Review featured at www.books-n-kisses.com

3.75 Hearts This book was originally published in 2017 and re-released in January of 2020. And this is the 2nd in the series that I did not read the first one of but it can be a stand alone because it is mostly the mystery that the book is about.

I really enjoyed the history of the story. It felt like reading a Brad Meltzer or Dan Brown story when you are discussing the history discussed.

The other areas of the story are ok but worth the read to be entwined in the history.

Disclaimer:
I received a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Thankyou to NetGalley, Sapere Books and the author, Kim Fleet, for the opportunity to read a digital copy of Holy Blood in exchange for an honest and unbiased opinion.
All I can honestly say is I loved it.
The storyline was well thought out and written. The narrative is gripping and the characters are well defined. I was hooked until the last page. I can't wait for more from this author.
Well worth a read.

This was a great book to read, full of adventure, loved the going back in time for the history. Good characters and an interesting story

4 Stars!

Two time periods: 1571 and present day. This is the second book in the Eden Grey series.

After reading the first book in the series I was really excited to get my hands on this one and it did not disappoint. I really enjoy stories that are set in two different time periods then come together in the end.

In the past we see a contracted killer sent to stop a priest who is working against Elizabeth I. But his past leaves us wondering how he can reconcile what he is sent to do.

In present day we follow Eden Grey as she stumbles upon a skeleton and religious relic that is tied to conspiracy and murder.

I loved the religious relic storyline. It was fascinating to me that there are people who will spend crazy amounts of money for the possibility of it being true. I find the faith factor also fascinating. I actually believe that people can have enough faith to cause healing/improvement (miracles). The carry-on story from the last book was great. I think this could stand on its own even if you hadn't read the first book. But I would suggest reading it, as it's a fun story! Enjoyed the characters, enjoyed the story!


Thank you NetGalley and Mystery Press for an ARC for my honest opinion.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this. I will be posting a full review to Goodreads, Amazon, and Instagram.

Good stuff from an experienced author, whose talent shows here, using dual timelines. Well crafted characters, good dialog, and an engaging plot all worked together to create an engaging tale. Good research and imagination are also apparent. Recommended for thriller fans.

I really appreciate the ARC for review!!

I want to start off by saying thank you for the opportunity to read and review this book, it was a very good read easy to follow along with storyline and characters. This was a new author for me but I very much enjoyed it, thank you for the opportunity and I look forward to reading more by this author again. I highly recommend this book to everybody.

16th century England was not just medieval it was also on the road to inquisition. Catholics were persecuted and despite this Catholicism prevailed in pockets. Such was faith. The punishment for even having a holy book was horrendous and you'd think that people would be more cautious of having priests around and having mass but this they did. The 16th century part of the novel set in Hailes Abbey and its subsequent surroundings and inhabitants dealt with exactly that.

We then move on to modern Cheltenham 2015 and a bunch of archaelogists, forensic scientists and a TV personality dealing with the discovery of a skeleton and a vial described as Holy Blood. The trail of murder and mystery surrounding this discovery and the unraveling of a sordid personal history is the second part of the story.

My second read from this author - Paternoster was very good, this was also excellent reading taking you into two time lines both intriguing.

I love time slip novels and welcome the opportunity to discover new titles and authors. Holy Blood was a fascinating excursion into England in the 1500s. The historical setting and detail of ordinary people’s lives was excellent. A superb depiction of the impact of the dissolution of the monasteries and the way Catholics were forced underground. I really enjoyed this narrative.
The second narrative follows private investigator Eden Grey and her archaeologist boyfriend who is involved in excavations at Hailes Abbey. Eden and Aidan stumble (literally) across a skeleton and a possibly priceless relic. There’s a murder and competition to ‘own’ the relic. Having just been engaged by the victim to trace the author of some threatening letters, Eden sets out to solve the mystery/s. While Eden and Aidan are great characters, I found the resolution of the storyline a bit problematic. While it’s a common trope for the PI to be one step ahead of the bumbling/ hostile police investigation, in Holy Blood the police just disappear at the half way point ..... and Eden single-handedly solves the crime. I have to admit this niggled at me, but it’s still a great read. Thanks to Sapere Books, the author and Net Galley for the opportunity to review Holy Blood. I’ll be looking to read other titles by Kim Fleet.

