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B0C1X93LG7
| 3.21
| 3,414
| Jan 30, 2024
| Jan 30, 2024
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liked it
| A forty-minute drive from the volcanic Mount Etna, Becchina should have been alive. A forty-minute drive from the volcanic Mount Etna, Becchina should have been alive.-------------------------------------- A low scritching noise caught his attention, and he swung the flashlight beam down to the right, where the natural tunnel and the man-made wall formed a dark and jagged corner. Tiny, putrid-yellow eyes glittered in the shadows.A deal that is too good to believe. Ownership of an abandoned hilltop house in a Sicilian town (Becchina, a made-up town, - buh-kee-na) for a single euro, as long as you agree to live there for five years and invest 50K euros fixing it up. What could possibly go wrong? Tommy and Kate Puglisi see this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. A chance for a much better future than they could ever afford in Boston. [image] Christopher Golden - Image from MichelleRLane.com The world seemed to be unraveling every day. American culture seemed to be rotting from the inside out, manipulated by an amoral oligarchy whose worst enemy was young people who didn’t want to play their game, and Kate and Tommy were happy to be counted in that category. The irony had not been lost on them, that the nineteenth and twentieth centuries had been defined by people leaving the so-called Old World to seek their fortunes in the New World, and now she and Tommy were doing the opposite, seeking new life in the Old World. But they both believed that earlier generations had it right—a slower life, a smaller circle, a focus on home.That Tommy's family had come from Becchina gave it an additional draw, a chance to spend time with his grandparents, whom he loved and very much wanted to see lot of in their final years. The importance of that is magnified by the fact that both of Tommy’s parents are dead. Tommy and Kate are on extended time off from work, so can attend to getting things fixed up before returning to their jobs, remote jobs, which allows them the freedom to live anywhere. And they do not yet have children. Of course the house comes with some unadvertised extras. The book opens with: The rats are like fingers.Uh oh. Squatters. Toss in being within commuting distance of Mount Etna to shake things up. Oh, and that lady down the hill who is always staring daggers at them whenever they pass by. And the family, who is warm and welcoming but not altogether forthright about the history of the town or the house. On the other hand, there is a group of other new arrivals, lured by the same opportunity. They call themselves The Imports. It’s fun seeing Tommy reconnect with famiglia. He and Kate slowly get to know the town and some of its residents, make friends, and come up with a plan to boost the local economy. Can-do Yanks in action. But things keep happening. Kate thinks she sees someone in the house, but did she really? A tremor arrives soon after they do. There is a part of the house that the R/E agent somehow managed to overlook when showing the place. A door that was locked, but then is mysteriously open. Golden makes generous use of Gothic fiction features (see abbreviated list in EXTRA STUFF) to give you chills. Tommy and Kate are actually a happy couple. Many horror books use spectral events as manifestations of underlying relationship problems. Not the case here. This is also not a case in which better-off sorts gentrify an old area, forcing out the locals. Instead, they are trying to save, replenish, and reconstruct, infusing new life into a withered, crumbling, forgotten town. The houses The Imports bought were already abandoned. The newbies are looking to build up not just the houses they occupy but the community as well. So, the dark forces here are not cutouts for obvious social criticism. They are pretty much straight up malignancy coming at you in sundry ways. One way is our visceral reaction to vermin. The rats that feature in the opening lines persist throughout, gaining in their power to induce fear and loathing. It was a specific choice. In the Book Nook interview, Golden talks about how he believes we mortals have a race-memory fear of rats, the result of plagues that wiped large portions of humanity from the planet multiple times, akin to the natural fear most of us have of snakes, from the days when they were in our immediate environment and posed a mortal threat. Rats give us the creeps. What you get in The House of Last Resort is a likable pair in peril, with a plentiful supply of scary, a cauldron of creepy, and a shipload of shivers. If you think your basement is a mess, you have no idea. There are nifty twists, some local color and action aplenty to keep you turning the pages. Depending on your susceptibility to such books, you may get a sleepless night or two out of this one. A fun read, a pure entertainment, uncluttered by larger sociopolitical concerns, a fabulous summer read. But probably a bad idea to take this along if you plan to visit Sicily. A voice crying out. Tommy frowned, wondering if that had been a dream or if it had been what woke him. Review posted - 04/05/24 Publication date – 01/30/24 I received an ARE of The House of Last Resort from St. Martin’s Press in return for a fair review, and some DNA samples. Thanks, folks, and thanks to NetGalley for facilitating. [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] This review will soon be cross-posted on my site, Coot’s Reviews. Stop by and say Hi! =============================EXTRA STUFF Links to Golden’s personal, FB, Instagram, and Twitter pages Profile Golden is a monster of an author who got started, and found success, very early. He has a gazillion publications to his credit and an army-size host of teleplay credits from his years writing for Buffy with Joss Whedon, and plenty more. And then there are the comics. You may have heard of Hell Boy, among those. Here is a list of what he has published, from Fiction DB. I personally think he has elves, or more likely, goblins, chained to computers in his basement helping him crank out such volume. My reviews of Golden’s two prior books ----------2022 - Road of Bones ----------2023 - All Hallows Interviews -----Paul Semel - Exclusive Interview: “The House Of Last Resort” Author Christopher Golden ----- WYSO - Book Nook - ’The House of Last Resort,’ by Christopher Golden by Vick Mickunas – audio – 50:04 Checklist – Partial Characteristics of the Gothic Novel See my review of While You Sleep for more of this sort Setting - castle or old mansion - oh, Yeah Secret passages or tea doors - of course Atmosphere of mystery or suspense - fuh shoo-uh Ancient prophecy or legend - sort of Omens, portents, visions - tremors, hints from neighbors and family Supernatural or otherwise inexplicable events - ghost sightings? High, overwrought emotion - you betcha Women in distress - actually not so much. Both Tommy and Kate are beset Women threatened by powerful, tyrannical male - see above ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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Mar 31, 2024
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Apr 01, 2024
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Kindle Edition
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1250830753
| 9781250830753
| 1250830753
| 3.90
| 74,535
| Jul 12, 2022
| Jul 12, 2022
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it was amazing
| The dead don’t walk. Except, sometimes, when they do.-------------------------------------- It is a cliché to say that a building’s windows look The dead don’t walk. Except, sometimes, when they do.-------------------------------------- It is a cliché to say that a building’s windows look like eyes because humans will find faces in anything and of course the windows would be the eyes. The house of Usher had dozens of eyes, so either it was a great many faces lined up together or it was the face of some creature belonging to a different order of life—a spider, perhaps, with rows of eyes along its head.How many of you have not read Edgar Allan Poe’s story, The Fall of the House of Usher? Ok, now how many of you read it, but so long ago that you do not really remember what it was all about? All right, the link is right above, so, really, go check it out. Take your time. I get paid the same whether you take half an hour or a year, so no worries on my part. Pop back in when you’re done. [image] All right, I think it has been long enough. Those who have not done the reading can catch up later. As I am sure you get, What Moves the Dead is a pastiche, a reimagining of Poe’s tale. Often these are temporal updates, moving the events to a more contemporary setting. But this one is different. Kingfisher (really Ursula Vernon) keeps Usher in the late 19th century. She supplants Poe’s thick style with a more contemporary, less florid, more conversational presentation. [image] T. Kingfisher - image from her GR page Poe’s unnamed narrator becomes Alex Easton, of which more in a bit. We first meet the lieutenant examining some disturbing flora. The mushroom’s gills were the deep-red color of severed muscle, the almost-violet shade that contrasts so dreadfully with the pale pink of viscera. I had seen it any number of times in dead deer and dying soldiers, but it startled me to see it here.Ok, definitely not good. Continuing on, Alex is alarmed at the state of the Usher manse. It was a joyless scene, even with the end of the journey in sight. There were more of the pale sedges and a few dead trees, too gray and decayed for me to identify…Mosses coated the edges of the stones and more of the stinking redgills pushed up in obscene little lumps. The house squatted over it all like the largest mushroom of them all.The invitation (plea) to visit in this version came not from Roderick Usher, but from his twin, Madeline. Neither sibling had had any children, so mark the end of their line, as many prior generations had failed to provide more than a single direct line of descendants. Both Madeline and Roderick look awful, cadaverous, with Maddy, diagnosed as cataleptic, quite wasted away and clearly nearing death. They are having a bad hair life. [image] Redgill Mushroom - image from Forest Floor Narrative There is another in attendance, Doctor James Denton, an American, whose primary narrative purpose seems to be to provide a conversational and analytical partner for Easton. We track the demise of Madeline. Given her Poe-DNA, we know her chances for survival are not great. (But was she really dead in that one, or just entombed alive?) Add in a delight of an amateur mycologist, Eugenia, a fictional aunt of Beatrix Potter, who was quite an accomplished student and illustrator of things fungal. Potter is a pure delight upon the page, (maybe she used some spells?) possessed of a sharp mind and wit, and a bit of unkind regard for some. Other supporting cast include Easton’s batman (no, not that one) Angus, and his mount, Hob, who is given a lot more personality than horses are usually allowed. [image] Image from from TV Tropes So, plenty of dark and dreary, but the atmospherics are not all that is going on here. Kingfisher had read the book as a kid, but rereading it as an adult, found her curiosity piqued. She noted that Poe goes on a fair bit in his story about things fungal, so decided to dig into that as a possible reason for the sad state of the Usher land and clan. The result is a spore-burst of understanding, …so I was reading old pulp, basically going, is there anything here that grabs me that I can see a story in. And I happened on Usher and I was like, I haven't reread any Poe in a while. And I read Fall of the House of Usher and it's obsessed with rotting vegetation and fungus. And it's really short. And they don't explain hardly anything…I wanted to know what was wrong with Madeline Usher because you get buried alive, that is a problem. And so I started reading about catalepsy which is what it was diagnosed as at the time and also fungus, there was just so much about fungus and I'm like, okay, obviously these two must be linked somehow.; - from the LitHub interviewThere is a particularly creepy element, in the hares around the tarn that sit and stare at people through blank eyes. They do not behave like normal bunnies at all in other unsettling ways I will not spoil here. [image] Image from Television Heaven It is definitely worth your time to re-read Poe’s original. There are so many wonderful elements. One is a song that Roderick composes, which encapsulates the dark sense of the tale. There are some bits that were changed or omitted from the original. Poe’s Roderick was heavy into painting, an element that Kingfisher opted to omit. And he was particularly taken with Henry Fuseli, whose dark painting, The Nightmare, certainly fits well with the tale. His guitar work in the original was replaced with piano playing. [image] The Nightmare by Henry Fuseli – image from Wikimedia Kingfisher adds into the story a bit of gender irregularity. What to do if a non-binary person with mammaries wants to become a soldier? Well, these days, can do, but in the late 19th century, not so much. She learned of a practice in the Caucusus, borne of a shortfall of human cannon fodder. A woman could join the military by declaring herself a man, and voila, presto chango, she is legally a dude. Kingfisher took a tangent off that, giving Easton a home in a made-up European nation. Gallacia’s language is . . . idiosyncratic. Most languages you encounter in Europe have words like he and she and his and hers. Ours has those, too, although we use ta and tha and tan and than. But we also have va and var, ka and kan, and a few others specifically for rocks and God… And then there’s ka and kan. I mentioned that we were a fierce warrior people, right? Even though we were bad at it? But we were proud of our warriors. Someone had to be, I guess, and this recognition extends to the linguistic fact that when you’re a warrior, you get to use ka and kan instead of ta and tan. You show up to basic training and they hand you a sword and a new set of pronouns. (It’s extremely rude to address a soldier as ta. It won’t get you labeled as a pervert, but it might get you punched in the mouth.)This did not seem particularly necessary to the story, but it is certainly an interesting element. [image] Image from Filo News So, while you know the outcome in the original, (because you went back and read the story, right?) there is a question of causation. Why is the land so dreary? Why are the Ushers so ill? Why was the family tree more like a telephone pole? Kingfisher provides a delightful answer. So, What Moves the Dead, in novella length, (about 45K words) provides an intriguing mystery, renders a suitably grim setting, offers up some fun characters, with an interesting take on gender identification possibilities, delivers some serious, scary moments, and pays homage to a classic horror tale, while (didn’t I mention this above?) making us laugh out loud. I had in my notes FIVE LOLs. Add in a bunch of snickers and a passel of smiles. Not something one might expect in a horror tale. Bottom line is that T. Kingfisher has written a scary/funny/smart re-examination (exhumation?) of a fabulous tale. What Moves the Dead moves me to report that this book is perfect for the Halloween season, and a great read anytime if you are looking for a bit of a short, but not short-story short, creepy scare. DURING the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country, and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. - from The Fall of the House of Usher [image] From Otakukart.com - image from Netflix Review posted – September 9, 2022 Publication date – July 12, 2022 I received an eARE of What Moves the Dead from Tor Nightfire in return for a fair review. Thanks, folks, and thanks to NetGalley for facilitating. Wait, why are you staring at me like that? Stop it! Really, Stop it! [image] [image] [image] [image] This review has been cross-posted on my site, Coot’s Reviews. Stop by and say Hi! =============================EXTRA STUFF Links to the author’s personal, Goodreads, and Twitter pages Profile – from GoodReads T. Kingfisher is the vaguely absurd pen-name of Ursula Vernon. In another life, she writes children's books and weird comics, and has won the Hugo, Sequoyah, and Ursa Major awards, as well as a half-dozen Junior Library Guild selectionsInterview -----Mighty Mu - Spoilers Club 3: T Kingfisher and What Moves the Dead - video – 41:08 Item of Interest from the author -----Sarah Gailey and T. Kingfisher Talk Haunted Houses, Fantastic Fungi, and the Stories Nonbinary Folks Deserve Item of Interest -----Beatrix Potter's Naturalist Notes In June of 1896, Potter visited her mentor, George Massee, at Kew Gardens, where he showed her mushrooms grown under glass. He boasted that one of them “had spores three inches long.” Potter then jokes that they are both turning into mushrooms:Songs/Music -----Carl Maria von Weber’s Last Waltz is referenced in Poe’s story, in which Roderick played guitar instead of piano -----John Brown’s Body - Smile-worthy reference to a dead person who still walks among us -----Ben Morton - Beethoven’s Fifth on piano - …he played dramatic compositions by great composers. (Mozart? Beethoven? Why are you asking me? It was music, it went dun-dun-dun-DUN, what more do you want me to say?) Merged review: The dead don’t walk. Except, sometimes, when they do.