Age of Sail, featuring gay characters and romantic storylines. Her novels and shorter works include paranormal, fantasy, and contemporary fiction.

Beecroft won Linden Bay Romance’s (now Samhain Publishing) Starlight Writing Competition in 2007 with her first novel, Captain’s Surrender, making it her first published book. On the subject of writing gay romance, Beecroft has appeared in the Charleston City Paper, LA Weekly, the New Haven Advocate, the Baltimore City Paper, and The Other Paper. She is a member of the Romantic Novelists' Association of the UK and an occasional reviewer for the blog Speak Its Name, which highlights historical gay fiction.

Alex was born in Northern Ireland during the Troubles and grew up in the wild countryside of the English Peak District. She lives with her husband and two children in a little village near Cambridge and tries to avoid being mistaken for a tourist.

Alex is only intermittently present in the real world. She has led a Saxon shield wall into battle, toiled as a Georgian kitchen maid, and recently taken up an 800-year-old form of English folk dance, but she still hasn’t learned to operate a mobile phone.

She is represented by Louise Fury of the L. Perkins Literary Agency.

Connect with Alex:

• Website: alexbeecroft.com
• Blog: alexbeecroft.com/blog
• Facebook: facebook.com/AlexBeecroftAuthor
• Twitter: @Alex_Beecroft
• Goodreads: goodreads.com/Alex_Beecroft

Giveaway

To celebrate the release of Foxglove Copse, one lucky winner will receive a $10 Amazon gift card and an ebook of their choice from Alex’s backlist! Leave a comment with your contact info to enter the contest. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on September 9, 2017. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. Thanks for following the tour, and don’t forget to leave your contact info!