I love historical fiction, and, occasionally, I embrace books that travel back and forth in time. Holy Blood seemed an intriguing novel of dual time periods, and I had high expectations. I thought the book was good, but, perhaps, my expectations were too high. When I read books that shuttle between or amongst time periods/centuries, my personal preference is for the 'first part of the journey' to be first chronologically...and first in the book. This book began in 2015, at an auction, and, the next chapter was also in 2015, focused on the main character, Eden. There is nothing inherently wrong with that, but I would have preferred to see the context of the relic before anything else takes place in the book. In fact, because my mind was set on that order, when I was reading the auction scene, I thought that I was supposed to be reading within that past century, and I realized, as soon as I saw the reference to Catherine the Great, that we were in 2015 and more contemporary. As far as the writing, I do not think there is enough depth to the description, dialogue and word choice. But, on a whole, I think the book is a good one if someone is looking for a new time travel novel.

This novel, the second in the Eden Grey Mysteries of Kim Fleet, is set in and around Cheltenham, England in both the present day and the sixteenth century.

It begins at the site of Hailes Abbey where Eden and her boyfriend, Dr. Aiden Fox, archaeologist and director of the Cheltenham Cultural Heritage Unit, are visiting the Abbey. While they are there, viewing the ruins with Eden being regaled with Aiden’s historical knowledge, a child accidentally falls into a nearby gully and Eden, being the decisive and resourceful person that she is, jumps in to help get the boy out. While doing so she is shocked to find human remains, in the form of a skull, at the bottom of the gully.

These human skeletal remains are, thankfully, found to be many hundreds of years old and Aiden and his team are called upon to recover and examine them. While doing so, Aiden discovers and ancient artefact that could be the religious relic known as the Holy Blood of Hailes, believed to be the Blood of Christ and to have magical healing properties. However, up until now it has been believed that the relic was destroyed as part of the dissolution of the monastery during the reign of Henry VIII in the sixteenth century.

Weeks later Eden, who is working as a private investigator, is given an assignment that involves investigating a series if poison pen letters received by the celebrity television documentary maker, Lewis Jordan, who is visiting the town to make a documentary about the skeleton and the artefact that he really believes is the Holy Blood of Hailes. It soon become clear to Eden that Lewis Jordan is just the kind of man to acquire a string of enemies but before she can get to grips with the case, he is found dead, brutally murdered, in his hotel room.

The reader is thus presented with two mysteries. Firstly, how did the person whose skeleton that has been found in the gully at Hailes Abbey get there and why did he have the Holy Blood of Hailes with him, if that is what it is? And secondly, who killed Lewis Jordan with such brutality and why did they want him dead? These mysteries are unravelled and solved for us in two parallel timelines. One in the present day and one in the sixteenth century of Henry VIII, England’s break with Catholicism and the Catholic plots of the reign of Elizabeth I.

The novel seems to start a little slowly as the mystery is created in each of the timelines but accelerates quickly as the action gathers pace in each story before they move inexorably to their conclusions. There are plenty of red herrings and false trails to keep the reader guessing and plenty of tension and surprises to keep the reader turning the pages.

The central characters are strong and well defined. Eden Grey, a former undercover agent and now a struggling private investigator, is a forceful and dynamic woman. Her boyfriend, Aiden Fox, a more anxious and even diffident type of person, with a tendency towards obsessive tidiness, acts as an effective counterpoint to Eden’s more dynamic approach to life. The author’s historical knowledge is lightly worn and a sense of sixteenth century England is achieved with the minimum of fuss and display of learning. Holy Blood is a very enjoyable read and can be very much recommended.

I would like to express my thanks to Net Galley and Sapere Books for making a free download of this book available to me.

*Many thanks to Kim Fleet, Sapere Books Ltd and NetGalley for arc in exchange for my honest review.*
I occasionally read novels with dual timelines, and sometimes they work for me, sometimes they do not. The description of this novel sounded intriguing to me, however, the novel did not deliver. Much as I enjoyed the story behind the Holy Blood, I was not that enthralled by the present time plot. I struggled reading and was not invested in the story as much as I would have liked to.

I remain unconvinced with the dual timeline mystery - 16th century England and 2015 Cheltenham - and the uncovering of a medieval skeleton along with an ancient relic - said to contain Holy Blood!