-------------------------------------- It is a cliché to say that a building’s windows look like eyes because humans will find faces in anything and of course the windows would be the eyes. The house of Usher had dozens of eyes, so either it was a great many faces lined up together or it was the face of some creature belonging to a different order of life—a spider, perhaps, with rows of eyes along its head.How many of you have not read Edgar Allan Poe’s story, The Fall of the House of Usher? Ok, now how many of you read it, but so long ago that you do not really remember what it was all about? All right, the link is right above, so, really, go check it out. Take your time. I get paid the same whether you take half an hour or a year, so no worries on my part. Pop back in when you’re done. [image] All right, I think it has been long enough. Those who have not done the reading can catch up later. As I am sure you get, What Moves the Dead is a pastiche, a reimagining of Poe’s tale. Often these are temporal updates, moving the events to a more contemporary setting. But this one is different. Kingfisher (really Ursula Vernon) keeps Usher in the late 19th century. She supplants Poe’s thick style with a more contemporary, less florid, more conversational presentation. [image] T. Kingfisher - image from her GR page Poe’s unnamed narrator becomes Alex Easton, of which more in a bit. We first meet the lieutenant examining some disturbing flora. The mushroom’s gills were the deep-red color of severed muscle, the almost-violet shade that contrasts so dreadfully with the pale pink of viscera. I had seen it any number of times in dead deer and dying soldiers, but it startled me to see it here.Ok, definitely not good. Continuing on, Alex is alarmed at the state of the Usher manse. It was a joyless scene, even with the end of the journey in sight. There were more of the pale sedges and a few dead trees, too gray and decayed for me to identify…Mosses coated the edges of the stones and more of the stinking redgills pushed up in obscene little lumps. The house squatted over it all like the largest mushroom of them all.The invitation (plea) to visit in this version came not from Roderick Usher, but from his twin, Madeline. Neither sibling had had any children, so mark the end of their line, as many prior generations had failed to provide more than a single direct line of descendants. Both Madeline and Roderick look awful, cadaverous, with Maddy, diagnosed as cataleptic, quite wasted away and clearly nearing death. They are having a bad hair life. [image] Redgill Mushroom - image from Forest Floor Narrative There is another in attendance, Doctor James Denton, an American, whose primary narrative purpose seems to be to provide a conversational and analytical partner for Easton. We track the demise of Madeline. Given her Poe-DNA, we know her chances for survival are not great. (But was she really dead in that one, or just entombed alive?) Add in a delight of an amateur mycologist, Eugenia, a fictional aunt of Beatrix Potter, who was quite an accomplished student and illustrator of things fungal. Potter is a pure delight upon the page, (maybe she used some spells?) possessed of a sharp mind and wit, and a bit of unkind regard for some. Other supporting cast include Easton’s batman (no, not that one) Angus, and his mount, Hob, who is given a lot more personality than horses are usually allowed. [image] Image from from TV Tropes So, plenty of dark and dreary, but the atmospherics are not all that is going on here. Kingfisher had read the book as a kid, but rereading it as an adult, found her curiosity piqued. She noted that Poe goes on a fair bit in his story about things fungal, so decided to dig into that as a possible reason for the sad state of the Usher land and clan. The result is a spore-burst of understanding, …so I was reading old pulp, basically going, is there anything here that grabs me that I can see a story in. And I happened on Usher and I was like, I haven't reread any Poe in a while. And I read Fall of the House of Usher and it's obsessed with rotting vegetation and fungus. And it's really short. And they don't explain hardly anything…I wanted to know what was wrong with Madeline Usher because you get buried alive, that is a problem. And so I started reading about catalepsy which is what it was diagnosed as at the time and also fungus, there was just so much about fungus and I'm like, okay, obviously these two must be linked somehow.; - from the LitHub interviewThere is a particularly creepy element, in the hares around the tarn that sit and stare at people through blank eyes. They do not behave like normal bunnies at all in other unsettling ways I will not spoil here. [image] Image from Television Heaven It is definitely worth your time to re-read Poe’s original. There are so many wonderful elements. One is a song that Roderick composes, which encapsulates the dark sense of the tale. There are some bits that were changed or omitted from the original. Poe’s Roderick was heavy into painting, an element that Kingfisher opted to omit. And he was particularly taken with Henry Fuseli, whose dark painting, The Nightmare, certainly fits well with the tale. His guitar work in the original was replaced with piano playing. [image] The Nightmare by Henry Fuseli – image from Wikimedia Kingfisher adds into the story a bit ...more |
Notes are private!
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2
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Sep 2022
not set
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Sep 05, 2022
not set
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May 03, 2023
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Hardcover
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1594561796
| 9781594561795
| 1594561796
| 3.87
| 72,712
| 1839
| Feb 02, 2004
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really liked it
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Re-read when reading/reviewing What Moves the Dead, a 2022 reimagining by T. Kingfisher. The language is as thick as the miasma being depicted. Ill-fat Re-read when reading/reviewing What Moves the Dead, a 2022 reimagining by T. Kingfisher. The language is as thick as the miasma being depicted. Ill-fated twins Roderick and Madeline Usher beset by some dark force centered on their land, whether natural or spectral. Nifty, spooky atmosphere, reported to us by a soldier friend of Roderick's. Madeline having some difficulty remaining dead, freaking out her brother. Some obvious flaws, like our narrator bolting maybe a bit too soon as the creepy house is itself beset, not checking on his buddy's status in his speedy buh-bye. But still, a fun dark read. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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Sep 06, 2022
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Sep 07, 2022
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Paperback
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1250774152
| 3.84
| 82,876
| Jan 18, 2022
| Jan 18, 2022
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really liked it
| While Davey tugged the rope, Munro, still in the grave, helped to guide the body out of the small hole in the coffin and back toward the surface wo While Davey tugged the rope, Munro, still in the grave, helped to guide the body out of the small hole in the coffin and back toward the surface world, a strange reverse birth for a body past death. Munro successfully removed the body’s shoes off as it left its coffin, but it was up to Davey to strip off the rest of its clothes and throw them back in the grave. Stealing a body was against the law, but if they actually took any property from the grave, that would make it a felony.-------------------------------------- It’s the lesson young girls everywhere were taught their entire lives—don’t be seduced by the men you meet, protect your virtue—until, of course, their entire lives depended on, seduction by the right man. It was an impossible situation, a trick of society as a whole: force women to live at the mercy of whichever man wants them but shame them for anything they might do to get a man to want them. Passivity was the ultimate virtue…Be patient, be silent, be beautiful and untouched as an orchid, and then and only then will your reward come: a bell jar to keep you safe.Ok, so I screwed up. First off, I thought the pub date was 2/22/22 and scheduled my reading and review accordingly. Uh, sorry. Actual pub date was 1/18/22, so I am coming at this one a bit late. Second, I did not do a very thorough job of reading about the book when it was offered. I somehow managed to overlook the fact that it is a YA novel. I have nothing against YA novels. Some of my favorite books are YA novels, but I usually pass on YA books these days unless there is a compelling reason to take them on. Had I seen that it was a YA, I would probably have skipped this one. Finally, yet another failing on my part. I somehow managed to overlook the romance element in the promotional copy. Again, I have nothing against romance elements in books which are mostly of another sort. Quite enjoy them when they are well done. But did not have my expectations primed for the presence of quite as much as there is here, which is not to say that it is huge. It is not. So, multiple failings, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. The product of impatience. Won’t happen again. I know the drill, Three Hail Marys and a couple of Our Fathers. Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest ands offered fair warning…on to the book itself. [image] Dana Schwartz - image from her site Hazel Sinnett is seventeen. She has always lived in a castle an hour outside Edinburgh. It is 1817. She very much wants to study medicine, has read all the books in the family library on the subject, but lacks actual school-based tuition and hands-on experience. When the grandson of a famous doctor is in town to deliver a lecture, she finds a way to attend. Gender attitudes being what they were at the time, people of her sort were not welcome. Still, she finds a way, with some help, and when the doctor announces he will be offering an anatomy class she is desperate to attend. Medicine is making some advances but the study of the human body requires actual human bodies, preferably lately late. Executions not providing sufficient resources to fill the need, a profession has arisen to satisfy that demand, resurrectionists, who, for a fee, relieve nearby graves of their residents, and deliver same to their clients with the utmost of discretion. Jack Currer, also seventeen, counts that among his several jobs. He happens to be hanging about near the Anatomists’ Society when Hazel is locked out. Meet Cute as Jack shows this clearly well-to-do young lady a secret way in. Think these two might just cross paths again? Of course, there are impediments. Hazel is not in line to inherit anything, regardless of her parents’ wealth, bypassed in favor of the male heir. The female thing again. The usual way for a young lady from a god family to secure a future is to secure a husband of means. As it happens, she has a first cousin living not too far away, Bernard. They have known reach other forever, played together since early childhood, and it has been presumed that it was only a matter of time before Bernard would propose. He is not a bad sort, but rather dull and a bit too concerned with his appearance. Hazel recognizes that there are problems with her being allowed to make her own way in the world, so more or less anesthetizes herself to the likelihood that Bernard is her likeliest way out of a life of penury. God knows that is what her mother keeps telling her, and telling her, and telling her. She manages to attend some of Doctor Beecham’s lectures, and is the star pupil, but the female thing again. Guys, catch up, C’Mon! Beecham at least recognizes her intelligence and they come to an agreement. If she can pass the medical exam at the end of the term, she will be able to get real medical training. Unfortunately, there’s that hands-on thing. Books alone will simply not do. But wait! It just so happens she has made the acquaintance of someone who might be able to help her out, and a beautiful friendship blossoms. I really thought I was going to go be a doctor,” Dana Schwartz says about her time as a pre-med student in college. “Then I had this panicked moment of realizing I was so fundamentally unhappy. My dream was always to be a writer, but I never thought I could make a living that way.” - from the Forbes interviewBut it is not all raw sexism and Hallmark moments. There are dark doings in Edinburgh. A plague has struck, a return of the so-called “Roman fever” which had killed over five thousand the last time it hit, two years before. It had even killed Hazel’s beloved brother, George. She had caught it as well, but managed to survive. Is it really Roman Fever that is boosting the mortality rate? Jack is aware of far too many acquaintances vanishing, and there are strange doings in the local graveyards as a trio of heavies are haunting such areas, terrorizing the poor resurrection men. Then Hazel begins to see some very strange medical problems when she starts getting to study specimens obtained by Jack, and treating some locals. There is also something decidedly off about Doctor Beecham, who never seems to remove his dark gloves, and demonstrates a mind-numbing drug as a road to pain-free surgery. Then there is Doctor Straine, one eye, nasty skin and a worse attitude, a surgeon working with Doctor Beecham. Seems like a nogoodnik from the build-a-creep shop. It was the gothic elements that had drawn me to the story. And they are indeed present. But Schwartz has had some fun with them. (For the following I used some of a list from Elif Notes.) Usually gothic novels feature a Desolate, haunted Setting, typically a very creepy castle or equivalent. Here, Hazel lives in a castle, which is a pretty benign home for her. Other sites must serve this purpose. Graveyards work, and certainly provide some chills, and any place where human bodies are being cut up, for purposes educational or malign, will also serve, so, check. Dark and Mysterious Atmosphere? You betcha, plenty of suspect characters and unexplained deaths and disappearances. Something supernatural? Well, I do not want to give anything away, so will say only that there is an element here that qualifies the story as fantasy. Emotional Extremes? Fuh shoo-uh. Although the emotional extremes are as much about Hazel’s lot in life as they are about the actual life-and-death shenanigans that are going on. Women as Victims - absolutely, but in the wider, sexism-conscious sense as well as in the way of a damsels being put upon by dastardly males. Curses and Portents - not so much, except what we all might wish upon some of the baddies. Visions and Nightmares - Hazel has some of the latter, but nothing mystical about them, just recollections of horrors she had seen in real life. Frightening Tone - most definitely. There is clearly something sinister going on in Edinburgh. Frightening Weather - not really. There is a fun early bit in which we are waiting for an incoming storm to deliver some life-generating lightning, but mostly, weather is not that big a deal here. Religious Concerns - social mores are more the thing in this one. Good versus Evil - there is some serious evil going on here. And Hazel is definitely a force for good. A Touch of Romance - yes. Well, more than a touch. Hey, Laddy, you’d better keep those hands to yersel ef ya wan ter keep ‘em on the ends uh yer arms.” There is Romance and then there is Love. The title even highlights it, Anatomy: A Love Story. There is clearly some romance going on here. Hazel and Jack give off sparks which brings their obvious connection to life. But Hazel’s true love may be more the passion she has for learning, for science, for medicine, for anatomy, for