Just in time for Halloween! Dan Newman’s THE CLEARING is a suspenseful story within a story. In 1976 four boys were playing the swamps and woods of St. Lucia when one of them dies. The others decide to keep the events surrounding his death secret and instead blame it on island superstition: the monster Bolum. Time passes and while lives are irreparably changed by the child’s death, life does go on.
Fast forward forty years to present day, and our hero, Nate, is returning to the island to put old ghosts to rest. However, in doing so, Nate opens up old wounds and upsets the precarious balance of society on the island. Soon he is being followed and attacked by scary men wielding sacrificed animals and vials of blood. Someone is trying to hush up the events of that night and will stop at nothing to keep Nate and anyone who helps him quiet.
I enjoyed reading this novel which read quickly and was rather thrilling. At the end things tied up pretty neatly, and I felt that Newman expounded the final conclusions a bit too much (just in case someone couldn’t figure it out on their own, I guess); however, all in all, I enjoyed this light read and kept going to the end. A little fantastic – yes. A good read for the Halloween season – yes!
I got mine as an ARC from Net Galley (Exhibit A Publishers) – thanks!
Regular readers know that I LOVE the Sue Grafton alphabet mysteries and have read them all. I was so excited for “W” to come out this month and pre-ordered it on Amazon. (I actually ordered it to give to my husband for his birthday in October, but gently read it last week while he was away on business!).
W IS FOR WASTED starts with two deaths: a homeless man is found dead of what appears to be natural causes and a less than upright private investigator is found shot to death. Kinsey dismisses the PI’s death, as he was known for being less than honest. She figured he came up on the wrong end of a deal. She decides to help find out the homeless man’s name so that they can notify his next of kin. As his story unfolds, however, Kinsey finds herself drawn into the man’s life with a connection she could not have foreseen. Things become more and more complicated, and then more and more dangerous, as Kinsey becomes involved in an intricate web of dishonesty, subterfuge, and shadows from the past. Are these two deaths related? Is Kinsey much more involved than she first realizes? Will she figure it all out before more people are killed?
I really enjoyed this quick read, which was well plotted and moved swiftly. While I have been disappointed in only a few of Grafton’s stories, this was one that I really liked!
I am happy today to be part of the TRAVELS IN ELYSIUM blog tour!
TRAVELS IN ELYSIUM is the story of Nicholas Pedrosa, a college student who gets the chance of a lifetime: working on an archaeological dig in Greece. Nico jumps at the opportunity and soon finds himself on the island of Santorini with a host of characters and personalities, all engaged in unearthing what appears to be a city (or civilization) destroyed by a volcanic eruption. Nico doesn’t know too much about his colleagues, though, and right from the start some unsettling things happen. Another young worker has been killed on the site in an accident (or was it perhaps not an accident?). Villagers swear they are seeing ghosts. Nicholas himself sees eerie moving lights at night. And, behind it all, is the somewhat enigmatic and intense Marcus Huxley, the leader of the dig with whom Nico has a love/hate relationship. What are they uncovering? And, is it just possible that they could be making the discovery of a lifetime – that they have found the lost city of Atlantis?
I enjoyed reading this (somewhat lengthy at 500+ pages) book! It is part history, part mystery, and part metaphysical thriller. I found it could be read on two levels: the top story of Nico and his experiences, and the allegory to Plato’s theories of Atlantis and reality. Metaphor plays a big role in this novel, as does allegory. Caves play a role, as does light, and the concept of reality and perception and creating your own reality. To be honest, I wasn’t intimately familiar with Plato’s writings (though I certainly knew who he was), and this book made me read a lot about him online. The more I read, the more information I found that fit this story line. Really, I thought the interplay was quite brilliant.
The end of the book makes you stop, think, and then re-read. I won’t give it away, but it is the final connection to Plato’s works.
I think this book would be great for book groups because there is a lot to discuss!
