Beautiful Lies by Clare Clark

I'm on the TLC tour for Clare Clark's latest, Beautiful Lies, this morning.

To all who know them, Maribel and Edward Campbell Lowe are a loving couple with everything going for them. Edward has a great career as a Member of Parliament and Maribel is his supporting wife. But Maribel and Edward are hiding things. First and foremost is Maribel's background. Rather than the French-Chilean heiress she claims to be -- both parents deceased -- Maribel's parents are very much alive. And very English. In fact, Maribel isn't even her name. As Edward makes increasing waves in local government with is radical ideas, Maribel tries her best to maintain the illusion she's built about her past. Unfortunately for them both, a local newspaperman with a habit of stirring up trouble has become quite interested in Maribel. Were the people around them to learn the truth, Edward's career could go up in flames and they'd both be ostracized from the society they've become a part of.

Oh, goodness! I struggled so much with this book. It seemed that we were not a good match in spite of my interest in reading it. To be honest, I trudged through the hundred page hurdle and still wasn't at all sure what was going on! In fact, it wasn't until after that point that the book really began to pick up and go somewhere.

In the author's note, Clare Clark talks about her inspiration for the book. The political and economic happenings of the 1880s and one couple in particular -- Robert and Gabriela Cunninghame Graham. Like the characters they inspired, Robert was an MP who's ideas weren't always readily supported by local government. And like Maribel, Gabriela also created her own identity. Amazingly, it wasn't until almost eighty years after her death that anyone found out the truth about Gabriela Cunninghame Graham.

Clark admits that much of Maribel's story is very different from Gabriela's. Perhaps most fascinating about Gabriela is that much of her real past remains unknown today, leaving Clark plenty of room to play with Maribel's tale.

I really love the inclusion of all the happenings of the time: Buffalo Bill, Oscar Wilde, spirit photography, and the mentions of Madame Blavatsky. Clark so carefully draws the reader into the time period that it becomes an all encompassing experience but it also makes the book a much more dense read as the pacing is greatly slowed by so much detail.

I really wanted to love this book, I just couldn't. I'd definitely recommend reading this one when you have a good while to devote attention to it. Personally, the weather's played havoc with my sinuses and made it hard to concentrate on much of anything at all this week. I may have enjoyed it much more had I not been fighting a distracting rhinovirus on top of diving into nineteenth century politics. To be completely honest, though, the cold wasn't the only thing stopping me from getting lost in this book. I started and stopped and started again after a bit of a break, to no avail. I'm not immune to the appeal of the story, which is why I trudged on -- it just never did hit my like I'd hoped it would.

To see the rest of the tour stops, visit the official TLC tour page here.

Falling Together by Marisa de los Santos

I'm part of the TLC tour for Marisa de los Santos's latest paperback release this morning.

It's been six years since Cat, Pen, and Will last saw each other. The three friends were virtually inseparable throughout college but each went their separate ways afterwards. Now, though, Pen and Will have both received an email from Cat who wants them to meet her at their college reunion. In the email, Cat apologizes and asks for their help. Pen, a single mother who's father has recently passed away, and Will, an author, both rush to meet Cat only to discover that she's missing. As they come together to search for their lost friend, they face the things that have happened in the past six years and the things that initially tore them apart. 

In one part of the book, a character describes Pen, Cat, and Will as engaging in conversation bumper cars. Not only was this description highly amusing, but it's a good way to describe de los Santos's banter-y writing style as well. While I actually came to love this aspect of the book, I found myself losing the thread of the narrative the later the evening became -- not a good book to read as you're nodding off to sleep, in other words.

Pen in particular is a very engaging character in this story as was her daughter, Augusta. I'd like to say Will was equally engaging but he never got as much page time as Pen. And Cat is there in the form of recollections for the most part, so the only things we really learn about her are through Pen and Will's memories.