surgery. If she were really faced with a choice between being a doctor or being with Jack, and the two were exclusive, are you confident what choice she would make? Is it possible to have your cake and dissect it too? Not so easy in 1817 Scotland. The real horrors here are the treatment of women as a subordinate level of human and the joys of the class system in early 19th Century Scotland. Even coming from a family of means, Hazel is refused entry into a profession for which she has passion, and a clear capability, simply because of her gender. She must endure belittling by men, in power and not, who are her intellectual and moral inferiors, as she struggles to find a way forward. Contemplating her life options, Hazel sees her future as a life under a bell jar, whatever that may be referring to. The experience of being poor in the Georgian era is shown not only in the life of Jack, but in the ways the poor and working class are held in their place no less than if they were confined to a castle dungeon, and in the depraved indifference the wealthy show to the lives of those less fortunate than themselves. “The main mystery I wanted to pick at and unravel is who gets forgotten in society and for what purpose,” Schwartz says. “Obviously today, there is a huge wealth gap that continues to grow, but in the 1800s, the aristocracy made that wealth gap explicit. There was a social and cultural line, so I wanted to explore in a way that doesn’t necessarily label the characters as heroes or villains.” - from the San Diego Tribune interviewThere are some comedic elements, one of which focuses on a man-eater and is hilarious. There a lovely bit of a secondary romantic sub plot, and some fun references. Hazel is all excited to hear about a lecture/demonstration put on by someone named Galvini. This is a clear reference to the actual Luigi Galvani who was putting on shows in which dead things were animated with electricity from a battery. He provided some of the inspiration for a young writer of that era. The epigraph of the novel is a quote from Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, whose creation has near universal familiarity. A mention of Mary Wollstonecraft, her mom, serves double duty as a reference to a leading light for women’s rights in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and as a reminder that the novel deals with matters of life and death, and maybe life again. Hazel’s younger brother is named Percy, which again reminds one of Mary Shelley. A recollection of Walter Scott reciting his Lady of the Lake epic at her Uncle and Aunt’s house is also reminiscent of the Wollstonecraft/Godwin household, in which Coleridge read his Rime of the Ancient Mariner. So, there are many Frankensteinian parts gathered together to help animate the story. Some parts did not quite fit, however. It was sooo convenient that her father was away on a prolonged naval mission, and that Mum decides to head out of town for an extended period with her other, much more valuable, male child, Hazel’s younger brother. So, Risky Business time for the entire season at Hawthornden Castle. (Although maybe Summer at Bernie’s might be a bit closer, given the issues with dead people.) AND, really? none of the staff rats Hazel out to her mother, the one paying their salary, for running a clinic at the family residence? Maybe we should consider this part of the fantasy element. Re my intro, I was not much excited by the squishy romance bits, but I already told you about that. No biggie, ultimately. It is mostly adorable. Dana Schwartz has written a strong, literary, YA novel that offers some chills, an historical look at a place and time, and a look at the challenges faced by the poor and by those of the female persuasion, when it was still the rule to treat women as servants, eye candy, or brood mares. It shows a powerful approach and makes me eager to see what she comes up with when she writes a full-on adult novel, but that may not be next up on her board. …right now, I have an idea for a sequel that I really want to tell and I think will be really fun. I thought this was going to be a one-off, but when I reached the ending, and I sat with that for a few months, I thought that there’s something else here.” - from the San Diego Tribune interview Review posted – February 11, 2022 Publication date – January 18, 2022 I received an ARE of Anatomy: A Love Story from Wednesday Books in return for a fair review and some help dealing with an uncomfortable neck growth. Thanks, folks, and thanks to NetGalley for facilitating. [image] [image] [image] [image] This review has been, or soon will be, cross-posted on my personal site, https://cootsreviews.com/. Stop by and say Hi! =============================EXTRA STUFF Links to the author’s personal, FB, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter pages Schwartz came to public notice when she was still in the employ of the New York Observer and Tweeted a criticism of Donald Trump for using anti-Semitic imagery in an anti-Hillary ad. She got viciously trolled by his minions, and wanted to write about that experience. Her boss gave her a green light, but did not really proof the piece, an open letter, which called out Jared Kushner, who owned The Observer, for not interceding with his father-in-law to prevent such things. As an undergrad, she established the “GuyInYourMFA” and “Dystopian YA” parody Twitter profiles. She had internships with Conan and Colbert, and was later was a staff writer for Disney’s She-Hulk, then created and hosted the Noble Blood podcast. Anatomy is her fourth book. Interviews -----Time Magazine - Dana Schwartz Wrote the YA Romance She Always Wanted to Read by Simmone Shah -----Bustle - How My Chemical Romance Inspired Dana Schwartz’s Latest Novel - By Samantha Leach -----Forbes - 26-Year-Old Dana Schwartz Doesn’t Need To Stick To A Genre by Rosa Escandon -----San Diego Union Tribune - Dana Schwartz gets skin deep in ‘Anatomy: A Love Story’ by Seth Combs -----Barnes & Noble - Poured Over: Dana Schwartz on Anatomy by BN Editors Items of Interest from the author -----Discussion Questions Items of Interest -----Edith Wharton - Roman fever - a short story -----This very nice bio of Mary Shelley, from The Poetry Foundation, has considerable information about her other works. -----A nifty web-site on Resurrectionists. Can you dig it? -----Frankie for free, courtesy of Project Gutenberg -----NY Times - Reporter Calls Out Publisher (Donald Trump’s Son-in-Law) Over Anti-Semitism By Jonathan Mahler -----My review of The Lady and her Monsters - This is a must-read book for anyone interested in Mary Shelley and the writing of Frankenstein ...more |
Notes are private!
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Jan 30, 2022
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Feb 06, 2022
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Feb 09, 2022
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0440000211
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| 3.79
| 114,444
| Mar 15, 2022
| Mar 15, 2022
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really liked it
| On the lawn, something moved across the surface of the grass. The touch of a footprint. Inside the house, one of the cupboard doors opened in the d On the lawn, something moved across the surface of the grass. The touch of a footprint. Inside the house, one of the cupboard doors opened in the dark kitchen, groaning softly into the silence.-------------------------------------- “Being a girl is the best,” she said, “because no one ever believes you’d do something bad. People think you’ll do nothing, which means you can do anything. I’ll show you.”1977 – Claire Lake, Oregon. Two men have been brutally murdered in separate incidents, roadside, no obvious motive. But a witness did see someone leaving the scene of one of the crimes. The description matches a local, a young woman generally regarded as odd. Beth Greer is standoffish, young, attractive, and rich. Parents both dead, Mom from an auto accident in a tree, Dad from a close encounter with fired round, in the kitchen. She has a taste for alcohol and keeping human connections ephemeral. When she is not out at bars and clubs, she is mostly at home, Greer House, not the happiest place on Earth. The bullets that did in the two randos just happen to match the one that laid Julian Greer out on the kitchen floor, a murder, BTW, that was never solved. You can see why the police might be a tad suspicious. [image] Simone St. James - image from her site – credit: Lauren Perry 2017 – Shea Collins is 29, newly (ok, almost a year) divorced. Has worked reception in a doctor’s office in downtown Claire Lake for five years. But her real self is invested in her website, The Book of Cold Cases. Shea is a true crime blogger, been at it for ten years, is certainly up on local crime legends, so she notices when one walks into the office, Beth Greer, forty years after she was believed to be The Lady Killer of tabloid fame, forty years after she was acquitted of the murders, which were never solved. Most think she was guilty. Beth pursues Greer, who, to her great shock, agrees to be interviewed. And the game is afoot. There are two timelines at work, contemporary and back-then. In the 2017 line, Shea interviews Beth at Greer House, even though the place creeps her out. The décor is from the era of Beth’s parents, which is off-putting enough, but there is clearly a lot more going on there. Objects move without obvious cause. A mysterious girl appears outside a window. Shea does not feel safe there, but the lure of getting the whole story from Beth is too much to resist so she keeps coming back. Also, she and Beth seem to be forming a friendship. Beth may or may not be a killer, but Shea likes her, is fascinated by her. In the earlier time, we follow Beth’s childhood, stretching back to 1960, as events that lead up to the killings are revealed, bit by bit. The alternate perspectives, Shea’s in first person and Beth’s in third, are not evenly divided. We get more Shea than Beth (26 chapters to 18, if you must know), with a few Others tossed in. They do not alternate in a steady format, but streak at times for one or the other. Shea has some dark visions from her own past she has had to deal with for the last twenty years. At age nine she was abducted, but managed to escape with her life. The next girl her abductor took was not so lucky. Helps explain why she takes the bus and is reluctant to get into cars. Helps explain why she is way security conscious. Also, helps explain why she is reluctant to date again. “Do you know how many serial killers dated lonely women in their everyday lives? Some divorcée who just wants companionship from a nice man? She thinks she’s won the dating lottery, and meanwhile he’s out there on a Sunday afternoon, dumping bodies. And now we’re supposed to use internet apps, where someone’s picture might not even be real. People are lying about their faces.”(view spoiler)[It took a long time after we met on Match for me to discover my now wife’s history of serial criminal activity, so I get that. (hide spoiler)] There are mysteries to be solved and in the best True Crime fashion, Shea, along with her sort-of partner-in-crime-solving, PI Michael De Vos, dig into each of the questions as they arise. Very cozy mystery style. There is even a retired detective who offers a bit of help, continuing the cozy format. Of course, there are other elements that make this less of a cozy, the supernatural, for one, and a little more on-screen violence than might fit in that format. In fact The Book of Cold Cases crosses many genre lines, could be gothic, thriller, horror, suspense, or mystery, with a bit of romance tossed in for good measure. This particular mix of genre-salad was not always the Simone St. James brand. I wrote five books set in 1920’s England, and while I loved writing them, I never intended to write about one period for the rest of my life. I wanted to flex my writing muscles and write something set in the USA—something that had two timelines, one of them contemporary. Creatively, I wanted a new goal and a new challenge while still writing a Simone St. James book. I got my wish! - from the Criminal Element interviewSt James has stuck with that. Her first America-set thriller, The Broken Girls (2018), offers a split timeline, 1950/2014, the story centering on a deserted and reputedly haunted school for girls, and a journalist looking into the death of her sister twenty years before. The Sun Down Motel (2020) takes on a haunted establishment in upstate New York, splits between 1982 and 2017, and includes a 35-years-ago missing aunt, a niece eager to dig up the truth, and a slew of killings and disappearances that really need looking into. Keeping the string going, The Book of Cold Cases splits between 1977 and 2017, includes an amateur investigator (a blogger this time), some contemporary frights, some historical killings, and a haunted house. (I did ask her what she was planning to haunt next, but St. James declined to spill) Strong primary characters can carry a book if the plot is well-thought out, and that would have been enough here. But St. James’ secondary characters were quite good, although we could have used even more of some of them. Detective Black, retired now, but involved in the 1977 investigations, was a strong presence. Shea’s PI, Michael De Vos, was off screen too much, as he was quite engaging when he was in view. I enjoyed the parallelism of relationships, Beth with Black and Shea with Michael. Gripes – The only real blogging work we see Shea do (yes, there is a session or two noted, but only very much in passing) is on Beth’s case. Might have been a good thing to get a stronger, more fleshed out, look at how Shea has been spending her nights, which would have included a lot more on-line than live and in person investigations. Claire Lake, the town, did not feel strongly realized. This was more than made up for, however, by the seriously creepy haunted house, and the powerful presence of Beth Greer. Lest you suspect there is some actual true crime in this true crime tale, I asked SSJ that question on her FB page, and she replied, “the cases in the book were all entirely fictional.” So you True Crime obsessives can stop looking for real-world sparks for this one. And as for ghosts in the real world, she has never had a spectral experience. St. James likes putting literary Easter eggs in her work, so keep an eye out for those. Bottom line is that The Book of Cold Cases is a fun page-turner that delivers what it promises, murder mysteries, an intrepid investigator, some fascinating characters, a taste of the 70s, and a large dollop of the other-worldly. It is even a bit scary. I have a pretty high bar for such things, but there was one moment in which I got chills and the hair on my arms stood up at attention. That is one more than usually occurs, so, kudos. It sustains tension throughout, making you want to either blast through ASAP, or, my preferred approach, savor the fun in relatively low-dose portions night after night. In either case this is a fun, spooky, engaging read that is well worth your time, and should provide most readers with some chills. some places hold you so that you can’t get free. They squeeze you like a fist. Review posted – March 4, 2022 Publication dates ----------Hardcover – March 15, 2022 ----------Trade paperback - February 28, 2023 I received an ARE of The Book of Cold Cases from Berkley in return for a fair review, and keeping quiet about a few things. Thanks, folks. And thanks to NetGalley for facilitating. [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] This review has been cross-posted on my site, Coot’s Reviews. Stop by and say Hi! =============================EXTRA STUFF Links to the author’s personal, FB, Instagram, and Twitter pages Simone St. James is the nom de plume of Simone Seguin, of Toronto. She worked for many years in TV, for a Canadian sports network, but not as a writer. She worked on budgets. She says she knows nothing about sports, despite the gig. It was only after she had had multiple novels published that she ditched budgeting to become a full-time writer. She had endured six years of rejections before her first book was published. The Book of Cold Cases is her eighth novel. Interviews -----Criminal Element – 2018 - Q&A with Simone St. James, Author of The Broken Girls for The Broken Girls by Angie Barry -----The Inside Flap – 2020 - Ep. 98 How To Spy On People With Simone St. James by Dave Medicus, Andrew Dowd, and Laura Medicus – 1:36:48 - begins about 30:00 – to 58:00 Item of Interest from the author -----Indigo - Sample - 1st four chapters Music -----George Thorogood - Bad to the Bone ...more |
Notes are private!
