Books 2017: Three-Star Fantasy/Science Fiction/Horror

Fantasy/Science Fiction/Horror

Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick. Synopsis from Goodreads: Jason Tavener woke up one morning to find himself completely unknown. The night before he had been the top-rated television star with millions of devoted watchers. The next day he was just an unidentified walking object, whose face nobody recognised, of whom no one had heard, and without the I.D. papers required in that near future.
When he finally found a man who would agree to counterfeiting such cards for him, that man turned out to be a police informer. And then Taverner found out not only what it was like to be a nobody but also to be hunted by the whole apparatus of society.
It was obvious that in some way Taverner had become the pea in in some sort of cosmic shell game - but how? And why?
Philip K. Dick takes the reader on a walking tour of solipsism's scariest margin in his latest novel about the age we are already half into.

It's entirely possible that my mood was responsible for not really loving this. I found it more accessible than a lot of Philip K. Dick but I wanted more - I don't know, emotion? I felt like the main character was strangely detached from the fact that he suddenly seemed not to exist. I put it down for a few weeks halfway through and then picked it up again, and the ending and the ultimate explanation were quite affecting, so, like I said, probably my mood. Fascinating ideas, as always with Dick.

The Lost Time Accidents by John Wray. Synopsis from Goodreads: In his ambitious and fiercely inventive new novel, The Lost Time Accidents, John Wray takes us from turn-of-the-century Viennese salons buzzing with rumors about Einstein's radical new theory to the death camps of World War Two, from the golden age of postwar pulp science fiction to a startling discovery in a Manhattan apartment packed to the ceiling with artifacts of modern life.

Haunted by a failed love affair and the darkest of family secrets, Waldemar 'Waldy' Tolliver wakes one morning to discover that he has been exiled from the flow of time. The world continues to turn, and Waldy is desperate to find his way back-a journey that forces him to reckon not only with the betrayal at the heart of his doomed romance but also the legacy of his great-grandfather's fatal pursuit of the hidden nature of time itself.
Part madcap adventure, part harrowing family drama, part scientific mystery--and never less than wildly entertaining--The Lost Time Accidents is a bold and epic saga set against the greatest upheavals of the twentieth century.

I don't know, man. I kept putting this on hold at the library, missing the pickup date and having to put it on hold again, and then I finally got it. I thought it was a time-travel story, and as a time-travel story it really doesn't work. As whatever it's actually trying to be? Well, I'm not entirely sure it works as that either. For the first quarter or so I was so consistently amused and engaged by the writing style and the frequent brilliant and hilarious turns of phrase that I didn't really care - I loved how Einstein is only ever referred to as "the patent clerk". Then things started to drag a little and by the end I was pretty much finishing it out of duty. There's some good stuff in here, but I didn't really feel like it hung together enough to be a great novel. Maybe I just didn't get it.

Join by Steve Toutonghi. Synopsis from Goodreads: What if you could live multiple lives simultaneously, have constant, perfect companionship, and never die? That’s the promise of Join, a revolutionary technology that allows small groups of minds to unite, forming a single consciousness that experiences the world through multiple bodies. But as two best friends discover, the light of that miracle may be blinding the world to its horrors.

Chance and Leap are jolted out of their professional routines by a terrifying stranger—a remorseless killer who freely manipulates the networks that regulate life in the post-Join world. Their quest for answers—and survival—brings them from the networks and spire communities they’ve known to the scarred heart of an environmentally ravaged North American continent and an underground community of the “ferals” left behind by the rush of technology.
In the storytelling tradition of classic speculative fiction from writers like David Mitchell and Michael Chabon, Join offers a pulse-pounding story that poses the largest possible questions: How long can human life be sustained on our planet in the face of environmental catastrophe? What does it mean to be human, and what happens when humanity takes the next step in its evolution? If the individual mind becomes obsolete, what have we lost and gained, and what is still worth fighting for?

I started reading this at the beginning of a crazy few weeks - husband traveling, working a lot of hours at a placement - so I don't know that I can evaluate it objectively, as if that's ever possible anyway. My mood and lack of focus and exhaustion may have had a lot to do with it. That said, I felt like the synopsis sounded fascinating and the actual book lacked snap and verve. One story that felt like it should branch out into many turned out to be most of the book, and there were technical terms that were never explained and long scientific eye-glazing explanations of some things, and by the end I was just desperate to finish and never see this book again. There was an interesting story in here, about what joining would mean for humanity and the world, but I felt like it needed to be carved out of a mass of extraneous stuff.

The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next #1) by Jasper Fforde. Synopsis from Goodreads: Suspenseful and outlandish, absorbing and fun - a novel unlike any other and an introduction to the imagination of a most distinctive writer and his singular fictional universe.

Great Britain circa 1985: time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously. Baconians are trying to convince the world that Francis Bacon really wrote Shakespeare, there are riots between the Surrealists and Impressionists, and thousands of men are named John Milton, an homage to the real Milton and a very confusing situation for the police. Amidst all this, Acheron Hades, Third Most Wanted Man In the World, steals the original manuscript of Martin Chuzzlewit and kills a minor character, who then disappears from every volume of the novel ever printed! But that's just a prelude . . .
Hades' real target is the beloved Jane Eyre, and it's not long before he plucks her from the pages of Bronte's novel. Enter Thursday Next. She's the Special Operative's renowned literary detective, and she drives a Porsche. With the help of her uncle Mycroft's Prose Portal, Thursday enters the novel to rescue Jane Eyre from this heinous act of literary homicide. It's tricky business, all these interlopers running about Thornfield, and deceptions run rampant as their paths cross with Jane, Rochester, and Miss Fairfax. Can Thursday save Jane Eyre and Bronte's masterpiece? And what of the Crimean War? Will it ever end? And what about those annoying black holes that pop up now and again, sucking things into time-space voids . . .
Suspenseful and outlandish, absorbing and fun, The Eyre Affair is a caper unlike any other and an introduction to the imagination of a most distinctive writer and his singular fictional universe.

