Fiona Cane – Angel Town @RandomTTours @FionaCarnesWrites #AngelTown #SharonBTB

As usual I have to say I am late with this post. I give you all my apologies but I have to say I am thrilled to be hosting a stop for Angel Town by Fiona Cane on behalf of Random Things Tours. Thanks go to Anne Cater and Caracol Books for the copy of the book to take part.

What if you were born into a doomsday cult and knew nothing of the outside world? What if everything you’d been told was a lie?

The clock is ticking …

Wayward teenager, Lola, is stunned when, out of the blue, she is summoned by her leader. Oblivious to the resentment her promotion has whipped up and determined to shine, she enters Michael’s inner sanctum.

Single mother and activist, Donna’s search for her son takes her from Brighton to Edenville, a once-peaceful commune in the Colorado desert. Trouble is brewing. The guards on the gate are armed. No one can leave; no visitors allowed.

But who is Michael? And what exactly is his agenda? As the line between what’s true and what is not grows increasingly blurred, time is fast running out…

A new blog tour and a new author! I love my hobby! Angel Town is the first book I have read by Fiona Cane, and it most definitely won’t be my last. I had no idea what to expect from this book, so went in with an open mind. What I found was a story so gripping, intriguing and scary at times too.

Lola is a girl who has only ever known the cult she was born into. She knows very little about the ‘otherworld’ and doesn’t know anything different than the teaching she was raised into. She waits with her family for the day that their leader Michael has prophesied about, Ascension Day. The day the world will end and their community will ascend to heaven and be angels in the afterlife. She has no reason to question this ideology, she has never been given one.

Then comes the day that their leader summons her to live by his side. This not only confuses people within the community, but she is unsure but honoured to be asked. While there she even manages to make a friend of Jo’s, a new member who has freshly joined them from the otherworld.

Donna on the other hand is searching for her son. She ends up at a commune away from the real world. What seems to appear calm and peaceful gives her the feeling something more menacing is taking place. She isn’t allowed in and no one comes out. Donna is certain her son is in that commune but she can’t out why he would be there.

A glimpse of life within a cult that made me feel so claustrophobic. It was scary to think how easy it is to brainwash people into excluding the real world and joining the community. It impressed upon me just how much the members of these cults take what they are told by their leader, as the whole truth. This made me sad but mad that these people were so manipulated, they just accepted everything they were told.

Lola and Donna both narrate the story which gave me a unique view. I enjoyed the clever way Fiona Cane brought the two characters’ viewpoints so I had the full overview that the characters didn’t have.

This story is character driven and they are all, so well constructed, as is the world Fiona Cane has created. I am quite glad I started reading with no preconceptions, as I was plunged into a world unknown to me and it was so gripping that I was one hundred percent immersed.

A thriller that was about a subject that people prefer to brush under the carpet rather than try to world out the reasons that some people are so easily manipulated and why cults are still around, although, one ever calls them cults anymore…they are more respectable these days, everyone thinks!

Author Bio

Born and educated in Sussex, Fiona Cane graduated from Exeter University with a degree in philosophy. She worked in London in film, TV and entertainment PR, before moving back to Sussex with her husband and young family. When she wasn’t coaching tennis or looking after her two children, she’d be scratching away at her latest novel.

She says: “I’m unusual in that I write across several genres – mystery, cosy mystery, psychological
thriller, literary thriller and coming of age – but the one thing my books have in common is that they will keep you turning the page. I have written five other books: the mystery, A Song Unsung (2021); the literary
thriller, The Other Side of the Mountain; the cosy mystery, A Push Too Far, the psychological thriller, When the Dove Cried; and the mystery Killing Fame.”