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Feb 12, 2022
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Jan 19, 2022
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059333423X
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| 059333423X
| 3.94
| 22,643
| Sep 30, 2021
| Oct 05, 2021
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really liked it
| He’s tall and rakish, with greasy black hair to his jaw, a tattoo of a panther on his neck, a missing front tooth. A grin. He’s tall and rakish, with greasy black hair to his jaw, a tattoo of a panther on his neck, a missing front tooth. A grin.2021 - Ok, so maybe not exactly a welcoming committee, with a sparkly, multi-colored sign at the local watering hole, all the residents in attendance, celebrating her return. But I guess it’ll have to do. It wasn’t Luna’s first time on the island of Lòn Haven. She had been there for a spell as a child, and, while her experience was memorable, it was relatively brief, and her exit had been fraught. Now, thirty years old, pregnant for the first time, she is not exactly eager to stick around. But she is there on a mission. [image] C.J. (Carolyn Jess) Cooke – image from The University of Glasgow 1998 - Olivia Stay has just left her home in northern England, dragged her three daughters with her, and headed north on an hours-long drive to a remote island off the east coast of Scotland. She is an artist, with a commission to paint a mural on the inside of a 149-foot-tall lighthouse, which is in less-than-stellar condition. Her mysterious employer has left drawings for her of what he wants. She and the girls will be staying on the lighthouse property, in a small house, called a bothy. The lighthouse has an intriguing name. “You’re staying at the Longing?” he said, raising an eyebrow. “Quite a history, that place.”…or something. The lost loved ones tended to be women murdered by the locals, accused of witchcraft and burned alive. The Longing was built directly over the place where the women had been kept and tortured, a broch, which is a circular castle-like structure, as much as two thousand years old. While there have been five major national bouts of witch-burnings in Scotland, the only witches likely to have been about were of the herbalist, rather than spell-casting sort. The ones with the matches provided the very human-sourced evil involved. The historical burning time of note here was 1662. Olivia (Liv) is our first-person narrator for much of the book. Other chapters offer third-person POVs from Luna and Saffy. A second first-person account is historical. That one provides interceding chapters made up of passages from a book, left in the bothy, referred to as a grimoire. But it serves less as a source for studying the dark arts than it does as a memoir. Written by someone named Roberts, presumably an ancestor of Liv’s employer, it serves mostly as a fourth perspective, offering first-person exposition of historical events the book’s author lived through, events that inform the present. We follow Liv as she is introduced to the island, and the local oddballs. (and wonder why she suddenly dropped everything and dragged her kids north several weeks ahead of the appointed time) But when she sees a small, almost feral-seeming white-haired child on the property, and the police do not seem to take her seriously, things get more interesting. Local lore has it that condemned witches, in league with the fae realm, created wildlings, copies of island children, who would suddenly appear out of nowhere, intent on wiping out family lines. Locals hold that any such beings must be killed ASAP. Then two of her daughters, Saffy and Clover, disappear. [image] St Mary’s Lighthouse – the English lighthouse that provided inspiration for the Longing – image from Photographers Resource UK In 2021, after twenty-two years of searching for her lost family, Luna is contacted. Her sister, Clover, has been found. But instead of being twenty-nine years old, Clover is still only seven. Is this child even her sister? Or could she be one of the wildlings Luna had heard about when she was a child on Lòn Haven? Her behavior certainly gives one cause for concern. The story braids the four narratives, alternating Liv, Luna, Saffy, and the grimoire’s Mr Roberts reporting of their experiences, and the times in which they are in the spotlight, offering nice chapter-ending cliff-hangers to sustain our interest from one strand to the next. In an interview with The Nerd Daily, Cooke (who is married, with four children) was asked about her inspiration for the book. I think it came from a range of places – I was thinking a lot (and still am) about how different it is to parent a teenager than it is to parent a baby, and yet the speed with which a baby seems to become a teenager feels like whiplash. So the story of Liv and her 15-year-old Sapphire in the book emerged from that thinking. When we moved to Scotland in 2019, I learned about the Scottish Witch Trials. I’m very interested in women’s lives, and this slice of history is very much concerned with what happened to women – and it also bears a huge relevance to the current moment. Gradually that thinking took shape. Lastly, I was invited to teach at the University of Iceland in 2019, and while I was there – and thinking a lot about the book and how I was going to incorporate all the various ideas I had – I came across 14th century spell books, which blew my mind. As I dug deeper into the history of magic and how it impacted women in particular, the story came out of the shadows.The fraught relationship between 15yo Saffy and Liv will feel familiar, in tone, if not necessarily in the specific content of Saffy and Liv’s interaction. Cooke relied on her own teenage daughter for much of Saffy’s voice. Add to that the fact that Liv is a single mother, struggling to get by. Many of Liv’s struggles with parenting resonated, guilt versus responsibility versus coping with external limitations. Cooke offers, through the grimoire, a first-person look at the 1661/1662 witch-trial hysteria, providing a persuasive take on its causation, at least in this instance. The Icelandic spell books notion gave Cooke the tool she needed for exploring the past. I wanted everything for my children. But every single day I had to confront the glaring reality that I simply wasn’t able to provide the kind of life they deserved. And it crushed me.There is a hint of prior, off-screen abuse in Liv’s background. This is likely a manifestation of Cooke’s experiences growing up in an abusive household in a council estate in Belfast during The Troubles. The up-front abuse here is in how power is used to protect those who have it from being held responsible for their actions, at the expense of the powerless, both past and present. And in how murderous impulses, combined with ignorance, under the mantle of religion, and official sanction, present a peril to any who do not conform, in any age. Informational payload informs the story. You will pick up a few bits of Scottish terminology, and even a bit of spice on magical symbology and local fairy lore. Cooke has some fun with triangles of various sorts. We get a you-are-there look at an actual historical time of madness. Cooke, in the interview from The Inside Flap, talks about how surprised she was when she moved to Scotland to find that there had been witch trials there, and that there were no memorials at all for the hundreds of people (not all were women) who had been killed. Perhaps it might be necessary to light a fire under some public officials to see that this is corrected. There were parts of the book that gave me pause. I had trouble, for example, with the police releasing seven-year-old Clover to Luna, given that there was no way the two were the sisters they supposedly were in any normal time line. There seemed some contradiction in the overall take. Where does magic leave off and other factors enter into things? Could an evil-doer, for example, be stricken with an awful affliction at the hands of a spell-caster? And if so, then a scientific-ish explanation for later events seems undercut. What if that scientific-ish situation was created by magic? And round and round we go. While not exactly a hair-raising read for me, (few are) I did find some scenes in the book pretty scary, less, maybe, for the magical terror involved, than for the willingness of people to do terrible things in the name of insane beliefs, a terror we live with every day, and the fear any parent might feel when their child is in danger. We can feel for Liv even as we might wonder at her judgment. She is clearly stressed beyond reason. And we can feel for Luna trying to solve this intricate puzzle, while taking on parental responsibility for her now-much-younger sib. The mysteries of the book will keep you turning the pages. In this fictional realm, are witches real? And if they are, did they really curse the island? And if they did, were fairy-generated wildlings a part of the plan? And if they were, was there an intent to end family lines? And what’s the deal with Clover showing up twenty-two years after vanishing? One of life’s great joys is to begin reading a book expecting to be directed from Point A to Point Z with the familiar stops along the way, and then finding oneself in an entirely other alphabet. The Lighthouse Witches has the magic needed to make that trip possible. It is an enchanting read. She turns her head from side to side, taking in the velvet expanse of the ocean on her left and the rocks and beach on her right. Ahead, surf furls into the bay. Something there catches her eye, and she wonders if it’s the basking shark, Basil, with his weird two fins. Something bobbing in the water. Seals, probably. Except it’s the wrong color. It’s pale. Review posted - October 8, 2021 Publication date – October 5, 2021 I received an eARC of The Lighthouse Witches from Berkley in return for casting one or two minor spells. Thanks to EK, and NetGalley for facilitating. This review has been cross-posted on my site, Coot’s Reviews. Stop by and say Hi! [image] [image] [image] =============================EXTRA STUFF Links to the author’s personal, FB, Instagram, and Twitter pages From About the Author in the book C. J. Cooke is an award-winning poet and novelist published in twenty-three languages. She teaches creative writing at the University of Glasgow, where she also researches the impact of motherhood on women’s writing and creative-writing interventions for mental health. Her previous novel is The Nesting. She has been writing stories since she was seven years old. Interviews ----- The Inside Flap Ep. 140 The Witching Hour Is Upon Us with C.J. Cooke - podcast = 1:30:00 – from about 30:00 ----- The Nerd Daily - Q&A: C.J. Cooke, Author of ‘The Lighthouse Witches’ by Elise Dumpleton -----Slider - Episode 2 – Interview with author CJ Cooke - audio - 25:23 Wiki-ons and Other Items of Interest -----bothy -----Borromean Ring -----broch -----The Great Scottish Witch Hunt of 1661-1662 -----grimoire -----St Mary’s Lighthouse -----50 Megs - on Scottish faeries -----Cambridge University Press - The Great Scottish Witch Hunt of 1661-1662 - a miuch more detailed look at this abomination – by Brian P. Levack ...more |
Notes are private!
