Smorgasbord Posts from Your Archives 2024 #Potluck – A Five-Star Review – for The Bubble Reputation – a novella by Alex Craigie by Toni Pike

Welcome to the series of Posts from Your Archives and I will be sharing posts from the SECOND six months of 2023 from your archives.

If you wish to be included the information is at the the end of the following post which is from the previous series, and shows you what it will look like.

This is the second post from the archives of author Toni Pike and she shares her review for a terrific novella by Alex Craigie.

I’m delighted to share my latest review, for The Bubble Reputation – a contemporary thriller. It’s about a public figure who faces a devastating backlash when someone sets out to destroy her reputation.

The Bubble Reputation – a novella by Alex Craigie 

About the book

If you want to destroy someone’s reputation, social media provides the perfect tool.

Emmie Hobson, children’s author and TV presenter, is riding high on a wave of popularity when an unscrupulous newspaper editor, desperate for a scoop, brings Emmie’s world crashing down.

Social media picks up the baton and a terrifying backlash of hate and abuse is unleashed. Threats are made and there are those, inflamed by the rhetoric, prepared to take the law into their own hands.

Five Star review – A story for our modern times

As soon as I started reading Alex Craigie’s story, I felt swept along with it and emotionally involved, wondering where it would all end as the days went by and the awful events unfolded. Emmie Hobson, children’s author and TV presenter, seems to be on top of the world and beloved by everyone – until she becomes the victim of malicious lies, fake photos, and a hate campaign that looks as if it will destroy her life. The story concerns not just her struggle to restore her reputation, but to stop every aspect of her life from falling apart. We also see the heavy toll this takes on her entire family.

This story is so on point for our modern times. “Cancel culture” is everywhere, condemning and casting people out for any perceived infractions against the new ideological agenda. This is enabled and amplified by social media, and by the mainstream press who are so willing to jump on all the latest bandwagons.

The story never stopped moving along as the tensions continued to build. The characters were all well-developed and believable, perfectly suited to the storyline. At times I felt they had jumped straight from the pages of a newspaper. It was easy to empathise with Emmie in her struggles with Jessie, her difficult, drug-addicted sister. It was also easy to empathise with her parents and husband as they dealt with the consequences of the scandal.

The author has an easy writing style that was quite cinematic and kept me turning the pages. I think The Bubble Reputation would make a good movie or TV series, and I’d certainly like to read more of this author’s work.

This was a high-concept and absorbing read, and I give it a resounding five stars. 

Head over to buy the book: Amazon UK – And: Amazon US

About Alex Craigie

Alex Craigie is the pen name of Trish Power.

Trish was ten when her first play was performed at school. It was in rhyming couplets and written in pencil in a book with imperial weights and measures printed on the back.

When her children were young, she wrote short stories for magazines before returning to the teaching job that she loved.

Trish has had three books published under the pen name of Alex Craigie. The first two books cross genre boundaries and feature elements of romance, thriller and suspense against a backdrop of social issues. Someone Close to Home highlights the problems affecting care homes while Acts of Convenience has issues concerning the health service at its heart. Her third book. Means to Deceive, is a psychological thriller.

Someone Close to Home has won a Chill with a Book award and a Chill with the Book of the Month award. In 2019 it was one of the top ten bestsellers in its category on Amazon.

See all her books HERE

©Toni Pike 2023

My thanks to Toni for inviting me to share her posts from last year and I know she would love to receive your feedback.

About Toni Pike

Toni Pike is a multi-genre author who enjoys writing exciting thrillers for adults, non-fiction, and hilarious books for children. She also loves travelling and being with family and friends. She lives in Australia and firmly believes that coffee and long walks are an essential part of any day.

Do you like books that you can’t stop reading? Pike is the author of DESOLATION BLUFF, DEAD DRY HEART and The Jotham Fletcher Mystery Thriller Series: THE MAGUS COVENANT, THE ROCK OF MAGUS, THE MAGUS EPIPHANY and HOLY SPEAR OF MAGUS.

The Brody Cody Series is for children aged 6-9: BRODY CODY AND THE STEPMOTHER FROM OUTER SPACE and BRODY CODY AND THE HAUNTED VACATION HOUSE.

She’s also the author of two non-fiction books. THE ONE WAY DIET is a no-nonsense guide to losing weight and coping with the journey. HAPPY TRAVELS 101 is a short book of travel tips with great advice for anyone who wants to travel overseas.

A selection of  books by Toni Pike for children and adults

A review for Desolation Bluff

Jacqui Murray VINE VOICE 5.0 out of 5 stars What would you do if the best day of your life was also the worst? Reviewed in the United State

In Toni Pike’s Desolation Bluff (Chapman Reid Publications 2019), blind romance writer, Oliver Cameron, has the good fortune of miraculously regaining his eyesight. He can’t wait to tell his beloved wife, Vanessa, and best friend, Ray, about his good fortune. Before he can do this, he finds them in bed together, professing their love. He decides to continue to pretend he is blind so he can see if this is simply a bored fling or something else. It doesn’t take long to figure out it is the latter. Oliver decides to play with them by causing a number of accidents they would never blame on a blind man, each increasingly more devious until he begins to anonymously accuse them of their deceit.

I loved everything about this book. Oliver is blind but not weak (yay!) and discovering that everything he’d thought was his world isn’t makes him determined to clean his life up and start fresh. How he does it is fascinating, clever, often feels good, and is always very satisfying. I cheered for him every step. Despite being novelette length, the characters are well-developed and the plot is intricate enough to keep any reader’s attention. Recommended for those who love strong people who don’t quit.

Connect to Toni and buy the books: Amazon Australia – Amazon US – And : Amazon UK – Follow Toni:Goodreads – Website: Toni Pike – Twitter:@piketoni1

How to feature in the series?

• All I need you to do is give me permission to dive in to your archives and find two posts to share here on Smorgasbord either by leaving a note in the comments or by emailing me. (sally.cronin@moyhill.com)
• Rather than a set topic, I will select posts at random of general interest across a number of subjects from the last six months of 2023. (it is helpful if you have a link to your archives in your sidebar by month)
• As I will be promoting your books as part of the post along with all your information and links so I will not be sharing direct marketing or self- promotional posts in the series.
• If you are an author I am sure you will have a page on your blog with the details, and an ‘about page’ with your profile and social media links (always a good idea anyway). I will get everything that I need.
• As a blogger I would assume that you have an ‘about page’ a profile photo and your links to social media.
• Copyright is yours and I will ©Your name on every post… and you will be named as the author in the URL and subject line.
• Previous participants are very welcome to take part again.
• Each post is reformatted for my blog and I don’t cut and paste, this means it might look different from your own post especially if you are using the block editor

N.B – To get the maximum benefit from your archive posts, the only thing I ask is that you respond to comments individually and share on your own social media.. thank you.