Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss

 Silvie's father has always been enamored by the history of their land. And in the northern part of England this history abounds. Iron Age living and especially their rituals have fascinated him all of Silvie's life. She's even named after one of the women they worshipped. But when their family is allowed to tag along on an immersive college trip that aims to show people what it was like to live in that era, Silvie's father takes things a bit too far. 

Sarah Moss's latest is a slim novel set in the 80s in northern England. 

Silvie's father believes himself to be something of an expert on Iron Age history in England. The time before the Romans (and the peoples' resistance to them as well) is a subject he's completely self-taught on. But it is clear that he knows quite a bit. And he converses with professors and historians on the subject frequently even if he never had the luxury of officially studying it himself. 

Which is how the family is allowed to join in on a trip otherwise reserved for archaeology students at one of the universities. 

Silvie and her mother, as we soon learn, not only humor her father's hobby, they're forced to endure it. And endure is the correct word as we soon learn. 

The students, and Silvie's family, are to live as the people would have lived in ancient history. Though the students are granted some leniency by their professor, Silvie's father is insistent: the family will sleep in the hut built for this purpose, wear clothes appropriate for the time (with the exception of their underclothes and pajamas, after much arguing), and work and eat just as the Iron Age people would have. 

But Silvie is a teenager. One who is, by virtue of her exposure to the college students, starting to learn just how penned in she is by her father's beliefs. The resulting situation is a perfect storm of teen angst and psychological tension. 

This is a quiet book, but again a very short one. I loved the setting but will say that it was not quite what I'd expected. 

The ghost wall of the title doesn't appear until closer to the end of the story. And where I'd expected a bit more in the way of creepiness, the build instead was instead focused on the breakdown in the relationship between Silvie's family. 

Ghost Wall was interesting, but marred by my expectations going in. It was still an enthralling read and a great way to spend a hot afternoon swinging in the hammock!

Order it from your favorite indie via Bookshop!

Short Fiction Friday: Revenge by Yoko Ogawa

I don't recall where I first heard about Yoko Agawa's Revenge, but it was recommended online and I added it to my must have list. When I was in New York in January, I realized I was walking distance from The Mysterious Bookshop, so of course I headed over there as soon as I dropped my stuff off at my hotel! Surprise, surprise, they had Revenge on their shelves :)

If bleak and add are your bag, this is the book for you. It's eleven interconnected short stories, each as bizarre as the next.

In the first story, "Afternoon at the Bakery," we meet a woman who is buying a cake for her son. She waits and waits, but no one comes to help her. Finally, another woman enters the bakery and the two of them talk for a bit. The first woman tells the second woman the story of her son.

Now, I've struggled with this kind of story since the birth of my own son. But something about Ogawa's writing kept me turning pages.

Most of the stories have a bit (or a lot) of tragedy in them. All of them are weird. There's a man who runs a museum full of torture artifacts. There's a writer who spies on her landlord. There's an old post office filled with kiwis!

For a lot of people, I will admit this book is going to be too dark and dismal for distraction right now. But for the right audience, this is going to be just the kind of quirky and bizarre read they'll need to completely forget the real world around them!

This is one of just five of Ogawa's books to be translated into English. I highly recommend it (again, if this is your genre!) for fans of short fiction. Her latest, though, is a dystopian novel called The Memory Police that sounds fabulous! I haven't had the chance to read it yet, but if you're short story averse, that one might appeal!

Order Revenge from BookBar!

The Memory Painter by Gwendolyn Womack

Happy Monday, readers! Today I'm a stop on the TLC book tour for Gwendolyn Womack's debut, The Memory Painter.

Bryan Pierce's paintings have been gaining growing recognition. Able to churn one out in just a matter of hours, his pieces convey a sense of atmosphere and detail that is truly remarkable. But what people don't know is that Bryan's paintings are the result of vivid dreams. In fact, many of the paintings themselves are created during a complete dream state and without Bryan's own knowledge - until he wakes to find them complete. 

In each dream, it's as though Bryan himself is there in another life. And when he learns that each of the people he's dreamed through were very real, he begins to suspect it's exactly that: another life. It's a feeling Linz Jacobs understands all too well considering it's happened to her too. When the two meet, Bryan knows that Linz has been there in each dream life. 

And then Bryan begins dreaming about the Michael Backer, a scientist who died tragically while researching alzheimers treatments and memory. 

If you're a frequent follower of the blog then you know that the past two weeks have been a bit sparse. There's been a lot going on with work and life and I found myself in something of a reading rut. Fortunately I seem to have finally come out the other side, thanks in large part to books exactly like The Memory Painter.