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Sep 24, 2021
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Oct 2021
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Oct 01, 2021
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Paperback
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1982163844
| 9781982163846
| 1982163844
| 3.44
| 14,453
| Aug 17, 2021
| Aug 17, 2021
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really liked it
| My parents named me Dahlia, after the Black Dahlia—that actress whose body was cleaved in half, left in grass as sharp as scalpels, a permanent smi My parents named me Dahlia, after the Black Dahlia—that actress whose body was cleaved in half, left in grass as sharp as scalpels, a permanent smile sliced onto her face—and when I first learned her story at four years old I assumed a knife would one day carve me up.-------------------------------------- I’m not looking for evil. I’m looking for answers.You know straight away that this one will be told with tongue firmly attached to cheek. The four siblings are all named after famous murder victims. The Lighthouse family has seen quite a few lives dashed on the rocks, well, not personally, or well, maybe personally. That is the crux of the mystery. There is a never-caught serial murderer on the island, The Blackburn Killer, responsible, so people think, for the murders of seven women over two decades. The family is gathered on this wind-swept, rocky isle when father dies, mostly unlamented, a heart attack, ”Dad’s heart was a real bastard about it. took him out in two seconds flat. Pushed him face down in his venison stew…Mom had to wipe the meat off his cheeks before the paramedics came. It’s poetic really. Dad hunted so many deer in his lifetime, and in the end, he died on top of one. Seems almost…intentional, doesn’t it? Like his heart knew what he’d been up to and murdered him for it.”summoning the now-grown children (well, three out of four, anyway, as the fourth had left a note ten years back announcing he was leaving for good) back from their definitely-NOT-on-this island homes for his funeral and burial. But when the caretaker of the considerable grounds digs up dad’s assigned plot, he is surprised to find that it is already occupied. The missing brother, Andy, gone ten years, has been found. Oh, dear. [image] Megan Collins - image from Wheaton College The whole thing stems from the title, which is not how I usually do my books at all. The title usually comes last, and I agonize over it. But I was working on something else, and I was trying to title that, and I asked my husband for some suggestions. And I said I want something that speaks to the family aspect of the book and he just threw out, “I don’t know, The Family Plot?” And I was like, no, that doesn’t work for this, but that is amazing as a title…that just rattled around in my head for a few days, until it was like a burst, that came to me, of a family that came together to bury one family member, only to find another member of the family in that grave. So then from there I thought well, what family would it be most interesting to see in that kind of story? It would be really interesting to see someone who, a family who was so interested in true crime that they built a library. And now they’re in the center of true crime story. - from the World of the Write interviewInterested understates it a bit, as the Lighthouse family, stemming from mom, is obsessed with true crime, so much so that the kids, who were home-schooled, studied famous murders. In place of the usual book reports they were charged with producing murder reports. There is a room in their large, creepy home, that is designated the Victim Room, as it holds the considerable collection of books and reports the family has amassed on the most notorious serial killers, and greatest murders, solved and unsolved, of all time. No wonder the locals refer to it as Murder Mansion. Our docent in this odd place is Dahlia, 26, returned (Dead leaves skitter around my feet as if welcoming me home - Yikes!) from the mainland where she has been living since she moved out at age 19, obsessed with finding her lost twin, Andy (named for Lizzie Borden’s father). The trust fund is how I manage the way I do—jobless, hunched over my laptop, scouring photos of any crowd on social media, looking for crinkly eyes, for the cowlick on the back of Andy’s head.She has always felt that she and Andy had a special twins bond and that, if he were dead, she would know it. Her older sibs have been holed up in New York City since they fled the island, as soon as they could. Charlie (named for the Lindbergh baby) is an actor who appears in off-Broadway, off-off-Broadway, and nowhere-at-all-near-Broadway productions, when he can get cast, and when he is sober. Tate (named for Sharon Tate) has an on-line following of 57,000 for her site @Die-orama, on which she produces miniature reproductions of famous crimes. We all do what we’ve gotta do to cope with what came before in our lives. Am I wrong? Tate continues coping by making a diorama of the finding of her brother’s body. Charlie plans to turn the house into a temporary display, The Lighthouse Memorial Museum, to show the Blackburn island residents that the Lighthouses are actual people, not some homicidal, Addams family knockoff. Even Mom (Lorraine) Lighthouse deflects actual emotional dealing into consistently failed attempts to bake cookies, a running joke. I just went and threw everything into it that I am obsessed with and that I love. I love true crime. Threw that in. I love secluded, dark little islands. Threw that in. I love mini things, so I had this diorama thing. I love these creepy mansions, so I had that. I went wild with all the things that excite me in the hope that if I am excited about them, hopefully it makes a good story, and other people will be into it. But yes, atmosphere, definitely tons of atmosphere… - from the World of the Write interviewThere is a fun supporting cast. A mysterious local girl (Ruby Decker) used to spy on the Lighthouse manse at night when Andy was still around. The local detective on the case is Elijah Kraft, who just happens to be the son of the detective who was in charge of the Blackburn Killer investigation back in the day. He had always been convinced that Daniel Lighthouse (the recently deceased dad) was the killer and junior seems determined to pin Andy’s killing on him as well. At the very least, pin it on some member of the family. We see him mostly while sparring with Dahlia. Fitz, the lifelong caretaker, does not always make it to the ferry for his nightly trip back to the mainland. Why is that? Greta, a friend, runs a café below Dahlia’s apartment, and shares the Lighthouse obsession with true crime, if not the family history. She stands in for the more typically obsessed true-crime aficionados in the world. I’ve never written plays, but it kinda felt like writing a play sometimes, thinking of like almost every scene in the book takes place in the house except for a few of them, so there is a kind of claustrophobic sense. And so the house really felt like a set to me that I was moving the characters around and now they’re the living room and what’s happening in there, and now they’re in the room that they call the victim room because it has all their books about true crime. - from the World of the Write interviewShe also gives us a taste of backwater mentality, and eagerness to believe the worst of people who are different. And the separation from humanity of many true-crime enthusiasts, fixated on details of murders to the exclusion of pain and suffering, the human experience of those personally impacted. Dahlia is an honest broker, well, mostly. She truly wants to find out who killed her beloved brother, and who the Blackburn Killer might be, even if it turns out to be family. There are twists aplenty, and swaths of atmospherics. Collins clearly had a lot of fun writing this book and it comes across. I did have one gripe. Are we really expected to believe that a family would construct an entire home-schooling curriculum around murders? It was a bit much to swallow. But if you are willing to suspend belief, and, yes, your honor, I confess to doing just that, The Family Plot is a delicious bit of mystery fluff, a fun, roller-coaster ride of a yarn. If you pick up The Family Plot looking for a very entertaining Summer read, you will be dead on. …the fact that their bodies were returned to our shore, spit onto sand instead of carried to another coast, is proof that the ocean wants us here, contained to Blackburn Island. Review first posted – August 20, 2021 Publication dates ----------Hardcover - August 17, 2021 ----------Trade paperback - April 12, 2022 I received an ARE of The Family Plot in return for crucial intel on an unsolved case. Thanks to Maudee at Atria. [image] [image] [image] [image] This review has been cross-posted on my site, Coot’s Reviews. Stop by and say Hi! =============================EXTRA STUFF Links to the author’s personal, FB, Instagram, GR, and Twitter pages Interviews -----World of the Write Review - - video - 30:09 - by Kerry Schafer - if you have to choose only interview to check out, it would be this one. -----Player FM - A murderous chat with CT Author Megan Collins! - Renee DeNino - Audio - 16:30 -----Dead Darlings - Interview with Megan Collins, Author of Behind The Red Door by Susan Bernhard – 8/6/20 - this interview was done long before The Family Plot came along, but still has some interesting intel, such as My instincts as a storyteller are to begin as close to the inciting incident as possible. By the end of the first chapter, I want some sort of bomb—big or small—to have been dropped on my characters, so that the reader has a sense of the stakes right away.-----Megan Collins: Author of The Winter Sister - also done before Collins’ latest book, but of value nonetheless Items of Interest from the author -----Crime Reads - What Scares a Thriller Writer - 8/4/20 -----Collins’ site - links to 22 other pieces The book site for The Family Plot lists gothic among its genres. It felt like it was close to that on reading, but not quite, so I resorted to this scorecard, which I used a bit more grandly in my review of While You Sleep. So, is it or isn’t it? Gothic Novel Scorecard Ticking off the gothic criteria 1 - setting - old mansion – check - secret passages - yep, and more 2 - atmosphere of mystery or suspense - you betcha 3 - ancient prophecy or legend - nothing supernatural here 4 - omens, portents, visions - well, portents maybe (no good tents, though) 5 - supernatural or otherwise inexplicable events - the deaths on the island - Andy’s demise 6 - high, overwrought emotion - for sure 7 - woman in distress - Dahlia - yep 8 - Women threatened by powerful, tyrannical male - murder vics, presumably - there is no living tyrannical male in this telling - and while The Blackburn Killer is assumed to be male, there is no certainty of the killer’s gender for most of the book. Frequent Gothic Elements Wind - always Rain - don’t really recall, so if it was there, it was not particularly memorable Doors on rusty hinges – I don’t think so, but maybe Eerie sounds - not really Character strapped in a room - no Approaching footsteps - yep Ruins of buildings - not really It may not tick off ALL the boxes that define Gothic novels, but it marks enough of them to matter. It is clear that while Collins worked from her notions and was not trying to craft a classic gothic novel, The Family Plot is certainly gothic enough to count. ...more |
Notes are private!
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2
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Jul 25, 2021
not set
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Aug 04, 2021
not set
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Aug 04, 2021
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Hardcover
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198215392X
| 9781982153922
| 198215392X
| 3.82
| 26,637
| Apr 06, 2021
| Apr 06, 2021
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really liked it
| The past is never dead. It's not even past. - William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun-------------------------------------- Captain Louis Renault: What in The past is never dead. It's not even past. - William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun-------------------------------------- Captain Louis Renault: What in heaven’s name brought you to Casablanca?It may be that many of the people who have come for the special, healing waters to Brandenburg, Vermont over the years were likewise misinformed, or were they? Miracle cures did indeed seem to happen there. Even wishes of a non-medical sort were known to have been granted. Of course, the Springs had a reputation. Many thought it was haunted, and even darker theories were abroad. More than the usual number of accidents and deaths had occurred on the property. Rick Blaine may have lost the love of his life. But some of the visitors to the Springs lost a lot more. Miracles have a price. [image] Jennifer McMahon - Photograph by Zella McMahon – image from Simon & Schuster The book opens in 2000. Jax and Lexie Metcalf are kids, spending summers at Sparrow Crest, which features a castle-like house. The suspect waters having been expanded from holes in the ground to a large, spring-fed pool. To you and me it might seem a forbidding place. To the girls, it is Grandma’s house. They are playing The Dead Game in the pool, seeing who can hold their breath the longest. Lexie does her best to terrify her younger sister that a dead girl named Rita will rise up from the stygian depths and drag her down. Sweet kid, no? After the Y2K intro we settle into two (mostly) time lines. In 2019, Jax (Jacqueline) is a social worker in private practice in Seattle, providing therapy to kids. She is brought back to her grandmother’s home on news that Lex (Alexia) had drowned in the pool. It does nothing for her state of mind that she had been ignoring her sister’s frantic calls for some time. Lexie was known to go off her meds. But Lex had thought she was on to something sinister about the pool and had been gathering data to support her notion. We take a step back in history for timeline two, 1929, to follow the travails of Ethel O’Shay Monroe of Lanesborough, New Hampshire, and her physician husband, Will. (great name, that) It is their eagerness to have a child, and their lack of success at that enterprise, that first brings them to the Springs. At that time a fancy hotel graced the grounds. As the mysteries and terrors of the present confront Jax, Ethel’s adventures in the past peel back layer after layer about the place. Jax and Ethel both provide first person POV for their portions of the book. There are plenty of atmospherics, omens, signs, and dark suggestions about, so that we never forget that there is, or might be, anyway, supernatural goings-on at work. The nearby peaks, for example, are called Lord’s Mountain and Devil’s Mountain. Uh oh. In 1929, local shopkeepers, despite selling jelly jars of the special water, (Genuine Brandenberg Springs Water, 5¢, SURE TO CURE WHAT AILS YOU!) warn Ethel and Will. “Those springs are a dark place,” the woman said. “You’d do best to keep away from them.”I know it’s New England, but I cannot keep from hearing the shopkeepers in a strong Slavic accent, and seeing the Monroes heading to the hotel in a black horse-drawn carriage driven by a coachman, instead of driving themselves in their upscale car. Jax investigates what might have happened to Lexie, and wonders about the reality of the spooky springs (now the spooky pool). Did she really see what she thought she had seen in the insanely dark