I read this a few years ago and it was great fun. I read some of the second one, then stopped, then many books and years went by, and I always had this fond memory and the intention to begin the series again and read it all the way through. Then I reread this, and I think I remember why I didn't continue with the series. It is great fun - her name is Thursday Next! You can go into books! Book characters can come out into the world! Thursday aunt is kind of a ho who gets stuck in a poem and fools around with William Wordsworth! But it's also a tiny bit thin, even though there are serious threads - the Crimean war that just kept going on for a hundred years, Thursday's dead, dishonoured brother, actual people dying. The comic stuff rides sort of uneasily alongside. And Thursday's boyfriend/ex-boyfriend/someone else's fiancé? Yeesh. So here I am. Read it again, enjoyed it again, but not continuing with the series right away, still kind of recommend it. Anyone care to help me down off this fence? 

A Time of Torment (Charlie Parker #14) by John Connolly. Synopsis from Goodreads: Jerome Burnel was once a hero. He intervened to prevent multiple killings and in doing so damned himself. His life was torn apart. He was imprisoned, brutalized.

But in his final days, with the hunters circling, he tells his story to private detective Charlie Parker. He speaks of the girl who was marked for death but was saved, of the ones who tormented him, and an entity that hides in a ruined stockade.
Parker is not like other men. He died, and was reborn. He is ready to wage war.
Now he will descend upon a strange, isolated community called the Cut, and face down a force of men who rule by terror, intimidation, and murder.
All in the name of the being they serve.
All in the name of the Dead King.

Didn't enjoy this one as much as the previous, mostly I think because it was less about Parker and Angel and Louis than the denizens of The Cut, which was reminiscent of the town of Prosperous from whichever book that was, so that seemed a little derivative.

Dark Harvest by Norman Partridge. Synopsis from Goodreads: Winner of the Bram Stoker Award and named one of the 100 Best Novels of 2006 by Publishers Weekly, Dark Harvest by Norman Patridge is a powerhouse thrill-ride with all the resonance of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery."

Halloween, 1963. They call him the October Boy, or Ol' Hacksaw Face, or Sawtooth Jack. Whatever the name, everybody in this small Midwestern town knows who he is. How he rises from the cornfields every Halloween, a butcher knife in his hand, and makes his way toward town, where gangs of teenage boys eagerly await their chance to confront the legendary nightmare. Both the hunter and the hunted, the October Boy is the prize in an annual rite of life and death.
Pete McCormick knows that killing the October Boy is his one chance to escape a dead-end future in this one-horse town. He's willing to risk everything, including his life, to be a winner for once. But before the night is over, Pete will look into the saw-toothed face of horror--and discover the terrifying true secret of the October Boy.

Publishers Weekly called this "Contemporary American writing at its finest", and that sums it up pretty well. It uses the trope of the American Dream, and characters in a struggling small town desperate to find a way to make good, and subverts it all magnificently. It has the drive of pulp fiction with a beating red heart at the centre. I read this because I had come across Partridge's bleakly brilliant Lesser Demons once again in an anthology, and went looking for some other stuff.  Based on this, I will keep reading. 

The Boy on the Bridge by M.R. Carey. Synopsis from Goodreads: Once upon a time, in a land blighted by terror, there was a very clever boy.

The people thought the boy could save them, so they opened their gates and sent him out into the world.
To where the monsters lived.

Three and a half stars. I was happy enough to revisit this universe, but I'm a bit bewildered as to why this book was necessary. It's almost a carbon copy of The Girl With All the Gifts: a strong maternal woman; an unusual child who is fiercely devoted to the woman: a by-the-book unemotional military man; various other characters of varying strength and morality. And of course it lacked the delicious element of surprise and discovery of the original story. The lovely coda was pretty much worth the price of admission, though. 

Armada by Ernest Cline. Synopsis from Goodreads: Zack Lightman has spent his life dreaming. Dreaming that the real world could be a little more like the countless science-fiction books, movies, and videogames he’s spent his life consuming. Dreaming that one day, some fantastic, world-altering event will shatter the monotony of his humdrum existence and whisk him off on some grand space-faring adventure.
But hey, there’s nothing wrong with a little escapism, right? After all, Zack tells himself, he knows the difference between fantasy and reality. He knows that here in the real world, aimless teenage gamers with anger issues don’t get chosen to save the universe.
And then he sees the flying saucer.
Even stranger, the alien ship he’s staring at is straight out of the videogame he plays every night, a hugely popular online flight simulator called Armada—in which gamers just happen to be protecting the earth from alien invaders. 
No, Zack hasn’t lost his mind. As impossible as it seems, what he’s seeing is all too real. And his skills—as well as those of millions of gamers across the world—are going to be needed to save the earth from what’s about to befall it.
It’s Zack’s chance, at last, to play the hero. But even through the terror and exhilaration, he can’t help thinking back to all those science-fiction stories he grew up with, and wondering: Doesn’t something about this scenario seem a little…familiar?
At once gleefully embracing and brilliantly subverting science-fiction conventions as only Ernest Cline could, Armada is a rollicking, surprising thriller, a classic coming of age adventure, and an alien invasion tale like nothing you’ve ever read before—one whose every page is infused with the pop-culture savvy that has helped make Ready Player One a phenomenon.

I was quite surprised to find out that this was published after Ready Player One, and even less impressed. It seems strange that this is kind of a rip-off of The Last Starfighter and other works of that ilk, and yet references them constantly with a total lack of shame. It was good fun, but given the choice, go with Ready Player One and skip this. 

The Forgetting Time by Sharon Guskin. Synopsis by Goodreads: What would you do if your four-year-old son claimed he had lived another life and that he wants to go back to it? That he wants his other mother?