Falling Together is a sweet story and a fairly easy one to get into once the reunion hits. I sort of felt as though the narrative rambled a bit leading up to that. For me, it felt as though I'd been dropped into the narrative midstream. Obviously this is kind of the case -- the story begins after the friends have split and backtracks to their meeting and the story of their trio. Things just didn't come together for me until Pen and Will actually reunited. It's possible, though, that because of all the lead in to the actual reunion of the characters in question, that I was simply too antsy to get to the meat of the story.

To see what others thought, visit the official tour page here and check out the other posts.

For more on Marisa de los Santos, check out her Facebook page here. And Falling Together is a Target Book Club Pick for October!

Velveteen by Danny Marks

Happy book birthday, Danny Marks!!!

Velveteeen Monroe is in purgatory. The unlucky latest victim of a serial killer called Bonesaw, she finds herself relegated to an inbetween realm for spirits with something unresolved. She spends her spare time clandestinely haunting Bonesaw, trying to make his life a living hell. But haunting is not allowed in purgatory. Velveteen has a very particular skill set and serves as a Salvager in her realm. She travels to the daylight -- or living -- world to capture rogue spirits, sending them back where they belong. To say it would be a bad thing if Velveteen got caught spending any time with Bonesaw is an understatement. But that's besides the point. Cracks are appearing in Purgatory and Velveteen and her team must find out why. If they can't stop it, it could mean the end of their world. And with the arrival of a new team member, Velvet finds herself suddenly caring about the fate of Purgatory after all. 

Holy crap! My synopsis here can in no way do justice to this book!

I'm definitely a Danny Marks/Mark Henry (you didn't hear it from me, kids) fan girl, but Velveteen is by far one of the most original concepts I have ever had the pleasure of reading. I don't want to go all sorts of crazy here, but Marks's imagined Purgatory is unlike anything I've ever read. Not only is it unique, but he does an amazing job bringing it to life.

Marks's particular voice is a bit snarky -- something I love. If you've read his alternate ego's work, then this is something you're familiar with. While the content in Velveteen is more, erm, appropriate for a teen audience than Amanda Feral, Velvet would be a great companion for the raunchy zombie fashionista.

I can admit that Velveteen has been one of my most anticipated reads of the year. If you can't tell, it totally lived up to -- and exceeded, even -- my sky high expectations. Run out and buy a copy (or two, give it as a gift) NOW and I sincerely hope you love it as much as I did. If you don't, well, I don't know that there's much hope for you :P

The Turning by Francine Prose

While spending the summer on a remote island with no internet and no tv would be as unappealing as you can get for most teens, Jack is more than willing to give it a try. See, Jack has been hired to take care of two children for the summer, and though it means spending those months away from his girlfriend, it also means a big boost towards his college funds. Flora and Miles are great. They're odd, to be sure, but they're well behaved and completely unlike most kids today. But Jack soon becomes convinced that something isn't quite right at the house. First there's the fact that he's seen two strange individuals on the island -- people no one but him seems to have seen. Then there's the secret of the locked room and the shared looks the kids frequently give one another. Could Jack be imagining things thanks to the whispered rumors of strange happenings at Crackstone's Landing or is there something more sinister going on?

First and foremost it must be understood that Francine's Prose's latest is a new YA interpretation of Henry James's The Turn of the Screw. That said, I can only imagine that The Turning is meant to be read by an audience completely unfamiliar with James's story. Since I am somewhat familiar, I have to admit that I was more than a little disappointed. I'd hoped that Prose would offer not only a modern twist to the story but something fresh and new as well. This was very much not the case.

Second, I found that Prose's use of letters here to tell Jack's story took away all opportunity to build the atmosphere James's tale is so well known for. The creepiness factor just wasn't there and I blame it wholly on the epistolary style.

Sadly, I just didn't enjoy Prose's outing. But that's not to say that someone who has never read James or seen any adaptation of the story won't feel differently. I would definitely suggest the extra effort of reading The Turn of the Screw, which, if you have an ereader, can actually be downloaded for free courtesy of the amazing Project Gutenberg folks here. I'd also recommend, in this Halloween season, tracking down a copy of the 1961 film The Innocents starring Deborah Kerr.