It's not an exaggeration when I say a book is unputdownable. I know it can get thrown around, but I reserve the term for books that are exactly that. I think it's what we all crave in a read, right? A book that grabs hold of you from the very start, making it impossible to break free until you turn the final page. A book that begs for all of your attention no matter what else might be going on. The Memory Painter fits that bill 100%.

Bryan has just moved back to his hometown of Boston but has kept himself closed off for the most part, even neglecting to attend his own show. His dreams or visions have become so demanding that he fears being around people when one comes upon him. It's caused him to be reserved and overly cautious, something that gets thrown to the wind when he sees Linz Jacobs.

Linz has only ever experienced the one dream - one of being burned at the stake in ancient Greece. But it was a dream so detailed and disturbing that she's never forgotten it in spite of the fact that it seemingly stopped when she left for college. She recognizes the dream in one of Bryan's paintings and is determined to meet him, even suspecting that her friend who owns the gallery showing Bryan's work might have been the one responsible.

The truth is more curious than Linz could ever have imagined. But as it turns out, she's more tied into Bryan's dreams than either of them realize. As the story progresses, Bryan recognizes Linz from his many lifetimes of dreams, but it's even more twisted and tangled than that. And as the connections between their lives - past and present - become more clear, a mystery unfolds.

Some of Bryan's past lives and dreams were less engaging than others, I'll admit. There are so many that it's almost inevitable that some will hold more weight and depth than others. Michael Backer's story and the present day string absolutely fall into the latter category and definitely hooked me the most. It's here that the real entanglements and questions begin to become clearer to Bryan and the reader, so of course they're the driving forces of the book. That said, the story absolutely zips along. There are no dull moments at all and every piece of the puzzle, every dream and every life Bryan recalls, adds layer upon layer to the tale.

The Memory Painter is brand new out in paperback and is also fresh off an RWA Prism Win in the Time Travel/Steampunk category. It's the kind of book that will most definitely appeal to a broad range of readers and one I highly recommend to anyone in search of a great read!



To see more stops on the tour be sure to check out the official TLC tour page here.

For more on Gwendolyn Womack and her work you can visit her website here. You can also like her on Facebook and follow her on Twitter and Pinterest.

Purchase Links: Amazon | IndieBound | Barnes & Noble | iTunes

Month of Maisie Readalong: An Incomplete Revenge by Jacqueline Winspear

Good morning, readers! To celebrate the release of the eleventh installment in Jacqueline Winspear's massively popular Maisie Dobbs series, the good folks at TLC book tours are hosting a month long series blog tour. So here I am today with book number five, An Incomplete Revenge.

Maisie's latest job should be fairly straightforward: James Compton, the son of Maisie's earliest supporter, is interested in making a large land purchase in Heronsdene. The time is right and the purchase would be very advantageous to Compton Corporation. But James has concerns about the landowner and wants Maisie to do a bit of poking before the deal goes through. 

Maisie figures it'll be a quick and easy assignment but when two young boys are arrested for allegedly breaking into the very same landowner's home, the intrepid investigator realizes the case is more complicated than it initially seems. Heronsdene is rife with petty crime, the townspeople are closemouthed, and the overall atmosphere is just off. The secretive nature of the villagers suggests there's something more than just vandalism and minor thieving plaguing Heronsdene and Maisie intends to find out exactly what that might be. 

This is hands down my favorite of the Maisie Dobbs series so far.

I adored the setting of Heronsdene. The village has an almost insular feel - as though it's completely cut off from the rest of the world, even though realistically it's not at all. The influx of outsiders in search of temporary work with the hop harvest means that the regular villagers have even more stress upon them than usual. And, as Maisie soon discovers, tension is already high to begin with.

I did also love the gypsy aspect of the story. Maisie herself can trace her roots back to the Romany, which means she's very open and sympathetic to the local group that's become the focus of so much suspicion in Heronsdene. (Maisie is generally open and sympathetic to those around her, it's what makes her both a likable and believable character.) It also means that we get a bit more insight into Maisie and her family - her mother and grandmother in particular.

Winspear immediately sets a wonderful ominous and eerie tone in An Incomplete Revenge. I found it not only instantly appealing but it left me with absolutely no doubt that there's something fishy enough to warrant both Compton's concern and Maisie's curiosity. And though it is the fifth in the series, I've personally read them totally out of whack and can attest to the fact that this one in particular seems to be the most accessible so far in terms of having little to no background or context on the series as a whole. (Though I am admittedly a bit more prepared than "little to no background," I've not read the series religiously or in order.)