Single mom Janie is trying to figure out what is going on with her beloved son Noah. Noah has never been ordinary. He loves to make up stories, and he is constantly surprising her with random trivia someone his age has no right knowing. She always chalked it up to the fact that Noah was precocious―mature beyond his years. But Noah’s eccentricities are starting to become worrisome. One afternoon, Noah’s preschool teacher calls Janie: Noah has been talking about shooting guns and being held under water until he can’t breathe. Suddenly, Janie can’t pretend anymore. The school orders him to get a psychiatric evaluation. And life as she knows it stops for herself and her darling boy.
For Jerome Anderson, life as he knows it has already stopped. Diagnosed with aphasia, his first thought as he approaches the end of his life is, I’m not finished yet. Once an academic star, a graduate of Yale and Harvard, a professor of psychology, he threw everything away to pursue an obsession: the stories of children who remembered past lives. Anderson became the laughing stock of his peers, but he never stopped believing that there was something beyond what anyone could see or comprehend. He spent his life searching for a case that would finally prove it. And with Noah, he thinks he may have found it.
Soon, Noah, Janie, and Anderson will find themselves knocking on the door of a mother whose son has been missing for eight years. When that door opens, all of their questions will be answered.
Gorgeously written and fearlessly provocative, Sharon Guskin’s debut explores the lengths we will go for our children. It examines what we regret in the end of our lives and hope for in the beginning, and everything in between.

Interesting, not terrible, but very much a first novel. Some clunky writing, forced metaphors, and things devolving into kind of a movie-of-the-week treatment of the idea of reincarnation. 

False Hearts by Laura Lam. Synopsis from Goodreads: Orphan Black meets Inception: Two formerly conjoined sisters are ensnared in a murderous plot involving psychoactive drugs, shared dreaming, organized crime, and a sinister cult. 

One night Tila stumbles home, terrified and covered in blood.
She’s arrested for murder, the first by a civilian in decades. The San Francisco police suspect involvement with Verve, a powerful drug, and offer her twin sister Taema a chilling deal. Taema must assume Tila’s identity and gather information – then if she brings down the drug syndicate, the police may let her sister live. But Taema’s investigation raises ghosts from the twins’ past.
The sisters were raised by a cult, which banned modern medicine. But as conjoined twins, they needed surgery to divide their shared heart – and escaped. Taema now finds Tila discovered links between the cult and the city’s underground. Once unable to keep secrets, the sisters will discover the true cost of lies.

The synopsis sounded right up my alley ('Orphan Black meets Inception'? Come ON), and the execution didn't exactly fall flat, it just never caught fire for me. It felt like it took forever before Taema was actually doing any undercover work, and while I enjoyed the preamble, it made the pacing feel uneven. I would have liked a little more attention given to the underpinnings of the Hearth, also, and the head figure being named Mana-ma was really distracting - it kept making me sing the Mana Mana song in my head every time she was mentioned. I also kind of dislike when most of the action of a story has to take place simply because one character won't tell something they're completely capable of telling. Then when it's over, they go ahead and tell anyway. I would probably try something from this author again.

Alice (The Chronicles of Alice #1) by Christina Henry. Synopsis from Goodreads: In a warren of crumbling buildings and desperate people called the Old City, there stands a hospital with cinderblock walls which echo the screams of the poor souls inside.

In the hospital, there is a woman. Her hair, once blond, hangs in tangles down her back. She doesn’t remember why she’s in such a terrible place. Just a tea party long ago, and long ears, and blood…
Then, one night, a fire at the hospital gives the woman a chance to escape, tumbling out of the hole that imprisoned her, leaving her free to uncover the truth about what happened to her all those years ago.
Only something else has escaped with her. Something dark. Something powerful.
And to find the truth, she will have to track this beast to the very heart of the Old City, where the rabbit waits for his Alice.

I think this was really quite good and I was just not in the mood for it. When I think of it, all the elements were there. It's well-written and the characters are interesting and it's a suitably dark treatment of the source material. Oh look, I read it in November. Nuff said. 

Carniepunk (Anthology). Synopsis from Goodreads: The traveling carnival is a leftover of a bygone era, a curiosity lurking on the outskirts of town. It is a place of contradictions—the bright lights mask the peeling paint; a carnie in greasy overalls slinks away from the direction of the Barker’s seductive call. It is a place of illusion—is that woman’s beard real? How can she live locked in that watery box?
And while many are tricked by sleight of hand, there are hints of something truly magical going on. One must remain alert and learn quickly the unwritten rules of this dark show. To beat the carnival, one had better have either a whole lot of luck or a whole lot of guns—or maybe some magic of one’s own.
Featuring stories grotesque and comical, outrageous and action-packed, Carniepunk is the first anthology to channel the energy and attitude of urban fantasy into the bizarre world of creaking machinery, twisted myths, and vivid new magic.

RACHEL CAINE’s vampires aren’t child’s play, as a naïve teen discovers when her heart leads her far, far astray in “The Cold Girl.” With “Parlor Tricks,” JENNIFER ESTEP pits Gin Blanco, the Elemental Assassin, against the Wheel of Death and some dangerously creepy clowns. SEANAN McGUIRE narrates a poignant, ethereal tale of a mysterious carnival that returns to a dangerous town after twenty years in “Daughter of the Midway, the Mermaid, and the Open, Lonely Sea.” KEVIN HEARNE’s Iron Druid and his wisecracking Irish wolfhound discover in “The Demon Barker of Wheat Street” that the impossibly wholesome sounding Kansas Wheat Festival is actually not a healthy place to hang out. With an eerie, unpredictable twist, ROB THURMAN reveals the fate of a psychopath stalking two young carnies in“Painted Love.”

Three and a half stars. I absolutely adored the first two or three stories, and then there were some that left me cold, some that were okay, and it never really picked up again before it was over, although I liked the last story by Seanan Maguire. Many stories were set in fictional universes I didn't know, which isn't necessarily a bad thing but sometimes makes it harder to connect. Some set up interesting worlds but then the plot was completely predictable.