New releases 10/09/12

Some of the new titles hitting shelves this week are:

Red Rain by RL Stine

Ghost Town by Jason Hawes, Grant Wilson, and Tim Waggoner

Island of Bones by Imogen Robertson

The Noughties by Ben Masters

The Big Exit by David Carnoy

Innocents by David Baldacci

The Silent House by Orhan Pamuk

The Bookseller by Mark Pryor

The Ragnarok Conspiracy by Erec Stebbins

Cash Out by Greg Bardsley

Jennifer Johnson is Sick of Being Married by Heather McElhatton

In the Tall Grass by Stephen King & Joe Hill (eBook)

Into the Woods by Kim Harrison

The Hydrogen Sonata by Iain Banks

Velveteen by Danny Marks

Mystic City by Theo Lawrence

Time Between Us by Tamara Ireland Stone

New on DVD:
Prometheus
The Raven
Rock of Ages
The Barrens

New reviews at Bookbitch.com:
The Cutting Season by Attica Locke
From Notting Hill With Love... Actually by Ali McNamara
This Case is Gonna Kill Me by Phillipa Bornikova
The Gemini Virus by Wil Mara
Breathe by Sarah Crossan

Little Star by John Ajvide Lindqvist

With Let the Right One In, John Ajvide Lindqvist marked himself as one of the newest and brightest in the horror world. His second release, Harbor, cemented his status and now Little Star proves he's a force to be reckoned with.

Lennert and Laila Cederstrom aren't well know. They had one near-miss of a hit decades ago and left the spotlight behind. Now, Lennert makes a living writing songs for others and Laila spends her days hobbling about the house and trying to avoid Lennert's rage. But when Lennert comes home with a baby, everything changes for the couple. Lennert found the child abandoned in the woods. The first thing he noticed, though, was that the baby seemed to be singing. From day one, Lennert insists the child will not be spoken to. She's to live in their basement, cut off from outside influence. In fact, she's more an experiment for Lennert than anything else. They call her Little One. Years later, the girl -- now called Theres -- is entered into a national singing contest that's televised around the country. From her living room another girl is immediately drawn to Theres. The two become friends and what follows is more horrific than anyone could imagine. 

Though the shocking end is inevitable, I still felt a bit steamrolled by the brutality of it! Like Let the Right One In, the characters in this book struggle to fit in. Theres, because of the circumstances of her early years, is awkward and different, but her new friend, Teresa, is a pretty typical teen.

There's never any explanation about Theres's abandonment or her seemingly peculiar talent. For me, it made the book that much more interesting. I sympathized with Theres and wondered what if throughout the whole story. And of course sympathizing with her makes the ending that much more horrific!

The Gemini Virus by Wil Mara

It begins like the flu - coughing, sneezing, aching, and chills. Before long, though, your body is covered in blisters and you start to go out of your mind. Death is almost certain and no one knows how to stop it. As the infection spreads from New Jersey to New York and Massachusetts then across the country, the CDC and WHO scramble to learn as much as they can about the virus. For Dennis and his family the only solution is to get out of town, as far away from the spreading sickness as they can. But it might be too late. 

Ok, let me just say the opening pages of this book are some of the most disgusting I think I have ever read! Truly cringeworthy, germy descriptions! I think it may even top Scott Sigler's gore! Funnily enough, I checked out Mara's website AFTER reading and came across this podcast addressing just that issue. I found it particularly telling that the author admits to making himself nauseous in imagining certain scenes. But what do you expect from a viral disaster story?!

It seems like medical thrillers have gone by the wayside. Robin Cook and Michael Palmer are still at it, thankfully, but I don't see quite as many of these sorts of releases as I seem to recall in past years. Wil Mara definitely hits it out of the park with his latest, though. Technically part of his disaster series -- along with Wave -- The Gemini Virus is a chilling and horrific outbreak story (and a stand alone in terms of the read). Even scarier is Mara's claim that all the science is sound and that realistically an epidemic like the Gemini Virus could conceivably happen. Yikes!

If you're a fan of Outbreak, The Hot Zone, and Contagion (the movie), you'll love Gemini Virus! Don't say I didn't warn you about the gross-out factor, though :)