Rating: 4/5

To see more stops on the tour be sure to check out the official TLC tour page here.

For more on Jacqueline Winspear and her work, you can visit her website here. You can also like her on Facebook.

The Orphan Choir by Sophie Hannah

Louise Beeston is certain she's going mad. Mad over lack of sleep, that is! While she and her husband love their Victorian row house - and paid top dollar for it to boot - they hadn't counted on having the noisy neighbor from hell living next door. At least twice a month Justin Clay and his friends gather together in a karaoke-esque party that involves a repeated playlist of songs drunkenly belted along to by the entire group. And with the connecting walls that means that Louise and her husband Stuart can hear it all. Course it's Saturday night and both Louise and Stuart can allow some concessions if only Clay would agree to turn it down when they request. Sadly Clay sees Louise as nothing more than a nag and a bother and isn't inclined to do her any favors. In fact, he ups the ante by barraging Louise's bedroom with choral music.

Justin Clay knows that Louise's son has recently moved out. He's only seven but the prestigious Saviour College School insists their choir boys board. The combined stress of missing her son and days on end of insomnia have left Louise all but broken and the choral music is a cruel addition to the problem. And so the news about a new second home community nearby seems to be just the solution. But when Louise begins hearing the music again, in her new sanctuary far from Justin Clay, she starts to wonder if she really is losing her mind.

In theory this sounded like the perfect read for me. I've read Sophie Hannah before and enjoy her style (she's the author of the Simon Waterhouse and Charlie Zailer series). I love a good horror story, especially one that relies heavily on tone and emotion rather than gore (we all cringe at blood and guts but to elicit fear based on the building intensity of the story alone is awesome in horror). As you might expect, I did go into this latest from Hannah with fairly high expectations.

The Orphan Choir fell sadly short for me. I believe it's due in large part to the balance of the story itself. It read quickly enough - I was 100 pages in before I looked up and realized how long I'd been reading straight. Unfortunately the bulk of that first chunk of reading was spent on the loud neighbor. I didn't like Louise all that much but she did have some redeeming qualities and setting the scene for her looming breakdown in order to express her need to truly get away was obviously what Hannah was aiming for. It felt like overkill, though.

By the time the story begins to move beyond that I was almost halfway through and wondering how in the world the story could possibly wrap up in that short a period of time. It does. Wrap up that is. But there wasn't enough time spent building the overall suspense. The beginning of the book was overly weighted down with the neighbor complaint and the end came much too quickly for my taste.

Rating: 3/5

Be Adventurous!

When I first got into reading, I was one of those who was skeptical of each and every "new" book that I came across. I can't explain what might have been going through my head at the time, but I was new to the hobby and not alone in my fear of reading something I wouldn't like. A lot of people still suffer from this, fortunately I broke out of it once I ran through every single book by four authors. I began with RL Stine, moved onto Christopher Pike, then Richie Tankersly Cusick, and finally Dean Koontz.

Yep, after that I had to broaden my reading horizons. I was in middle school at the time and obviously there was still a world of books to discover (something that never changes). 

By the time I had my driver's license, I had learned that almost any bribe could earn me books. I blame it on my mom who, when I was 13, would promise me books in exchange for helping babysit my three little sisters. Anyway, it was around that time that I really started to explore new release sections and got completely hooked on hardcovers! Expensive habit to have. It's easier to be adventurous with someone else's money! I do have to say that this was all before I started my first job, and once I had started working, all of my money went to books. 

To the point. My newly discovered adventurous tendency to randomly pick up and buy books by authors I had never heard of (ah, my favorite thing to do these days) happened to coincide with what I believe was the beginning of the Scandinavian craze. There is no doubt today that Scandinavian authors have dug a niche for themselves in the mystery genre. They have a style that is completely their own - something you can detect almost from page one. It's hard to explain, but it's there. 

The book pictured above is a title called Blackwater by Kerstin Ekman, a book that is amazingly still in print today! It was about a mother and daughter who find the bodies of two murder victims in the woods. The daughter grows up and the murder is still unsolved, but a series of events is about to change all of that. Another discovery I made around the same time was Peter Hoeg's Smilla's Sense of Snow. I loved both the book and the movie.

Since then, there has been an explosion of these releases. Arnaldur Indrason, Asa Larsson, Kjell Erickson, Henning Mankell, Karin Fossum, the list just goes on and on. 

So, if you're in the mood to try something different, give one of these guys a try, or just browse around and pick up something you've never heard of. It's always a gamble, but I find that I like it more often than not!