Books 2017: Three-Star Young Adult

YA Mystery

A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavellaro. Synopsis from Goodreads: The last thing Jamie Watson wants is a rugby scholarship to Sherringford, a Connecticut prep school just an hour away from his estranged father. But that’s not the only complication: Sherringford is also home to Charlotte Holmes, the famous detective’s great-great-great-granddaughter, who has inherited not only Sherlock’s genius but also his volatile temperament. From everything Jamie has heard about Charlotte, it seems safer to admire her from afar.
From the moment they meet, there’s a tense energy between them, and they seem more destined to be rivals than anything else. But when a Sherringford student dies under suspicious circumstances, ripped straight from the most terrifying of the Sherlock Holmes stories, Jamie can no longer afford to keep his distance. Jamie and Charlotte are being framed for murder, and only Charlotte can clear their names. But danger is mounting and nowhere is safe—and the only people they can trust are each other.

Interesting, and held my attention well enough, but I wanted more quirks that differentiated it from the canon. This is just another iteration of Holmes being prickly, aloof, brilliant but lacking social skills, and Watson being the admiring lackey who often feels irritated and unappreciated but can't bring himself to leave. Yeah, Holmes happens to be female, but there needed to be some kind of exchanging of roles or any kind of twist for this to add up to anything other than basically fan fiction.

The Mystery of Hollow Places by Rebecca Podos. Synopsis from Goodreads: All Imogene Scott knows of her mother is the bedtime story her father told her as a child. It’s the story of how her parents met: he, a forensic pathologist, she, a mysterious woman who came to identify a body. A woman who left Imogene and her father when Imogene was a baby, a woman who was always possessed by a powerful loneliness, a woman who many referred to as “troubled waters.”
Now Imogene is seventeen, and her father, a famous author of medical mysteries, has struck out in the middle of the night and hasn’t come back. Neither Imogene’s stepmother nor the police know where he could’ve gone, but Imogene is convinced he’s looking for her mother. And she decides it’s up to her to put to use the skills she’s gleaned from a lifetime of reading her father’s books to track down a woman she’s only known in stories in order to find him and, perhaps, the answer to the question she’s carried with her for her entire life.

I just saw that this book is in the 'Readers also enjoyed' section for A Study in Charlotte - I wonder if that's how I decided to read it. This wasn't what I thought it was going to be, and sometimes I have a hard time recovering from that. Fortunately, what it was was done very well. Good treatment of mental health issues, really nice depiction of female friendship and a non-formulaic kind of coming-of-age for a female protagonist. It's always nice when increased confidence and self-love for a female character comes without any kind of big makeover or weight loss. Actually, from how I remember it, I'm surprised I gave this three stars instead of four. *shrug*

The Body of Christopher Creed by Carol Plum-Ucci. Synopsis from Goodreads: When Christopher Creed, the class freak and whipping boy, suddenly disappears without a trace, everyone speculates on what could have happened to him. Soon fingers begin pointing, and several lives are changed forever.

This has been on my radar for ages, possibly just because I thought the name Christopher Creed was kind of elegant and it made the title memorable. It also wasn't what I thought it was going to be, but was done well. It kind of pairs well with The Mystery of Hollow Places, actually, in the coming-of-age thing and having to break away from friends that you come to uncomfortable realizations about, but from a male point of view instead. Some keen observations about small-town life as well. 

With Malice by Eileen Cook. Synopsis from Goodreads: It was the perfect trip…until it wasn’t.
Eighteen-year-old Jill Charron wakes up in a hospital room, leg in a cast, stitches in her face and a big blank canvas where the last six weeks should be. She discovers she was involved in a fatal car accident while on a school trip in Italy. A trip she doesn’t even remember taking. She was jetted home by her affluent father in order to receive quality care. Care that includes a lawyer. And a press team. Because maybe the accident…wasn’t an accident.
As the accident makes national headlines, Jill finds herself at the center of a murder investigation. It doesn’t help that the media is portraying her as a sociopath who killed her bubbly best friend, Simone, in a jealous rage. With the evidence mounting against her, there’s only one thing Jill knows for sure: She would never hurt Simone. But what really happened? Questioning who she can trust and what she’s capable of, Jill desperately tries to piece together the events of the past six weeks before she loses her thin hold on her once-perfect life.

This is clearly modeled on the Amanda Knox thing, and true crime or thinly-veiled true crime is not really my thing, so I assume this was another insomnia library e-read. It was fine. Quite a few reviewers I often agree with on Goodreads gave it four stars, but for me it didn't jump to that next level, even though I like books that look realistically at female friendships, and I'm usually all over a plot that involves amnesia in a completely unrealistic way. Anyway, the consensus among much-followed reviewers is that it's quite good. 

Young Adult Fantasy/Science Fiction

A Song to Take the World Apart by Zan Romanoff. Synopsis from Goodreads: What if you could make someone love you back, just by singing to them? Fans of Jandy Nelson’s I’ll Give You the Sun and Leslye Walton’s The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender will be captivated by this contemporary love story with hints of magical realism.
Hanging out with Chris was supposed to make Lorelei’s life normal. He’s cooler, he’s older, and he’s in a band, which means he can teach her about the music that was forbidden in her house growing up. Her grandmother told her when she was little that she was never allowed to sing, but listening to someone else do it is probably harmless— right?
The more she listens, though, the more keenly she can feel her own voice locked up in her throat, and how she longs to use it. And as she starts exploring the power her grandmother never wanted her to discover, influencing Chris and everyone around her, the foundations of Lorelei’s life start to crumble. There’s a reason the women in her family never want to talk about what their voices can do.
And a reason Lorelei can’t seem to stop herself from singing anyway. 

Hmm. Her name is Lorelei and her grandmother has warned her never to sing. Yeah, the twist is telegraphed pretty hard. This was slightly disappointing, mostly because of the comparison to Jandy Nelson (this was NO "I'll Give You the Sun", and that blessing should be bestowed VERY SPARINGLY ). Entertaining enough to hold my attention for the evening. I did appreciate the musing on the poisoned blessing of being able to make someone love you, and the consequence here is right and good. 