water? Are the misfortunes at Sparrow Crest driven by…um…misfortune, or bad actors, or something spectral? Water is often seen in literature as a symbol of cleansing, or rebirth, of a baptism of one sort or another. Not this water. If anything, what the Spring offers is an anti-baptism. Cold water bearing the presence of the dead and demanding a payment for the miracles it gives to those who ask. Like a Djinn with a dark sense of humor, who grants wishes in such a way that the wisher is sure to regret having asked for anything. Instead of cleansing, when one bathes in this Spring, one takes on a coating of fear and regret. Well, that is the take of at least some of the (superstitious) locals. Readers who have crossed paths with McMahon before will recognize elements that appear frequently in her stories. (her favorite haunts?) The multiple time lines are common, as are skipping from childhood trauma to adult trauma, and a need to dig through the past to explain both the past and the present. Missing diaries emerge. One must wonder if imaginary friends are really imaginary. Old legends may or may not have a basis in reality. A Vermont resident, McMahon sets most of her stories there, away from civilization, and imbues them with ghosts, or at least the possibility of a ghostly presence. “I’m fascinated by the way the past — both my past and the past of my characters shapes the present. I’m especially interested in secrets that people keep and how that has shaped them. A secret has power, and if you keep it for years and years and it suddenly comes to the surface, lots of exciting things can happen,” she says. - from the Union Leader interviewShe clearly enjoys, and takes inspiration from, many of the tales she has heard of the unexplained. “Things do seem idyllic and beautiful, but every now and then you learn some creepy backstory or hear about a haunted house or a local story that just kind of turns it on its head, and you realize things are not always as idyllic as they seem,” McMahon says of New England living. “I like that. I like to look for those dark corners. I love living in a rural state with all these woods.” - from the Union Leader interviewIn a way her stories, this one certainly, present a story-telling pincer move, as contemporary and historical timelines both advance to common points of revelation. There is plenty in The Drowning Kind to disturb your sleep. But maybe if you need to chill out for a bit you might consider a dip in your nearest pool. No, you did not see anyone at the bottom of the pool. Don’t be silly. That was just your imagination. Come on in. The water’s fine. I just feel like all of us, this family, we’re drowning in secrets…that all the secrets were what gave it its power.-------------------------------------- Open your eyes…the dead have nothing to fear Review posted – April 2, 2021 Publication dates ----------April 6, 2021 - hardcover ----------January 4, 2022 - trade paperback =============================EXTRA STUFF Links to the author’s personal, Instagram, GR and FB pages Interviews -----Writing Routines - Bestselling Novelist Jennifer McMahon On Index Cards, Getting Out Of Creative Ruts, and Her Magic Writing Cauldron - she gives one of her characters a feature of this sort described here -----Union Leader - Welcome to the creepy, yet surprisingly cheerful, mind of "The Invited' author Jennifer McMahon Songs/Music -----Mazy Fly - Haunted Water -----Fats Domino - I Hear You Knocking – referenced in Chapter 29 -----America - Tin Man Item of Interest from the author -----How to Write a Novel: 7 Tips Everyone Can Use Items of Interest -----Haunted Eureka Springs -----When Death Comes - poem by Mary Oliver – referenced at a service for a character who has died -----Screaming peacocks - Ok, so maybe they’re just calling out, as peacocks do -----I was misinformed -----There’s Something in the Pond by WB ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 16, 2021
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Mar 25, 2021
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Mar 28, 2021
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Hardcover
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1250200288
| 9781250200280
| 1250200288
| 3.61
| 1,583
| Feb 09, 2021
| Feb 09, 2021
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really liked it
| I know this is denial.True crime seems to I know this is denial.True crime seems to be the flavor of the month of late, in books, on TV, in movies, in blogs. The podcast Serial made a huge splash. I’ll Be Gone in the Dark was a huge best-seller in 2018, and an amazing documentary in 2020. Multiple TV shows have been based on true-crime bloggers, and recently, We Keep the Dead Close (review coming) tracked a fifty-year-old unsolved murder at Harvard and looked at whether Harvard was complicit in covering it up. They can serve a good purpose, find truth, free the innocent, implicate the guilty. But what if the person in charge of the True Crime investigation is on the wrong course? What if they go after an innocent person? [image] Katie Lowe - image from her site Ten years ago, Hannah McLelland (then Catton’s) creepy husband, Graham Catton, was murdered, leaving her a widow and a single mother. A small-time criminal was convicted of the crime. Hannah has moved on, literally, leaving London to live in rural Hawkwood. She has been in a stable relationship with a good, but sparks-free man for a long time. He wants to marry her. But a popular true crime podcast, Convictions, has turned up some new evidence that makes it look like it was Hannah who had done the crime, and week after week, episode after episode, more and more questions are raised. After having buried (and fled) this event in the past it is rising up and very publicly ruining her life. You have to be ok with being angry. This book will keep you in a rage for its entirety, as it flips back and forth between the present, in which Hannah is increasingly beset, and the past, leading up to the killing, in which Hannah is increasingly beset. She must have a piece of paper on her back that says TORMENT ME in bold, brightly colored letters, maybe flashing neon. We see her with her awful husband back before his death, having to cope with a lecherous father-in-law, an abuser-enabling mother-in-law, her husband’s unspeakable bff, and a hostile press. We see her today succumbing to the increasing pressure of being publicly called a murderer, and enduring the sort of mindless hatred usually reserved for electoral public servants who have counted all the votes and publicly spoken an unpopular truth. It does not help Hannah, herself a psychiatrist, that there are mental health issues in her family, that her grandmother lived most of her life in an asylum, and that Hannah is unable to remember details of the night of the murder. Can we believe anything she describes? Is she an honest reporter, or an unreliable narrator? Is she mentally ill? Can she tell the difference between reality and unreality? Is she doomed to eternal victimhood? Or…did she whack her husband? We Hannah hears things. Possessive, Graham says. I can hear the smile on his lips.Hannah remembers some things, like Graham delivering a lecture. I can see him, in my mind. His hands gripping the lectern, glancing down at his notes. Dressed the part—clean-cut, pushing his hair back from his face each time he made a point he wasn’t quite sure of.But which is which? If she is hearing voices now, can her memories be seen as reliable? Hannah’s life is complicated further when a woman she had worked with in a mental health setting before everything got crazy, Darcy, turns up. She is interested in restoring the very derelict building, Hawkwood House, where Hannah’s grandmother had spent most of her life after the murder of her husband. The woman wants Hannah to partner with her in this project, which offers Hannah a chance to leave a job she no longer loves and maybe do some digging into her grandmother’s case. The building seems to amplify voices that may or may not actually be there. Uh oh. I can relate to this book, or at least one element of it, in maybe too personal a way. Feel free to skip past this paragraph if it is of no interest. I will not feel offended. It is not really a (view spoiler)[My wife and had been married for 18 years when we went looking for a house. And after several months we found one we both loved, Park Slope, park block, a beautiful brownstone with minimal need for repair, considerably modernized. A find. Relatively reasonable. One sad element was that the people selling the place were an older couple who were in the process of getting a divorce. Within 27 months of buying the house my wife and I had separated. I cannot say that there was a spectral presence in the house of any sort that I ever detected, no dark vibe from the building itself, but it did occur to me to wonder on occasion whether it might have been more than mere coincidence that two couples in long marriages split up after being in that house for a relatively brief period, in sequence. I never looked into the history of the place, to see if our two crash sequence was an anomaly or part of a larger pattern, but this book makes me wonder if my shaky marriage had maybe been given a bit of a push. (No one was killed) (hide spoiler)] Many good novels incorporate into their sinews passages about writing. Possession offers the following: “A good story,” Graham says, all echoes and reverberations, the ancient tape wavering. “A good story has a life of its own. It’s a thing that lives and breathes. A thing that comes to life in a kind of agreement between the teller and the listener—a shared fantasy, that makes even the wildest illusions real. They make us complicit, when we believe in them. They make us say, ‘Yes, I agree—I accept it. It exists for me.’”And the viability of story is at the core of Possession. Hannah has a story about the night of the killing. The podcast has a different story. Which story is true? Are either of them true? Maybe partially? Is there maybe a third story? Which one would you believe? We are usually invited to sympathize with the narrator in a novel, to believe her story, but her story is incomplete, jumbled. She hears voices and might be nuts. The tension of not knowing is what keeps us flipping the pages. Secrets permeate. Hannah has plenty. Her late husband had oodles. In fact, it seems that everyone in this book is hiding something. This is, at heart, a Gothic novel. There are many elements of that form that pertain here. Usually a gothic story is set in a castle or an old mansion. A derelict asylum fits that bill nicely here. An atmosphere of mystery or suspense? Check. The question of whether Hannah is a murderer permeates, and she certainly seems to be in personal danger. Ancient prophecy or legend? – well, not so much directly. But if family history is portent, Granny’s being sent to an asylum for murder could very much be seen as a prophecy. A good gothic has omens, portents, or visions. Hearing dead hubs counts for sure. Supernatural or other inexplicable events. If hearing Graham is not enough she also sees the ghost of a dead client. High, overwrought emotion – yep, start to finish. Women in distress - Well, one in particular. Women threatened by a powerful, tyrannical male - Hannah was certainly dominated by Graham. So, in ticking off the shelves where Possession mighty fit in, be sure to add Gothic novel to the list. I found myself eager to return to reading Possession when I had been away. We do not have to love Hannah to see that she has been dealt some bad cards. We can also see that she is not the most straightforward, innocent person in the world. Can you be a victim, but also secretive and dishonest, yet still earn our sympathy? Apparently. Lowe keeps us guessing about whether the things Hannah experiences are manifestations of spectral presence or projections of her own guilt. So, bottom line is that I enjoyed the book, even while having some reservations. Murder, suspense, some back-stabbing, a bit of madness and ghostly presences? What’s not to like? People say motherhood brings it out in you: a need to protect your child that verges on madness. Review posted – December 11, 2020 Publication dates ----------January 26, 2021 (USA) - hardcover ----------April 15, 2021 (UK) hardcover under the title The Murder of Graham Catton I am supposed to put here “I received a free ARC of Possession by Katie Lowe from Macmillan in an exchange for an honest review.”But doesn’t that feel off, (wait, stop telling me what to write, ok) somehow? I mean thanks, and all. I am grateful, but (and no, you may not take control of my fingers, for any amount of time. Go, shoo, bugger off, get out of my head!) I am quite capable of producing a fair (sometimes even a poor) review without being inhabited by someone, or something else, ok. Now beat it! =============================EXTRA STUFF Links to the author’s personal, Twitter, GR, Instagram, and FB pages Items of Interest -----An excerpt -----You might check out my review of While You Sleep for a list of gothic novel characteristics, or even the site where I found them, Virtual Salt -----55 Eltisley by Ted Hughes. This is the poem Graham is giving a lecture on in a quote cited in the review. The full text of the poem, not really a (view spoiler)[ 55 Eltisley Our first home has forgotten us. I saw when I drove past it How slight our lives had been To have left not a trace. When we first moved in there I looked for omens. Vacated by a widow gathered to her family All it told me was: ‘Her life is over.’ She had left the last blood of her husband Staining a pillow. Their whole story Hung- a miasma – round that stain. Senility’s odour. It had condensed Like a grease on the cutlery. It confirmed Your idea of England: part Nursing home, part morgue For something partly dying, partly dead. Just so the grease-grimed shelves, the tacky, dark walls Of the hutch of a kitchen revolted you Into a fury of scouring. I studied the blood. Was it mouth-blood, or ear-blood. Of the blood of a heal-wound, after some fall? I took possession before Anything of ours had reconditioned That crypt of old griefs and its stale gas Of a dead husband. I claimed our first home Alone and slept in it alone, Only trying not to inhale the ghost That clung on in the breath of the bed. His death and her bereavement Were the sole guests at our house-warming. We splurged ten pounds on a sumptuous Chesterfield Of Prussian blue velvet. Our emergency Kit of kitchen gadgets adapted That rented, abandoned, used-up grubbiness To the shipyard and ritual launching Of our expedition. One mirage Of the world as it is and has to be Seemed no worse than another. Already We were beyond the Albatross. You yourself were a whole Antarctic sea Between me and your girl-friends. You were pack-ice Between me and any possible mention Of my might-have-beens. I had accepted The meteorological phenomena That kept your compass steady. Like polar apparitions only Wendy And Dorothea, by being visionary Fairy godmothers, were forgiven their faces. I pitied your delirium of suspicion. Through the rainbow darkness I plodded, Following a clue of Patanjali Hand in hand we plodded. For me, that home Was our first camp, our first winter, Where I was happy to stare at a candle. For you, it was igloo comfort. Your Bell Jar centrally heated By a stupefying paraffin heater. But you were happy too, warming your hands At the crystal ball Of your heirloom paperweight. Inside it, There, in miniature, was your New England Christmas, A Mummy and a Daddy, still together Under the whirling snow, and our future. by Ted Hughes (hide spoiler)] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Oct 28, 2020