The main character, Eden Grey a private investigator, is involved in this 'dig' and the adventure begins when the relic disappears. Detailed and well written, but not for me.

Thanks to Net Galley and Sapere books for the chance to read and review.

It was a fun read, engrossing and interesting.
I appreciated the swift pace, the well crafted plot and the cast of characters.
Can't wait to read the next one in this series.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

Once again we are taken for a ride on the Eden Grey train. Eden and her boyfriend, Aidan, who is an archaeologist go tour of Hailes Abbey. Once there they help a child who is in a bit of a pickle and Eden comes face to face with a skull. What follows is Eden's own pickle that has to do with Queen Elizabeth I and a holy blood relic. This book is a lot of fun and I am ready for the next one.

The second book in the series, and I actually liked this one better than the first one. It still follows the same pattern though, of the story of the skeleton found today, and the person they were in their time. Eden and her boyfriend are on the trail of a vial of holy blood that was a relic from an old abbey from the time of Queen Elizabeth I. A lot of red herrings and twists and turns made this a hard one to put down. Highly recommend it.

3 and 1 / 2 stars

While touring the site of the Hailes Abbey, Eden Grey and her boyfriend archeologist Aidan Fox stumble upon a disarticulated skeleton. Aidan and his team recover all the bones they could find. Also they locate what could just be the Holy Blood of Hailes. It was supposed to have been destroyed during the dissolution of the Abbey which occurred during the reign of Henry VIII in the 14th Century. Could it really be? It would be an artifact of priceless value.

Eden gets a job to look into some threatening letters that a splashy “journalist” has received. The man is loud and brassy and Eden can easily see how he could have made any number of enemies. When he turns up dead, Eden feels she has failed in her mission and is more than determined to find his killer.

The historical part of the story was the best. I was fascinated by the history of the Hailes Abbey, Brother John and Matthew Sweet's stories. The letters reprinted from and between the “secret” Catholics was especially good. The more current era wasn't nearly as entrancing, except for the small part about archeology. I found that Eden's research into the initial death and her search for the killer went on far too long. She didn't strike me as especially competent.

The book is well written, but the story pace was slow. I thought that Eden was a little bit of a ditz. Perhaps it was that her part of the story dragged. I liked Aidan though. He seemed to be very good at his profession. I thought that the Aidan/Eden thing was a little too cute. The language used in the story was very good. The story was written at a higher level than most. It was very literate.

I want to thank NetGalley and Sapere Books for forwarding to me a copy of this good book for me to read, enjoy and review.

Murderous Consequences From The Past.....
The second Eden Grey mystery - following on from ‘Paternoster’. Eden, a private investigator, returns in this dual time period mystery - which switches from the 16th century to a 2015 Cheltenham where Eden uncovers a medieval skeleton along with an ancient relic of possible considerable importance, when visiting Hailes Abbey with her archaeologist partner, events which will have murderous consequences. An atmospheric, detailed and swiftly moving plot with a strong protagonist in Eden. Enjoyable reading.

16th Century England
Dark secrets surround Hailes Abbey – a medieval monastery with a shrine supposedly containing the blood of Christ. Then there is the dissolution of the monastery. A young apprentice to Brother John escapes. Years later when one of the priests is suspected of hatching a deadly plot against Queen Elizabeth I, a contract killer is sent to what remains of the Abbey.

Cheltenham, 2015
500 years later, Private Investigator Eden Grey stumbles upon a medieval skeleton when rescuing a child who fell whilst exploring Hailes Abbey with her boyfriend, archaeologist Aidan Fox.
Next to the corpse is an ancient relic – a relic that could contain legendary ‘Holy Blood’ – an artefact that some people believe to have miraculous powers.
The press become involved & then a film crew arrange to come & film a documentary about the skeleton & the phial. Then the phial goes missing, there’s a murder & then a vicious attack.
This is the second book in the series, whilst it could be easily be read on its own there is an unresolved issue involving Eden which runs through the books. I found it to be an engrossing read that I devoured in under a day. I particularly loved the two stories linked around the abbey & how they were interconnected. I really like Eden & the more I read the more I like her. I also like Aidan with obsession with patterns & also how he’s not the stereotype archaeologist. Well written & it flows really well, I look forward to more books about Eden
My honest review is for a special copy I voluntarily read