Julia Golding's Ringmaster on Kindle

As a special Christmas treat, Julia Golding has made the first in the Darcie Lock series, Ringmaster, available on Kindle at the lowest price she can get from Amazon ie 86p/99c.

Blurb: In the heart of Africa trouble is brewing. A chain of events throw one young girl into a world of espionage and danger. One thing's for sure. Life will never be the same again for Darcie Lock. When her father mysteriously goes missing, Darcie sets off on the trail of his captors finding that her government-official father is actually a spy and that her shopaholic mother is also a spook. In a desperate attempt to get their best agents back and the invaluable information that they possess, the secret service have no option but to employ Darcie as their newest recruit. Thrown on a crash course of self-defence, survival skills and gadget training, Darcie must penetrate an international smuggling ring. But will she be able to save her father or will she wilt under the pressure as things hot up under the Kenyan sun? Expats, espionage and the exotic setting of Nairobi - Julia Golding will have you gripped in this rollercoaster ride of an action thriller.


My review is here.

I hadn't realised that the third in the series, Deadlock, is available on Kindle ahead of it's paperback release next March.

New Covers for the Darcie Lock series

Perusing the shelves in WH Smiths at the weekend, I spotted this glorious new cover for Julia Golding's first Darcie Lock adventure, Ringmaster.

I enjoyed Ringmaster very much and you can read my review here.

Ringmaster is followed by Empty Quarter and the third in the series has been pushed back to March 2012.

Here are the old and new covers. What do you think?



















..and here's the new cover for Empty Quarter, taken from Julia Golding's website.

Review: Ringmaster by Julia Golding (Audio book)

Ringmaster by Julia Golding and read by Adjoa Andoh (December 2008, AudioGO, ISBN:9781405654944)

First Line: Looking back, the day had started like any other.

Review: Ringmaster is the first in a soon to be three book adventure series featuring fourteen-year-old Darcie Lock. Darcie is the daughter of a British diplomat and his American wife and they are currently living in Nairobi, Kenya. Darcie attends the international school but on her return one day she finds her house empty. Her mother is abroad but there is no sign of her father or the servants and when she rings the High Commission she is told that Michael Lock no longer works there. And then she is told someone will come for her.

Darcie's life, with all that she thought she knew for facts, is turned upside down when she is recruited by the British security service to help find her father. All she has to do is get herself invited to her classmates' homes and ask a few questions - a low risk operation. But things don't go to plan and it's up to Darcie to save herself, her family and a British royal prince whilst outwitting racists and power-hungry politicians.

This was a very enjoyable listen. Darcie is an engaging character who is very much a tomboy; she plays football and has no time for fashion. She is resourceful and quick-witted. She has an SAS minder, with a dry wit, for some of the book and they have a great rapport with some amusing banter. The story becomes nail-bitingly tense towards the end and the expert plotting means that things that happened earlier in the book become relevant to a successful conclusion. Ringmaster also provides a look at a community of people from different nations and political ideals, who have been thrown together in a unsettled country.

I sought Ringmaster out on audio on two counts. First it is written by Julia Golding, whose first outing as Joss Stirling - Finding Sky - was a favourite read of mine of 2010 and secondly, the narrator is Adjoa Andoh. I have listened to many of her narrations and Ms Andoh can do no wrong in my ears. In this case she expertly conveyed a younger voice for Darcie and she has many accents at her disposal. She is the voice of Alexander McCall Smith's Mme Ramotswe on audio, which I adore, (and Martha's mum in Doctor Who), and I wish that the next Darcie Lock book, Empty Quarter, was available on audio book and narrated by her.