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Nov 07, 2020
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Nov 06, 2020
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Hardcover
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0062851810
| 9780062851819
| 3.57
| 17,392
| Apr 04, 2019
| May 21, 2019
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it was amazing
| No one knows the worst thing they’re capable of until they do it.-------------------------------------- I never would have done what they say I’ No one knows the worst thing they’re capable of until they do it.-------------------------------------- I never would have done what they say I’ve done, to Madame, because I loved her. Yet they say I must be put to death for it, and they want me to confess. But how can I confess what I don’t believe I’ve done?London, 1826. We know that George and Marguerite Benham are dead. We know that their mulatta Jamaica servant, Frannie Langton, has been charged with two counts of murder and is facing trial at the Old Bailey. We know that Frannie was reputed to have had a particularly intimate relationship with the Missus. And we know that Frannie was found asleep in Mrs. Benham’s bed when her mistress’s bloody body was found. We know that Frannie has refused to speak in her own defense. What we do not know is what really happened. Frannie herself can only recall parts of it. From her cell, she writes her story for her barrister, her confession. I really wanted to write a gothic novel because I feel that the gothic is an amazing form for writing about the hidden darkness beneath the surface of things and all the terrors that we’d rather not speak about. - from the Foyles video[image] Sara Collins - image from Harper This is not the sort of Gothic novel that deals in things supernatural, although it does deal in unspeakable abominations. There is, of course, darkness aplenty, solely in the consideration of the degradation of slavery, unadorned. The depths to which some might go to rationalize their positions in this peculiar institution adds a level of awfulness. There is no need for spectres or phantasms when the realities are so grim. But there is plenty of mystery and suspense. Overwrought emotion is also on full display, with Frannie having plenty of reasons to be concerned about her safety, and Marguerite adding a similar set of worries. Distress? Persistent. And you have your choice of powerful, tyrannical males making life miserable, with Langton in Jamaica and Benham in London. No secret passageways, sorry. Frannie recalls her days as a slave in Jamaica, her upbringing under the guidance of the maternal Phibbah, a source of wisdom and advice, and a nifty substitute for the usual gothic omens and portents. When young Frannie shows an interest in books, Mis-bella, the lady of the house (or cane plantation) teaches her to read. When his usual set of extra hands becomes unavailable, Langton uses her as an assistant for his work in The Coach House. Cue thunder and lightning. The building is shrouded in mystery. We know only that Langton is engaged in scientific (well, probably not, as his work involved, at least, phrenology) experiments there, and Frannie helps with record-keeping and we know not what else. We know that the experiments have to do with race, and that, whatever he is up to, Langton has lost the support of his main sponsor. So, nicely ticking most of the gothic boxes. I saw things in that coach house that I can’t stop seeing now. But worse than the things I saw are the things I did. Two women face the bindings of different forms of subjugation, the placing of heavy weights on their spirits until, it is expected, all hope will be crushed. But is it not a wonderful thing for a Jamaican slave to be brought to London where she becomes a lady’s maid? And is it not a boon for a young high-spirited French emigre of modest means to be married to one of the shining scientific lights of the age? Well, maybe not, if either wants to retain dominion over her own thoughts and interests. One of the great strengths of this novel is how powerfully it portrays the parallels between slavery and women’s role in marriage in the Georgian era. Where I come from, there’s more than one way a man gives you his name. He marries you or he buys you. In some places that is the same thing, and they call it a dowry… Frannie and Marguerite’s relationship offers the romantic element of the novel. It is riveting while not particularly graphic, and is more effective for that. Collins makes regular use of literary references, particularly Gothic litrefs to underscore the themes of the book. The Castle of Otranto, widely recognized as the first gothic novel, is mentioned, highlighting Frannie’s perilous state. Frankenstein comes in for a mention as well. What did you make of me? A patchwork monster. A thing sewn from Langton’s parts. Will Frannie, like Frankenstein’s monster, turn on her maker? Her interest in reading certainly parallels the big guy’s, as does her loneliness. Like him, she wants to learn, grow intellectually, be accepted. Non gothic writings are referenced as well. Repeated mentions of Moll Flanders alert us to the fact that sometimes you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do to stay alive in this world, Newgate Prison offering another link between Frannie and Moll. Voltaire’s Candide comes in for multiple mentions as well, no doubt a reminder to keep unwarranted optimism at bay. Particular attention is paid to memory and the question of what lies beneath the surface. …the mind is its own place, as Milton said, it can make a Hell of Heaven and a Heaven of Hell. How does it do that? By remembering, or forgetting. The only tricks a mind can play. I expect the mind can manage a wider range, but Frannie’s memory is definitely fragile as to the events leading up to her employers’ deaths. Dying men don’t just dwell on the past: they invent it. Langton, seeking to justify his slave-holding, has a particular concern with race, skin color, and where the outward appearances may or may not manifest below the skin. It is eminently clear that the respectability worn on the outside by many bears little resemblance to the corruption beneath. Frannie’s education and intelligence are invisible to any who see only her profession(s) and outward appearance. All is craft alone, however magnificently written, in the absence of characters we can care about (and in some instances boo and hiss at) Fear not. You will love Frannie. She is as lovingly developed a lead as you could possibly hope for, rich with history, introspection, courage, smarts, and passion. You may find yourself, over the course of the book thinking, “If this girl killed those people, they surely must have had it coming.” Marguerite is also beautifully drawn. Although a much less appealing person than Frannie, she is a bright light in a dark place, also attempting to find her way through a life in which she is not allowed be her true self. This is one of the best novels I have read this year. Not only does it address the timeless subject of slavery, it does so in a way that points out that it was not only black people who were treated as objects. The parallel between Frannie and Marguerite is magnificently realized, making us see the chains that hold them both, and see how they struggle or succumb, pointing both to a common fate. Not having been around in 1826, (I just seem that old) I could not say if the presentation of the time was real or not, but it certainly felt real from this perch in the 21st C. Collins has a remarkable gift for language that is as sweet as the subject matter is sour. (I was wearing out my ancient fingers transcribing quotes from the book, only a few of which have found their way into this review.) It is entertaining and riveting. The reveals are satisfying, the twists effective. The Confessions of Frannie Langton, one of the best books of 2019, is a magnificent achievement. YOU MUST READ THIS!!! Review first posted – May 17, 2019 Publication date ----------May 21, 2019- Hardcover ----------May 26, 2020 - Trade Paperback 2019 - The Confessions of Frannie Langton wins the Costa Book Awards Best First Novel Award [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] =============================EXTRA STUFF Links to the author’s Instagram, Twitter and GR pages Items of Interest -----Harper Books- Sara Collins on her debut novel, THE CONFESSIONS OF FRANNIE LANGTON - Collins talks about loving period fiction and wanting to see a black character in a gothic romance -----Foyles - The Confessions of Frannie Langton: Sara Collins on researching her debut novel I really wanted to write a gothic novel because I feel that the gothic is an amazing form for writing about the hidden darkness beneath the surface of things and all the terrors that we’d rather not speak about. I found in the course of researching it there were all these sinister experiments that had been taking place since the early seventeenth century, starting with skin, but through the centuries moving to measuring skulls and brains and intelligence which seemed to me to reflect a lot of obsession of other races, and so I wanted to explore that but I also wanted to look at the ways in which many of the upper class women in Georgian society were oppressed as well, and marriage was one of the key tools for that.-----Shelfie with Sara Collins - On books that inspired her -----Lithub - Gothic Themes Bring Us Together - by Catherine Cavendish - A fun piece for fans of gothic literature, with excellent recommendations Books mentioned in the novel, on Gutenberg -----The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole -----Mathilda by Mary Shelley – on Gutenberg – This novella is mentioned in the book, but it was not actually published until 1959, so the characters are unlikely to have had access to it. -----Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe -----Candide by Voltaire ...more |
Notes are private!
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May 07, 2019
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May 13, 2019
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May 13, 2019
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ebook
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1643130056
| 9781643130057
| 1643130056
| 3.59
| 2,704
| Mar 08, 2018
| Mar 05, 2019
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really liked it
| It begins, they say, with a woman screaming. You can’t tell at first if it’s pleasure or pain, or that tricky place where the two meet; you’re almo It begins, they say, with a woman screaming. You can’t tell at first if it’s pleasure or pain, or that tricky place where the two meet; you’re almost embarrassed to hear it, but if you listen closer it comes to sound more like anguish, a lament torn from the heart: like an animal cry of loss, or defiance, or fury, carried across the cove from cliff to cliff on the salt wind.While You Sleep is described on the back cover of the ARE I read as “a modern-day ghost story,” adding that it is “a page-turning, chillingly erotic Hitchcockian thriller” and so on. And I must admit that much of that is true. Modern day ghost story? Sure. There be spectres here. Page turning? Yep again. I typically split my reading between downstairs books, that I read on, or at my desktop and upstairs books, usually fiction that I read in bed before going (or trying, anyway, to go) to sleep. I definitely looked forward to bed time on the days when I was reading this book. Down near the bottom of that back page is a quote from Gregg Hurwitz, the author of Orphan X, calling it “A sumptuously written contemporary Gothic thriller.” It made me realize that, for all the thousands of books I have read in my life, I was not particularly clear on just what it meant for a book to be considered a Gothic. So, I cranked up the internet machine and had a look around. [image] Stephanie Merritt - image from The Times There is Gothic fiction, but there also appear be sub-categories, romance and horror, that make it all very confusing for me. My early diving down that rabbit hole led to far too many side passages, German Gothic fiction, Russian Gothic fiction. I might enjoy a lit class in such things, but cannot really squeeze it all in for the purposes of a single review. First, there is some space between Gothic Romance and Gothic Horror, with plenty of overlap as well. Think Wuthering Heights vs Dracula. Turns out there are many characteristics in the sundry lists of specifics that overlap, adding to the distill-it-all-down challenge. I am adding links to some of the sources I found in EXTRA STUFF. But I found one site in particular that seemed to have done the job for me, and, hopefully will for you. [image] Generic Gothic novel image – from Literary Hub I am using intel from an article on the elements of the Gothic Novel from Virtual Salt to frame this look at the book. Let’s begin with… 1 - The setting of a gothic is usually a castle or an old mansion. Although recently renovated, the considerable McBride House sits on a high, sea-facing cliff, has been around for a long time, even has roots in the pre-christian era, so definitely, check. Such places are usually endowed with secret passages, trap doors, and/or other architectural surprises. There is some of that here, so double-check. Zoe Adams is a forty-something Yank looking for a room of her own on the other side of the pond, and settles on a rather out-of-the way Scottish island. Her husband was not exactly thrilled on learning of her plans. [image] From Futurism.media 2 - Gothic novels have an atmosphere of mystery or suspense, threatening feelings, characters see glimpses of this or that fleeting image, a person, a ghost, something. Oh, yeah, Zoe gets glimpses in abundance. Visual, auditory, olfactory. The book opens with a mystery. Two boys checking out the house on a balmy night hear screaming, one runs toward the action, the other passes. Then more screaming, this time a boy’s. Scratch one kid? That’s the contemporary mystery, a year before Zoe makes landfall. But wait, there’s more. The house has a history. Seems back in 1860 one Tamhas McBride built the house, and married the current owner’s great-great aunt, Ailsa. They got up to some interesting antics there, which I will not spoil, but let’s just say spells and sexuality figured. And where spells and sexuality in 19th century doings occur, scandal cannot be far behind. Isolation is a part of this. Slightly tougher to manage in a 21st century setting. But don’t worry, the power supply to the McBride place is dodgy enough that we can expect the odd blackout or three, and there is no broadband. A lovely moor lies between the house and town, several miles distant, so, yeah, she’s gonna be stuck alone there at some point, in the dark, and unable to reach anyone. [image] image from Futurism 3 – There is often an ancient prophecy or legend associated with the spooky house. More the latter here, as the place is reputed by locals to be the goto place to bring a date if you wanna get lucky. Something about it gets the juices flowing. Things have been seen appearing in windows from time to time. Zoe is befriended by a local character of an older gentleman, Dr. Charles Joseph, who runs a local bookstore and is a font of local history and lore. Seems Ailsa McBride was a bit of an oddity in the area, maybe too confident, maybe too modern for a remote Scottish island. Some thought her a witch, some thought the house had seen doings with the dark one, himself. Sweet dreams. [image] image from Futurism 4 – Omens, portents and visions are regular elements of gothics. Dreams as well. Well, boy-o-boy are there dreams. Maybe some part of Ailsa is still around, as Zoe has particularly vivid dreams in the McBride house, of a very sexual nature. Sounds like way more excitement than she had ever had at home. But are the dreams really hers? Or is someone or something having those experiences, but using her body for them? Extra alarming is that she tends to wake up in a different room from where she had fallen asleep, and the soreness sure feels real. [image] Henry Fuseli, The Nightmare, 1781, oil on canvas, 180 × 250 cm (Detroit Institute of Arts) 5 – Gothics manifest supernatural or otherwise inexplicable events. Inanimate objects moving about, statue heads turning, that sort of thing. In addition to the extreme sleeptime disturbances above, in a less extreme mode, there is a repeating song, Ailein Duinn, a haunting lament from the 18th century about a woman whose seafaring fiancée went down with his ship before they could be wed, and her desire to join him beneath the waves. Zoe is introduced to this song when she hears it performed at a (the) local pub, on arriving at the island. Her landlord meets her boat and drags her straight to The Stag. The tune is new to her, but keeps repeating through the story, and even when it is sung in Gaelic she is able to understand the words. It should be noted that the luckless bride-to-be of the song is named Annag, (Annie), the name being used here for a dodgy young barmaid. [image] Illustration from Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu 6 – High, overwrought emotion Life was not wonderful for Zoe in the States. She desperately needs to get away from something, needs to sort things out, figure out her next moves. There is even mention of meds at one point. The things that keep going bump and grind in the night are not exactly soothing. So, overwrought? Fuh realz. 