Okey doke, it's time for another Shelf Control, a weekly meme hosted by Bookshelf Fantasies. Today's title is Phil Rickman's The Wine of Angels, first in his Merrily Watkins mystery series.What it's about (from the back of the book):
A paradise parish of cobbled streets and timber-framed houses, a huge and haunted vicarage - not what the Rev. Merrily Watkins ever had in mind. Nor had she wanted to walk into a local dispute over a play about a curious seventeenth-century cleric accused of witchcraft... a story that certain old-established families would rather remained in obscurity.
But this is Ledwardine, steeped in cider and secrets. And also - as Merrily and her teenage daughter, Jane, discover - a village where horrific murder is a tradition spanning centuries.
How I got it:
I bought it at High Crimes, our sadly now closed mystery bookstore. They had a section devoted to imports, so you can bet that's where I spent a LOT of my time and money. I discovered Rickman there and bought both this book and The Man in the Moss, one of his stand alone horror titles.
In truth, I should probably have just made this an entire Phil Rickman post. I've since gotten my hands on a few of his other titles - Candlenight, Curfew, December, and at least one more Merrily Watkins title, too. The problem is that they're all whoppers clocking in at 600+ pages and while I'm definitely not afraid to get sucked into a long book, it is much harder to carve out time for them these days considering I keep overcommitting myself.
When I got it:
Oof, I'm gonna guess that I bought this back in 2005 when we first moved here. Yep, that's bad.
Why I want to read it:
Because it sounds fabulous. In fact, all of Rickman's titles sound super awesome - hints of paranormal (or outright horror) and mystery based in British folklore... what's not to love about that? Plus, if I do get hooked there's a slew of them to read. (There are 13 in the series alone.)
Merrily Watkins is an exorcist, by the way. One of the books has just been adapted for tv and I seriously hope it'll come out here at some point.
2 comments:
Interesting book, not my thing though. I guess we all have that problem of having books in our shelves for a long time before reading them. I may have some that has been around for more or less 10 years. So you're not alone. ;)
I've heard such good things about this author, both from reader friends of mine and from recommendations by a favorite author. I'd love to give him a try, but don't know where to start!
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