William Azuski was born in the United Kingdom, and is of British and Yugoslav descent. Travelling widely through the Mediterranean since childhood, his frequent sojourns in Greece included several months on Santorini in the 1970s, an experience that provided firsthand experience for this exceptional novel’s local setting. Writing as William Miles Johnson, Azuski is also author of the critically-acclaimed The Rose-Tinted Menagerie, an Observer Book of the Year (nonfiction), and Making a Killing, an end of the world satire, both titles recently republished by Iridescent.
(William at work)
Thank you to Nikki for my review copy and making me part of this blog tour!
This past spring, a longtime friend suggested that I read THE BOY FROM REACTOR 4. I found it for my kindle on Amazon at a great price. THE BOY FROM REACTOR 4 is a suspenseful, action-packed mystery/thriller, which takes the reader from the US to Russia and deals with espionage, murder, and the effects of the Chernobyl disaster.
Nadia Tesler is the daughter of Ukrainian immigrants, living in NYC. She is contacted by a man who says he knew her deceased father, and she agrees to meet with him. To her horror, he is shot while they are greeting each other and he whispers a somewhat garbled message to her before dying. Nadia takes off a quest to discover what he meant, find a formula worth $10 million, and find out the truth about her family and their legacy. Travelling from the US to the heart of Russia and into Siberia and the Aleutian Islands, this novel’s setting serves as a parallel to the emotions of the criminals and the bleak life for many of the people she meets and comes to know in this book. Action packed and thrilling, the action moves at a non-stop pace right until the last page.
I really enjoyed this novel! I like a good crime/mystery, and this one was easy to read and hard to put down! I’m glad my friend recommended it to me. I would love to see it as a movie, too.
Check out this clip I found on You Tube with the author discussing the novel:
My readers know that I LOVE Rhys Bowen’s historical cozy mysteries series – especially the Molly Murphy series and the Royal Spyness series. The latest Royal Spyness book – HEIRS AND GRACES – has just come out and I received an ARC from Rhys herself to read and review.
First let me say just how very EXCITED I was to get a book from Ms. Bowen herself and even signed by her! Yeah!! (I follow her on Facebook and she had mentioned having a few if any bloggers wanted one.) Lady Georgie is one of my favorite characters in cozies. She’s so likable and yet so ordinary. She’s clumsy and unsophisticated, and always struggling to make ends meet. Yet she’s intelligent and spunky and keeps the most remarkable company (ex-police officer grand-dad, actress mummy, cousin the Queen of England, etc.). You can’t help liking her and wanting her to be successful!
In this story, Georgie is sent to a friend’s estate to help a new family member adjust to life as a noble. It seems that an heir has been found for the Altringham family: a heretofore unknown son of the son who died in the war. This young man, Jack, has been born and raised in Australia and is now found and coming to “train” so he can eventually claim the title (a bit against his will). The family is in an uproar and the head of house, the very unlikable and unfriendly eldest son and Duke, is giving Jack less than a warm welcome. Then the Duke is found dead with a knife in his back – Jack’s knife. Can Georgie figure out who the killer really is and save the day?
This might be my favorite Georgie title yet! There was no dearth of suspects and even though I figured it all out, the mystery was cleverly plotted. Familiar friends Darcy and Belinda plays their parts as well.
Definitely one to read for those who follow the series – and for those new to the series, too!
I grabbed this book on a whim off Net Galley. If you read me you know I love YA and I have a special spot in my reader’s heart for stories that take place in boarding schools. I’m rather critical of these story lines since I’ve worked in independent schools since the 80’s, and quite honestly, if the administrators were as clueless/useless/evil/unavailable as they usually are portrayed, well, they’d all have gone out of business long ago! I was prepared to not really like this book – to be honest the title put me off – so I was surprised by how much I really enjoyed reading it!