7 - Women in distress - in this case both a living and maybe a dead woman. 8 – Women threatened by a powerful, tyrannical male Ailsa’s story includes a totally tyrannical husband. Zoe’s hubs back in Connecticut may be less than the perfect husband, and he has particular faults, but I am not sure tyrannical would be a good descriptor. And there is a third male personage who appears to wield considerable power. [image] From BBC News piece on The Castle of Otronto The Virtual Salt layout of Gothic novel characteristics goes on to list a bunch of common tropes they call the metonymy of gloom and horror -----Wind, particularly howling - gee, ya think? Cliffside house at the shore. It will definitely be a dark and stormy night. -----Rain, especially blowing - see above -----Doors grating on rusty hinges – If those are here, I missed them - ya can’t have everything -----Sighs, moans, howls, eerie sounds - yep -----approaching footsteps - could I have missed them? -----lights in abandoned rooms - and locked rooms that are suddenly unlocked -----character strapped in a room - Oh, yeah -----Ruins of buildings - there are certainly some ancient elements in the McBride crib -----Thunder and Lightning - see wind and rain above -----Clanking chains - no, not really -----gusts of wind blowing out lights - I think this one skipped as well -----doors suddenly slamming shut - there may have been one or two -----baying of distant dogs – sure wish I’d had this list when I started reading, so I could tick off each as it popped up, but my porous memory fails me. Just not sure about the baying. -----crazed slaughter - well, I’m not telling what may have gone on back in the 1860s, but it sure looks like it was something dark. Back here in the 21st, we are aware of at least one presumed death (body was never found) and there may or may not be more in store, crazed or otherwise. There is more from Virtual Salt, but I am stopping here. I recommend checking out the site, if the subject is of any interest. [image] Image from Jane Godman Author, an article, Setting in the Gothic Novel A few more items of info and observations on the book. There is a bit of a romantic element in the 21st. Sounded possible. I liked the internal dialogue Zoe engages in around that. Danger manifests in the 21st in the presence of two dark characters, a crude, seemingly predatory mechanic sort, and the young barmaid, who takes an instant dislike to Zoe. Serious cause for making sure your doors are locked, and staying away from any dark places. On the other side there is the young teacher, who seems a good, supportive sort, and best of all, Dr Charles Joseph, the local historian, who appeared to me in the image of Brian Cox, full of knowledge and secrets. Of course, can we believe anything anyone says in this place? [image] Image from Hiveminer.com - Haus by coyote86 There were a few items that bugged me. During a blackout, Zoe is able to retrieve messages from her landline answering machine. Yeah, I know some of them had battery backup, but, well, it bugged me. In gothics set in an earlier age there was a fair bit of swooning. Fainting has gone out of fashion, but it was necessary to the plot for Zoe to drop consciousness here and there, so she kept falling asleep. I nap too. It happens. But it seemed a bit too convenient here. Finally. Gothics are not my usual fare. I take issue with the formulaic-ness of this particular specimen of the genre, but I guess writers use formulae for a reason. They work. I was engaged, and entertained, although I cannot say that reading this caused me any lost zzzzs. Zoe was appealing in her lostness, and hope for better. There is a nice twist at the end that I did not see coming, although in retrospect, I probably should have. Consider disbelief suspended. A fun read. I would definitely advise taking this with you to that summer retreat by the ocean, or better, after the summer people have gone, and you can have some space to yourself, October, maybe, like the setting of this book. Make sure the doors are locked, and that you have plenty of batteries. And don’t worry about that creaking noise. I’m sure it is just your imagination. [image] You should know this one Review posted – April 19, 2019 Published -----March 5, 2019 (Pegasus Books) – this is the one I read -----March 8, 2018 (HarperCollins) ==========In the summer of 2019 GR reduced the allowable review size by 25%, from 20,000 to 15,000 characters. In order to accommodate the text beyond that I have moved it to the comments section directly below. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 26, 2019
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Apr 03, 2019
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Mar 04, 2019
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Hardcover
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9780735219366
| 4.14
| 16,078
| Oct 02, 2018
| Oct 02, 2018
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really liked it
| “It is believed that the strongest of them can assume any form, be it bat, wolf, swirling mist, even human. They can appear young, old, or any age “It is believed that the strongest of them can assume any form, be it bat, wolf, swirling mist, even human. They can appear young, old, or any age between. Some can manipulate the elements, producing fog, storms, crashing thunder. Their motives remain unknown, but one thing is clear: they leave a trail of death in their wake, thinking no more of a human life than we would the life of a fly.”Dacre Stoker knows a thing or two about vampires, Dracula in particular, given that his great-grand-uncle was none other than Bram Stoker. Dacre has had non-literary careers of his own, but for a while now has picked up the family business and been writing, not only about his illustrious ancestor, but (with some assistance from writing partners) fiction relating to you know who. He wrote a sequel to Dracula a few years back, incorporating Bram as a character. This time he has written a prequel. [image] Bram - image from GotIreland.com We spend time with Bram Stoker at age seven, a sickly child since birth. (as was the real Bram), but with a particularly interesting nanny, one Ellen Crone. (the actual name of the Stoker nanny) She does not eat with the family, preferring to dine alone. But she is very caring toward the Stoker children, most particularly Bram. The family summons a medical relation when Bram seems to be getting worse. But the application of leeches is not what Bram needs. Ellen has a better idea, and takes care of him. Soon after, he begins a true recovery, bounding from sickly child to a very active one. Shame about that scabby itch on his arm though. Young Bram and his sister, Matilda, sink their teeth into this mystery and engage in a bit of field research. [image] Dacre Stoker and friends - Image from ValeOfGlamorgan.com Part of the fun of this book is seeing the usually pretty clear lines between the real Bram’s novel and Dacre’s prequel. Where did the notion of Dracula originate? How about Van Helsing? Damsels in distress? (or were they maybe enjoying themselves a bit too much for Victorian mores?) Dacre has a lot of original material from which to draw, Bram’s, at least what has not been lost to the sands of time (or maybe preserved in a coffin somewhere for safe keeping). Dacre has also written non-fiction books about his esteemed ancestor, and had a bit of a road-show, Stoker on Stoker, in which he lectured about Bram and his book. Another fun element, for me anyway, was the opportunity looking into this book offered to dig up some dirt on the real Bram. The one piece of intel that I found most amazing was that when Bram first submitted his manuscript, it was as a work of non-fiction. Because of tender sensibilities at the time about a relatively recent bout of wide scale mortality, it was thought better to present it as fiction. In doing that, the first 101 pages of Bram’s manuscript vanished like a sated bloodsucker on a foggy night. I have put some fun materials in EXTRA STUFF if you are irresistibly drawn to diving down those rabbit holes. [image] The 1922 German Nosferatu – image from Smithsonian Magazine So, the story of Dracul, sick boy and sis try to find out what the real deal is with the beloved, if decidedly odd, nanny. (Fortune may have blown her into the Stoker family’s life, but no, she did not arrive on the East Wind) There are times when she looks quite young. Others when she seems rather aged. Dacre brings in an old Irish (Stoker was born and raised in Ireland) legend, about a failed love that turns gruesome. The tale of the Dearg-Due is used to wonderful, and meaningful effect. There are two timelines. We open with adult Bram in a castle-like place trying to keep a monster of a certain sort locked in a room. Problem is that the various substances he is using to keep the thing from escaping are running out, and there is a real question of whether the aid he is expecting will arrive in time. This contemporary (1868) piece includes the tale of Bram, his family, and others, (including a pre-Van Helsing) trying to track down people, follow clues, and do justice against dark foes. The other line is Bram and his sister, Matilda, as young sibs, with scant understanding of what they have seen, attempting to figure it out. Both lines were fun, although I am not sure there would be many children of the ages portrayed who would be quite so resourceful, even in the mid-19th century. Feel free to suspend your disbelief and let it hang by its toes from the ceiling, as it stares at you with red, hungry eyes. [image] Bela Lugosi defined Dracula for a generation - Image from Smithsonian Magazine In keeping with great-grand-uncle’s form, Dacre tells the story through several sources. The Journal of Bram Stoker, Letters from Matilda to Ellen Crone, and The Diary of Thornley Stoker are the primary views. There is also The Notes of Arminius Vambéry, a patient case record, and a few sections that are pure omniscient narrator. All of it made me bare my teeth, in a good way. Dacre adds some nice interpretations of the rules of vampirism, what works, what doesn’t, what their limitations might be. They can change into what? And eye-color shifting, some telepathy, an interesting item on the separated parts of the undead. There are plenty of classic vampire tropes, and for the big guy himself, a reminder of his Carpathian rep for how he disposed of his enemies. Dacre tosses in a few refs to relevant lit of the era, a bit of E.A.Poe, The Woman in White, one or two more. The book closes with a lovely reference, a name that will be familiar. There were also some pretty nifty plot twists, that worked well. Gripes? Well, I mentioned the age-vs-competence thing. No big whoop, really. I confess to occasionally getting an image in my tiny mind of Velma, Daphne, Fred, Shaggy, and a certain pooch, when the adult crew was deciding on a dime to dash to this or that place to pursue the latest clue. I am not saying that I minded this. In fact, it contributed to the fun aspect of the book. But some might not enjoy what seems a bit of lightness in what is supposed to be a horror story. A horror story is supposed to be scary, right? Measured in hours of sleep lost, perhaps, or alarming dreams that jolt one awake. But no, not for me. Take that with a grain of garlic salt, though. I tend to be a fair bit less sensitive to horror than many readers. So it is entirely possible that this is a fairly scary book and I just didn’t notice. But really, this is such an enjoyable read. And that is the bottom line here. It was truly fun reading Dracul. I enjoyed as much the learning it sparked, about Bram in particular. Whether you are type O, A, B, or AB, whether you are positive, negative, or undecided, I strongly urge you to swoop in and see what you can dig up, as you flap along with this fast-paced, engaging and very entertaining book. Review first posted – 9/17/18 Publication date – 10/2/18 Paramount Pictures has acquired screen rights to Dracul, but it may be a few years before anything is done with it. I received the e-book from Penguin-Random House’s First to Read program. I did not have to consume or surrender any bodily fluids to get it. PS - It was my intention to have a particular bit of fun with this review. Losing time this week to an out-of-town trip and some other non-review-related activities made incorporating that on time for the usual deadline, or undeadline in this case, more than I could manage. If I can, I will try to get that completed by Halloween. None of this STUFF alters my core review of the book, which is what you see above. - 10/30/18 - So sorry, it was not meant to be. If I find myself with some extra days at some point I might have a go at this, in time for Halloween sometime in the future. =============================EXTRA STUFF Links to the author’s personal, Twitter and FB pages The author’s site link is actually to Bram Stoker – Official Website for the Bram Stoker Estate. Definitely check this one out. There are a lot of fascinating material and useful links. Items of Interest -----Northern Life MagazineDacre Stoker on the mysteries behind the writing of Dracula - by Mark Davis – 18 July 2017 ----- Dacre Stoker, author of "Dracula: The Un-Dead" - Interview with Don Smith – definitely worthwhile -----Irish Faerie Folk of Yore and Yesterday: The Dearg-Due - by Kim -----The Guardian - The Icelandic Dracula: Bram Stoker's vampire takes a second bite - by Colin Fleming – April 19, 2017 -----Smithsonian - Why Does Dracula Wear a Tuxedo? The Origins of Bram Stoker’s Timeless Vampire - by Jimmy Stamp. October 31, 2012 -----Lithub - Gothic Themes Bring Us Together - by Catherine Cavendish - A fun piece for fans of gothic literature, with excellent recommendations ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 04, 2018
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Sep 10, 2018
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Sep 10, 2018
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