Where Futures End by Parker Peeveyhouse. Synopsis from Goodreads: Five teens.

Five futures.
Two worlds.
One ending.
One year from now, Dylan develops a sixth sense that allows him to glimpse another world.
Ten years from now, Brixney must get more hits on her social media feed or risk being stuck in a debtors' colony.
Thirty years from now, Epony scrubs her entire online profile from the web and goes “High Concept.”
Sixty years from now, Reef struggles to survive in a city turned virtual gameboard.
And more than a hundred years from now, Quinn uncovers the alarming secret that links them all. 
Five people, divided by time, will determine the fate of us all. These are stories of a world bent on destroying itself, and of the alternate world that might be its savior--unless it's too late.

Three and a half stars. Calling it an embryonic Cloud Atlas isn't totally out of line, although it's clearly the product of a much younger and less sophisticated author. A couple of the sections dragged slightly, but a couple were brilliant, particularly detailing the out-of-control voyeurism in the near future. I'll be interested to see what this author does next.

Down With the Shine by Kate Karyus Quinn. Synopsis from Goodreads: Make a wish…
Lennie always thought her uncles’ “important family legacy” was good old-fashioned bootlegging. Then she takes some of her uncles’ moonshine to Michaela Gordon’s annual house party, and finds out just how wrong she was.
At the party, Lennie has everyone make a wish before drinking the shine—it’s tradition. She toasts to wishes for bat wings, for balls of steel, for the party to go on forever. Lennie even makes a wish of her own: to bring back her best friend, Dylan, who was murdered six months ago.
The next morning gives Lennie a whole new understanding of the phrase be careful what you wish for—or in her case, be careful what wishes you grant. Because all those wishes Lennie raised a jar of shine to last night? They came true. Most of them came out bad. And once granted, a wish can’t be unmade…


Quinn's first book, Another Little Piece, was a near-perfect thriller in my opinion. Dark, twisty, a measured revealing of forgotten things, great characters, pathos and gravity. Every successive book has been disappointing to me. I thought the title of the first one was coincidental, but she seems to be hell-bent on titling everything after songs. This starts out well but then she tries to add humour and outright silliness, among some still very dark elements, and the effect is odd and off-putting. I will keep reading, though, because I have hopes for another one to match the first. 

Through the Woods by Emily Carroll. Synopsis from Goodreads: 'It came from the woods. Most strange things do.'

Five mysterious, spine-tingling stories follow journeys into (and out of?) the eerie abyss.
These chilling tales spring from the macabre imagination of acclaimed and award-winning comic creator Emily Carroll.
Come take a walk in the woods and see what awaits you there.

Interesting, and the art was lovely, but I felt it relied a bit too much on atmosphere and poetry and lacked a bit in actual plot, which I still need even with beautiful art and atmospheric writing. 

And the Trees Crept In by Dawn Kurtagich. Synopsis from Goodreads: Stay away from the woods…
When Silla and Nori arrive at their aunt’s home, it’s immediately clear that the manor is cursed. The endless creaking of the house at night and the eerie stillness of the woods surrounding them would be enough of a sign, but there are secrets too—questions that Silla can’t ignore: Why does it seem that, ever since they arrived, the trees have been creeping closer? Who is the beautiful boy who’s appeared from the woods? And who is the tall man with no eyes who Nori plays with in the basement at night… a man no one else can see?

This paired well with The Darkest Corners which I read immediately before, with another main character who is shaped and hardened by traumatic circumstances in her formative years and consequently finds it almost impossible to manifest 'normal' human emotions (and with The Marsh King's Daughter, which I hadn't read yet). Overall this was disappointing though, since I read it because of all the reviews that declared it extremely frightening. The story was in desperate need of a good edit, with a bloated middle section which I guess is meant to keep heightening the suspense and disorientation of Silla's and Nori's situation, but really just becomes tedious and repetitive; in two separate instances Silla muses on how 'hopeless' is a much prettier word than it should be given its meaning (hence the need for editing). The ending makes sense, but in my opinion relies too much on telling over showing - it lacks that delicious sense of slow realization that comes when the reveal is done well.

Young Adult Graphic Novels

Boxers (Boxers and Saints #1) by Gene Luen Yang. Synopsis from Goodreads: China, 1898. Bands of foreign missionaries and soldiers roam the countryside, bullying and robbing Chinese peasants.

Little Bao has had enough. Harnessing the powers of ancient Chinese gods, he recruits an army of Boxers--commoners trained in kung fu--who fight to free China from "foreign devils."
Against all odds, this grass-roots rebellion is violently successful. But nothing is simple. Little Bao is fighting for the glory of China, but at what cost? So many are dying, including thousands of "secondary devils"--Chinese citizens who have converted to Christianity.

I don't read many graphic novels - I generally find that the writing is not as good as it would be without pictures, and can't escape the feeling that I'm just reading a grown-up comic book (not that that would be the worst thing ever, it's just not my thing). This was on the recommendation of the Teen Librarian where I was doing my placement last winter, and of several of the teen-agers who had read it at her urging. It was really good - the writing was simple, but effective, and taught me more than I'd known before about the Boxer Rebellion. The art was captivating. When you put the two books together, the cover images make one picture.

Saints (Boxers and Saints #2) by Gene Luen Yang. Synopsis from Goodreads: China, 1898. An unwanted and unwelcome fourth daughter, Four-Girl isn't even given a proper name by her family when she's born. She finds friendship--and a name, Vibiana--in the most unlikely of places: Christianity. 

But China is a dangerous place for Christians. The Boxer Rebellion is in full swing, and bands of young men roam the countryside, murdering Westerners and Chinese Christians alike. Torn between her nation and her Christian friends, Vibiana will have to decide where her true loyalties lie...and whether she is willing to die for her faith.

Much of the story is the same, told from Four-Girl's point of view until her story merges with Little Bao's. Also very good. 