PREP SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL, which is the first in a series, starts with protagonist Anne Dowling getting expelled from her toney Manhattan private school for (accidentally) setting a fire. She is shipped off to a New England boarding school in the Boston suburbs where her first order of business is to rearrange the pecking order and get herself to the top of the social hierarchy. Anne’s a tough nut to crack – she’s feisty, tough, and fearless. At the same time, though, she’s sincere and has integrity (which is more that can be said about some other characters). She quickly forms her friends and enemies. Then her roommate goes missing and is found murdered. Anne seems to care more than the administration does about finding Isabella’s killer, so she starts her own “investigation” to figure out how and why Isabella was killed.
I’m a tad embarrassed to admit it, but I couldn’t put this book down. I thought the mystery was cleverly plotted and I liked the character of Anne. I often laughed out loud at her sarcasm and humor. I would have absolutely loved this book when I was in high school. I think Ms. Taylor did well with her independent school portrayal, and I wonder if she maybe attended a school very like Wheatley in real life!
I’m looking forward to the next book in this series which will be out in 2014.
Thanks, Net Galley and St. Martin’s Press for my copy.
I had been reading about Chris Bohjalian’s THE LIGHT IN THE RUINS all over the blogosphere, so I was more than thrilled to score a copy through Net Galley. This is a touching and beautifully written novel that leaves the reader thinking about the characters long after it is over.
THE LIGHT IN THE RUINS takes place in Italy and moves between 1943 and 1955. During WWII, the Rosati family live quietly in their villa. They are a remnant of Italy’s nobleman past and are faring better than the peasants in the area. Caught in the crossfires of the war, they must support and welcome Nazi soldiers into their home; at the same time they must aid and assist partisans in their area. The war is turning and the Germans are getting desperate, but that doesn’t mean that they won’t do their utmost to destroy all they can in their path. The marchese and marchesa are a middle-aged couple. One son is away at war and his wife and two young children are living in the villa with them. Their second son is working as an archeologist. Their eighteen year old daughter Christina lives at the villa, too. Soon she finds herself falling in love for the first time – with a Nazi officer. At the same time, partisans are living in the hills and using the property, including ancient Etruscan tombs, as hideouts. The events converge into a riveting and tragic ultimatum.
Meanwhile, ten years later in 1955, a murder occurs in Rome. It soon becomes apparent that someone is stalking the surviving members of the Rosati family and killing them. Of the police detectives assigned to the case, one is the tough and intrepid Serafina – the first female police officer in her department and a surviving partisan from WWII. Serafina is horribly scarred from the war, in more ways than one. Her involvement with the Rosati case opens up old wounds and memories.
The story is written as switching between 1943/44 and 1955. As it progresses, we hear the full story of WWII for the family, and its tragic events. We follow the events of the murders and try to figure out the murderer. I could not put this book down!
I just loved this book. I found it so well-written and it evoked such strong images of the Tuscan countryside, along with such emotion. The word that comes to mind is heart-breaking. I couldn’t stop thinking about the story and its characters afterwards.
I also loved the choice of title. The “light in the ruins” can be the light in the Etruscan tombs where they hid, or the light that shined through in the aftermath of the devastation of WWII. Or it can be that small light that shined within those who were most damaged by the events of the war.
Brilliant! Buy it! Borrow it! But whatever you do – read it!
Thanks to Doubleday Books and Net Galley for my copy!
A few weeks ago, Sarah McClain contacted me to ask if I would read and review her new novel FOR RANSOM. It was presented as a Christian suspense mystery, which sounded interesting to me, so I offered to read it.
In FOR RANSOM, eighteen-year-old Hailey Bennett is kidnapped and held for ransom. Her bodyguard and boyfriend, Eli, works to beat the clock in order to find her. Her father is a distant and preoccupied British government official who appears to know more about her abduction than he is letting on. Her mother is sincere and caring and willing to do whatever she can to get Hailey back.
This story read very quickly for me — I finished it in a few hours. The storyline centered around Hailey’s abduction and her rescue. While I liked the characters of Hailey and Eli, and found them plucky and courageous, I had some problems with the other characters. Hailey’s mother Anne was very one dimensional to me. Her father was even more one dimensional – in fact I couldn’t get into his head at all and found him almost a caricature. I would have liked to have seen more development of these two. I think it would have made them more believable to me.
