The Brothers: The gripping new novel for 2023 from the No.1 bestselling queen of gangland crime

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Wedding's, Death, funerals, Births, Sex, Drugs.......... this book has it all, and mixed together makes a whole bit pot of Butler madness. This is my first encounter with Kimberley Chambers. I love Mandasue Heller and Martina Cole and was told if I like them I will like this lady, well they weren't wrong. The writing is not the same as Martina (I still like her but in recent time have found things a little samey), but like the other authors mentioned she spins a gritty crime story that pulls you in pretty much from the get go. It was then that she received a phone-call from her friend Hazel, who asked if she wanted to take a hair dressing course. It was then that Chambers decided to try her hand at writing a novel. A few days later, she began writing her premiere novel Billie Jo. When she told her family about her new aspirations, they believed that it was a fad and that she would grow tired of this new venture as well. Damn, I need a drink. This book pulled me every which way and then really chewed me up at the last. I'm really quite surprised at how sad I feel over the ending.

Kimberley has a natural gift for creating very colourful characters, that are larger than life, by the time you get to Tainted Love you feel like you know them all personally, foibles and all (and believe me they all have plenty of them!) they will make you laugh, cry, love and hate them, all in the space of a few minutes! The dialogue between the characters had me choking on my coffee at times, some of Kimberley’s one liners are original in their content to say the least, but if you don’t like swearing then you should give Tainted Love a wide berth, as there is plenty of it! For me I feel the swearing was in context with the plot and the characters, at times it’s very colourful, but also very funny. Chambers was an extremely smart and gifted student in primary and secondary school. Her best subject was English. For reasons unknown, Chambers grades began to plummet. When she was eleven, she states that “things began to deteriorate.” After a few years, her academic life became so stark that she decided to leave her secondary school. As the years pass we are able to see the very complicated relationship of brothers and cousins develop in interesting and competing ways. Dan the growing presence of the family while Little Vinny is the businessman of the next generation, and how the women of the family can see through all the men and get to the heart of the matter. If one was looking for marriage or relationship advice the last people you would be the Butler family. After winning a competition the Bakers became Queenie's neighbors in The Wronged. I would like say a massive thank you to Kimberly for giving Chester my moggy a mention after he sadly passed away last year. Words cannot describe how over the moon I was to read that.

Then to put not one but two families into one story was always going to be very interesting to say the least but wow did she pull it off. Kenny, Beau and Brett have the fight of their lives on their hands, but they will never surrender. After all, the family’s honour is at stake and nothing is more important than family.

Yes they are evil little brats and I’m used to KC psychopathic characters but at the same time some of their exploits made even me feel a bit uncomfortable and apprehensive.Tainted Love is a fantastic book and I made me smile when I saw where the title came from, but that would spoil the plot. Anyone who has had a run in with Her Majesty’s finest and been near the type of circles the Butlers move in will recognise the characterisation of many they have come across in the Butlers. This might be set in the East End, but could easily be Salford, Moss Side in Greater Manchester or Northfield in Birmingham, St Paul’s Bristol, amongst many.