Books 2017: Three-Star Mysteries

 Mystery

Lacy Eye by Jessica Treadway. Synopsis from Goodreads: Hanna Schutt never suspected that her younger daughter's happiness would lead to her husband's death and the destruction of their family. When Dawn brings her new boyfriend home from college for a visit, her parents and sister try to hide their doubts because they're glad that Dawn - always an awkward child - appears to have grown into a confident, mature young woman in her relationship with Rud. But when Hanna and her husband, Joe, are beaten savagely in their bed, Rud becomes the chief suspect and stands trial for Joe's murder.
Claiming her boyfriend's innocence, Dawn estranges herself from her mother, who survived the attack with serious injuries and impaired memory. When Rud wins an appeal and Dawn returns to the family home saying she wants to support her mother, Hanna decides to try to remember details of that traumatic night so she can testify to keep her husband's murderer in jail, never guessing that the process might cause her to question everything she thought she knew about her daughter. 

Reading this was a really interesting look into the lives and thought processes of characters who are very, very different from me. I've engaged in a spurious justification or two in my time, but I've never done the 'willful blindness' thing. I also always find it interesting to read about parents with difficult relationships with their children (while feeling very, very lucky that this has never been something I've had to deal with). Things could have been a bit more nuanced here, and the prose was very workmanlike, but overall this was an engaging enough read.

Cry for Help by Steve Mosby. Synopsis from Goodreads: Dave Lewis is a man with a history. Haunted by his brother's murder when they were children, and scarred by his parents' grief, he's built a bitter life denying everything they ever stood for. He spends his time working as a magician, running a cynical magazine that derides his parents. New Age beliefs, and drowning his sorrows over his lost love, Tori. He's trying to convince himself the past is the past. A promise he made to Tori has got him into trouble before, and Dave's determined to move on and not let that happen again. 

Detective Sam Currie is a man with a past. His failure to prevent his son's death has ended his marriage and cast a shadow over his life and career. He's directed his hatred towards the one man he sees as responsible, but he has other priorities right now. A killer is stalking the city, abducting girls and sending texts and emails to their families before he kills them. When Dave Lewis appears to connect both investigations, it's an opportunity Currie can't resist..

Kind of surprised and chagrined to realize that I don't remember a whole lot about this book. I reread the first book I had read by this author this year and then downloaded more because I really admire his style. This is the only one I three-starred, so maybe that's why, although I still do recall it as being a step up from many mysteries. 

The Missing Hours by Emma Kavanagh. Synopsis from Goodreads: A woman disappears 

One moment, Selena Cole is in the playground with her children and the next, she has vanished without a trace.
A woman returns 
Twenty hours later, Selena is found safe and well, but with no memory of where she has been.
What took place in those missing hours, and are they linked to the discovery of a nearby murder?

‘Is it a forgetting or a deception?’

Call it three and a half. All of the right elements were here - good solid characters with back-stories and nuanced motivations, the odd lovely turn of phrase to highlight the grueling and melancholy nature of murder investigations, and a mystery. But for some reason the plot just didn't draw me in all that much. I like them a little more dark and twisted.

Falling by Emma Kavanagh. Synopsis from Goodreads: A plane falls out of the sky. A woman is murdered. Four people all have something to hide. 
Jim is a retired police officer, and worried father. His beloved daughter has disappeared and he knows something is wrong.
Tom has woken up to the news that his wife was on the plane and must break the news to their only son.
Cecilia had packed up and left her family. Now she has survived a tragedy, and sees no way out.
Freya is struggling to cope with the loss of her father. But as she delves into his past, she may not like what she finds.
'Before the plane crash, after the plane crash, such a short amount of time for the world to turn on its head. 

When I finished The Missing Hours, I was surprised to go to Goodreads and find that I had already read a book by her and forgotten (a little surprised - I read a lot of books and I have a fairly bad memory). This was more of a two-and-a-half. I'm not surprised that it was written earlier. Everything was pretty bland and forgettable. The Missing Hours was quite a bit better, so it's good to see an improvement arc.

Black-Eyed Susans by Julia Heaberlin. Synopsis from Goodreads: I am the star of screaming headlines and campfire ghost stories.

I am one of the four Black-Eyed Susans.
The lucky one. 
As a sixteen-year-old, Tessa Cartwright was found in a Texas field, barely alive amid a scattering of bones, with only fragments of memory as to how she got there. Ever since, the press has pursued her as the lone surviving “Black-Eyed Susan,” the nickname given to the murder victims because of the yellow carpet of wildflowers that flourished above their shared grave. Tessa’s testimony about those tragic hours put a man on death row. 
Now, almost two decades later, Tessa is an artist and single mother. In the desolate cold of February, she is shocked to discover a freshly planted patch of black-eyed susans—a summertime bloom—just outside her bedroom window. Terrified at the implications—that she sent the wrong man to prison and the real killer remains at large—Tessa turns to the lawyers working to exonerate the man awaiting execution. But the flowers alone are not proof enough, and the forensic investigation of the still-unidentified bones is progressing too slowly. An innocent life hangs in the balance. The legal team appeals to Tessa to undergo hypnosis to retrieve lost memories—and to share the drawings she produced as part of an experimental therapy shortly after her rescue.
 What they don’t know is that Tessa and the scared, fragile girl she was have built a  fortress of secrets. As the clock ticks toward the execution, Tessa fears for her sanity, but even more for the safety of her teenaged daughter. Is a serial killer still roaming free, taunting Tessa with a trail of clues? She has no choice but to confront old ghosts and lingering nightmares to finally discover what really happened that night. 
Shocking, intense, and utterly original, Black-Eyed Susans is a dazzling psychological thriller, seamlessly weaving past and present in a searing tale of a young woman whose harrowing memories remain in a field of flowers—as a killer makes a chilling return to his garden.