I like the idea of “Christian suspense” as a genre. The main characters of Hailey and Eli had great faith and used it to get them through the hard times. The book could be considered less violent than other mysteries, though I thought it had some pretty serious physical stuff in it. Poor Hailey gotten beaten repeatedly by her captors and I found that disturbing.
I thank Sarah for sending me a galley of her novel. Best of luck with it!
Just published this past week, I received THE LONGINGS OF WAYWARD GIRLS as an ARC through Net Galley last month. I really enjoyed this book, in part for the nostalgia I felt for the lazy summer childhood days of the 70’s that are so aptly depicted in this intriguing and sometimes disturbing story within a story.
As the novel starts, Sadie is an adult and trying to regroup after the losing her baby. She lives in the town where she grew up and where, twenty years earlier, two girls disappeared. One girl had been in Sadie’s class, and she was never found again. The other girl was a sometimes friend of Sadie, and she still harbors guilt for her disappearance. Through flashback, we learn of Sadies’ childhood in her dysfunctional family, with an alcoholic actress mother and often absent father. Sadie is somewhat of a ringleader amongst her friends, and they spend their days in complex imaginary dramas, dressing up in the basement or creating forts in the woods surrounding the Connecticut neighborhood (I loved this depiction of childhood before everyone became “plugged in”!). The lost girl, assumed abducted, hangs as a specter over them all. Then Sadie and her friend play a trick on another (unpopular) girl, and she goes missing, too.
Back in the present day, Sadie is just trying to get by when a man who was a childhood friend returns to the neighborhood, setting into motion a chain of events that bring the past and present together in a tumultuous crash.
I really enjoyed reading this book and couldn’t put it down! I wanted to know what would happen, would the mystery be solved, and what would become of Sadie. I can’t say I loved Sadie as a character, but I did feel sympathy for her. And I really liked the depiction of pre-adolescent Sadie. I enjoyed Ms. Brown’s writing and will look for her other works – which are short story collections.
Highly recommended as a summer read!
Thank you, Net Galley and Washington Square Press, for my copy!
With a gift card I received for my birthday, I bought Dan Brown’s new novel: INFERNO. I really liked DA VINCI CODE and I heard this was similar. I have to say I was disappointed with THE LOST SYMBOL, and I found ANGELS AND DEMONS too violent. I liked DIGITAL FORTRESS and DECEPTION POINT, but not as much as DA VINCI CODE. Anyhow – I really liked this novel! It had more action and less codes than DA VINCI, so I have to say I still like DA VINCI CODE best. I can imagine this will be made into a movie very soon.
In INFERNO, Langdon awakes to find himself in a hospital in Florence, Italy with no idea how he got there or what happened to him. He barely has time to adjust to his surroundings when a killer arrives looking for him. He escapes with the help of a young, brilliant doctor and thus begins a crazy chase across Florence and on to Venice as Langdon and Sienna (the doctor) try to evade a host of people who appear to be trying to kill them. Along the way they discover that Langdon and a colleague (now dead) had apparently stolen the death mask of Dante Alighieri (author of “The Inferno”). Meanwhile a crazed scientist who is obsessed with population control, is trying to “save the world” by releasing a virus of epidemic proportions. His clues are related to “The Inferno” and Dante as well.
Whew! There is a lot going on in this book! I have to say I loved reading about Florence – which happens to be my favorite place in the world. One complaint I had (and this is a SPOILER ALERT!) is that the whole “this was a set-up, we created a fake scene for you” storyline was too far-fetched. I mean really – just be honest with the guy. It’d be a lot less work!
Anyhow, if you liked DA VINCI CODE I think you will like INFERNO. It also made me want to go back and reread the original INFERNO by Dante as it’s been about 35 years. And even more – it made me want to go back to visit Florence!
If you get a hankering to read a translation of Dante’s “Inferno” as I did, try this one:
Beth's Book-Nook Blog 