I read a good chunk of this feeling sure it was going to be a four-star. Good writing, well-fleshed-out characters, intriguing premise. Then...maybe it was just me. I admired how she didn't dwell punishingly on the abduction, but I think she might have erred too much on the side of only giving glimpses, to the point where it was annoyingly difficult to figure out exactly what did happen. I'm usually fine with switches between the past and present too, but these were so short all the way through that the effect became jarring and vexing. Tess was a great character, much more than just a crime survivor, and the relationship between her and her daughter and their neighbour was wonderful. Then after all of it, the reveal lacked both surprise and credibility. I'd still say it's worth a read. 

The Murder of Mary Russell (Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes #14) by Laurie King. Synopsis from Goodreads: Mary Russell is used to dark secrets—her own, and those of her famous partner and husband, Sherlock Holmes. Trust is a thing slowly given, but over the course of a decade together, the two have forged an indissoluble bond.
And what of the other person to whom Mary Russell has opened her heart: the couple’s longtime housekeeper, Mrs. Hudson? Russell’s faith and affection are suddenly shattered when a man arrives on the doorstep claiming to be Mrs. Hudson’s son.
What Samuel Hudson tells Russell cannot possibly be true, yet she believes him—as surely as she believes the threat of the gun in his hand. In a devastating instant, everything changes. And when the scene is discovered—a pool of blood on the floor, the smell of gunpowder in the air—the most shocking revelation of all is that the grim clues point directly to Clara Hudson.
Or rather to Clarissa, the woman she was before Baker Street.
The key to Russell’s sacrifice lies in Mrs. Hudson’s past. To uncover the truth, a frantic Sherlock Holmes must put aside his anguish and push deep into his housekeeper’s secrets—to a time before her disguise was assumed, before her crimes were buried away.
There is death here, and murder, and trust betrayed.
And nothing will ever be the same.

I found this series enchanting when it first began, lo these many years ago. I was working at an audio publisher and got the manuscript for the first book before it was published, and it was delightful. It's lost a bit of its lustre for me, and I'm sad that King didn't write more of her Kate Martinelli series, which I actually preferred - A Grave Talent and To Play the Fool are wonderful. This was interesting, I just find that the series is a bit bloodless and polite, even considering its Britishness. 

Life or Death by Michael Robotham. Synopsis from Goodreads: Why would a man serving a long prison sentence escape the day before he's due to be released?

Audie Palmer has spent ten years in a Texas prison after pleading guilty to a robbery in which four people died and seven million dollars went missing. During that time he has suffered repeated beatings, stabbings and threats by inmates and guards, all desperate to answer the same question: where's the money?
On the day before Audie is due to be released, he suddenly vanishes. Now everybody is searching for him - the police, FBI, gangsters and other powerful figures - but Audie isn't running to save his own life. Instead, he's trying to save someone else's.
Michael Robotham has created the ultimate underdog hero, an honorable criminal shrouded in mystery and ready to lead readers on a remarkable chase.

Three and a half stars (a fair few of those this year). It had amazing narrative energy and I couldn't put it down, and it's only upon reflection that I have a couple of minor quibbles. Audie and Moss work wonderfully as characters, but the love interest being one of those women surrounded by a 'magical sadness' and the sense that she has to be saved? Kind of old and tired for a book written in 2016. Ditto with some of the fairly stereotypical corrupt bad guys. In general, though, a thumping good read if you don't overthink it.

Blind Sight by Carol O'Connell (Kathleen Mallory #12). Synopsis from Goodreads: A blind child and a Catholic nun disappear from a city sidewalk in plain sight of onlookers. There, then gone—vanished in seconds. Those who witnessed the event still cannot believe it happened.

It was all too real. Detective Kathy Mallory and the NYPD’s Special Crimes Unit enter the investigation when the nun’s body is found with three other corpses in varying stages of decomposition left on the lawn of Gracie Mansion, home to the mayor of New York City. Sister Michael was the last to die. The child, Jonah Quill, is still missing. 
Like Jonah, the police are blind. Unknown to them, he is with a stone killer, and though he has unexpected resources of his own, his would-be saviors have no suspect, no useful evidence, and no clue — except for Detective Mallory’s suspicions of things not said and her penchant for getting to the truth beneath lies. Behind her back, the squad’s name for her is Mallory the Machine, yet she has a dark understanding of what it is to be human. A child is waiting, time is running out, and atop her list of liars is the mayor himself…and a theory of the crimes in which no sane cop could believe.

Kathy Mallory was so delightfully new and different a character when this series began. I keep coming back hoping it will find some new life, but this was just okay. The relationship between Iggy and Jonah was riveting. The rest is just rehashed and stale. Too many all caps and italics to indicate surprise and excitement when there really isn't any. I guess there's only so much personal growth a sociopath can demonstrate, but if Mallory continues to stay exactly the same, in my opinion this series is doomed to irrelevance.

Ragdoll by Daniel Cole. Synopsis by Goodreads: One body. Six victims.

William Fawkes, a controversial detective known as The Wolf, has just been reinstated to his post after months of psychological assessment following allegations of a shocking assault. A veteran of the force, Fawkes thinks he's seen it all. That is, until his former partner and friend, Detective Emily Baxter, calls him to a crime scene and leads him to a career-defining cadaver: the dismembered parts of six victims sewn together like a puppet - a corpse that becomes known in the press as the "ragdoll."
Fawkes is tasked with identifying the six victims, but that gets dicey when his reporter ex-wife anonymously receives photographs from the crime scene, along with a list of six names, and the dates on which the Ragdoll Killer plans to murder them. The final name on the list is Fawkes. Baxter and her trainee partner, Alex Edmunds, hone in on figuring out what links the victims together before the killer strikes again.
But for Fawkes, seeing his name on the list sparks a dark memory, and he fears that the catalyst for these killings has more to do with him - and his past - than anyone realises.

A little bit meh. Started out promisingly enough, and I liked all of the cop characters, but the plot devolved pretty quickly into way beyond suspension of disbelief territory. I've lost patience with the villain-as-borderline-evil-superhero schtick. The resolution lacked verisimilitude also. This was a first novel, so things could improve.

The Night Bird by Brian Freeman. Synopsis from Goodreads: Homicide detective Frost Easton doesn’t like coincidences. When a series of bizarre deaths rock San Francisco—as seemingly random women suffer violent psychotic breaks—Frost looks for a connection that leads him to psychiatrist Francesca Stein. Frankie’s controversial therapy helps people erase their most terrifying memories…and all the victims were her patients.
As Frost and Frankie carry out their own investigations, the case becomes increasingly personal—and dangerous. Long-submerged secrets surface as someone called the Night Bird taunts the pair with cryptic messages pertaining to the deaths. Soon Frankie is forced to confront strange gaps in her own memory, and Frost faces a killer who knows the detective’s worst fears.
As the body count rises and the Night Bird circles ever closer, a dedicated cop and a brilliant doctor race to solve the puzzle before a cunning killer claims another victim.

This was good. It was nearly great, with good characters and a nice twisty plot, and I liked that the love interest thing didn't go formulaic and predictable. The writing wasn't fantastic, and the phrase 'finger of worry' was overused.

Lockdown by Laurie R. King. Synopsis from Goodreads: Career Day at Guadalupe Middle School: a day given to innocent hopes and youthful dreams. A day no one in attendance will ever forget. 

New York Times bestselling author Laurie R. King is an award-winning master of combining rich atmospheric detail with riveting, keen-edged mystery. Now, in her newest standalone novel of psychological suspense, King turns her sharp eye to a moment torn from the headlines and a school under threat. 
A year ago, Principal Linda McDonald arrived at Guadalupe determined to overturn the school's reputation for truancy, gang violence, and neglect. One of her initiatives is Career Day--bringing together children, teachers, and community presenters in a celebration of the future. But there are some in attendance who reject McDonald's bright vision.
A principal with a secret. A husband with a murky past. A cop with too many questions. A kid under pressure to prove himself. A girl struggling to escape a mother's history. A young basketball player with an affection for guns. 
Even the school janitor has a story he dare not reveal. 
But no one at the gathering anticipates the shocking turn of events that will transform a day of possibilities into an explosive confrontation. 
Tense, poignant, and brilliantly paced, Laurie R. King's novel charts compelling characters on a collision course--a chain of interactions that locks together hidden lives, troubling secrets, and the bravest impulses of the human heart. 

Three and a half, I think. I read this while in full-blown Christmas prep, so much more slowly over many more days than I usually would. The notes at the end of the book said something about this being written in pieces and then put together, which makes a certain amount of sense. You definitely get a quite vivid sense of the different personalities, although there is a certain lack of connectivity until the actual events get underway quite late in the book. 

The Marsh King's Daughter by Karen Dionne. Synopsis from Goodreads: Praised by Karin Slaughter and Megan Abbott, The Marsh King’s Daughter is the mesmerizing tale of a woman who must risk everything to hunt down the dangerous man who shaped her past and threatens to steal her future: her father.
Helena Pelletier has a loving husband, two beautiful daughters, and a business that fills her days. But she also has a secret: she is the product of an abduction. Her mother was kidnapped as a teenager by her father and kept in a remote cabin in the marshlands of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Helena, born two years after the abduction, loved her home in nature, and despite her father’s sometimes brutal behavior, she loved him, too...until she learned precisely how savage he could be.
More than twenty years later, she has buried her past so soundly that even her husband doesn’t know the truth. But now her father has killed two guards, escaped from prison, and disappeared into the marsh. The police begin a manhunt, but Helena knows they don’t stand a chance. Knows that only one person has the skills to find the survivalist the world calls the Marsh King—because only one person was ever trained by him: his daughter.


Very interesting and different from many books of this type, chiefly because it's from the viewpoint of the child who was born in captivity and didn't know anything different until she was an adolescent. Helena's insights about hunting, tracking and living off the land and her difficulty at living a mainstream life make her a compelling character and take this story to a different level than a typical damsel in distress narrative. That said, I still liked it rather than loved it, but I think that's on me rather than the book. 

The Winners' Circle (Joanne Kilbourn #17) by Gail Bowen. Synopsis from Goodreads: As Joanne Kilbourn-Shreve, her husband, Zack, and their soon-to-be seventeen-year-old daughter, Taylor, rush through the rain from their cottage to their car, the Thanksgiving weekend they just spent at the lake with Zack's law partners is already slipping away, burnished into memory as pleasantly as the hundreds of other weekends the Falconer-Shreve families have shared at Lawyers' Bay. Thoughts of the weekend past will now focus on the future and be prefaced by the words "next time."

Within weeks, a triple homicide will rip apart the lives of those related to the lawyers who, at the end of their first year in law school, only half-jokingly styled themselves "The Winners' Circle." Dazed by grief, Joanne will seek answers to an impossible question: "Why did they die?" 
The facts behind the suicide of Christopher Altieri, known by his law partners as "the conscience of The Winners' Circle," appear to provide insights, but for Joanne those insights raise new, unsettling questions. Knitting this powerful narrative together is Joanne's unshakeable belief that the only thing worse than knowing is not knowing.

Looking at my ratings for the last few entries in this series, I'm clearly only reading this for nostalgic purposes at this point, although I liked this one a little more than the last few as a fast read on an insomniac night. This series is really suffering, first of all, from the problem of any mystery series where the main character isn't a cop or a P.I. - why in god's name does everyone keep dropping dead around her? I mean, come on, the bounds of credulity were strained beyond belief long, long ago. Although it is sometimes nice and comforting to see the evolution of the characters over such a long arc, and my family is from Saskatchewan so I enjoy the setting, it's just all grown a little stale. In this case, by the time we figure out who did it I hardly even knew who the person was. It's like a cozy family drama where incidentally death and destruction pops in every now and then. And yet I keep coming back. I do highly recommend the first few books in the series.