THE SPIRITUALIST by Megan Chance

Megan Chance’s THE SPIRITUALIST is one of those books that exerts a strange hypnotic power over its readers (or at least this reader). Set in New York City in 1857, the novel offers a bit of everything: gothic thrills, mysterious deaths, paranormal experiences, rich historical detail, and even a dose of erotically charged romance. Chance, who is also the author of AN INCONVENIENT WIFE and SUSANNAH MORROW, is a skilled writer who deftly manages to create a convincing historical backdrop, interesting characters and an engaging plot. Though the novel languished on my shelf forever, once I finally picked it up I found it difficult to put down.

October 28, 2009 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , ,  Â· Posted in: Facing History, New York City

HER FEARFUL SYMMETRY by Audrey Niffenegger

HER FEARFUL SYMMETRY, Audrey Niffenegger’s successor to her immensely popular THE TIME TRAVELER’S WIFE, is a ghost story centered around a London cemetery and the people drawn, both voluntarily and not, to its intimacies. When Elsbeth Noblin dies of leukemia, she leaves her heirs with a strange legacy of demands and unfinished business. Her now-American and estranged twin Edie no longer has the chance to reconcile with her sister. Her lover Robert, who lived in the flat below her, is bequeathed her papers and diaries, although he is too grief-stricken to read them. And Elsbeth’s twenty year old, mirror twin, American nieces, Julia and Valentina, are left everything else, including Elsbeth’s Highgate flat, on the condition that they live in it together for a full year.

October 25, 2009 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , ,  Â· Posted in: Contemporary, Family Matters, Reading Guide, Scifi, Speculative (Beyond Reality), United Kingdom

A QUIET BELIEF IN ANGELS by R. J. Ellory

R. J. Ellory’s A QUIET BELIEF IN ANGELS is the heartrending story of Joseph Vaughn, a boy who grows up under an unlucky star. The narrator is only eleven when his thirty-seven year old father, Earl, dies in 1939, leaving him and his impoverished young mother to fend for themselves. Earl’s death leaves Joseph and his mother deeply shaken. The boy is further traumatized when a classmate is found dead, after having been stripped, beaten, and assaulted by an unknown perpetrator. This girl’s murder is just the first in a long string of calamities that will dog Augusta Falls, Georgia, where Joseph and his mother live. The specter of death constantly haunts this tragic tale of hopes dashed and innocent lives snuffed out prematurely.

October 10, 2009 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , , , , ,  Â· Posted in: Coming-of-Age, Mystery/Suspense, US South

CHANGING HEAVEN by Jane Urquhart

A brilliant riff on Emily BrontĂ«’s WUTHERING HEIGHTS, this highly original novel is as bracing and wild as the weather itself, impossible to pin down, virtually plotless, yet sweeping all before it. Just as one speaks of a novel of ideas, this is a novel of emotions — emotions in their purest form, taking possession like a natural force, and largely divorced from the normal ties of cause and effect. This is not a book for those who demand realism and logic rather than a novel organized by poetic association and contrast. But for those who approach it as the unique vision of a poet who just happens to be writing in prose — wondrous prose — it is something very special indeed.

October 4, 2009 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , ,  Â· Posted in: Canada, Character Driven, Classic, United Kingdom, y Award Winning Author

CHILD’S PLAY by Carmen Posada

The first several pages of this Spanish gothic melodrama might be enough to discourage even the most intrepid reader—overblown prose, trite imagery, clichĂ©s, self-conscious attempts to play on the reader’s heartstrings, and an undeniable straining for “effect.” Then in a twist, the reader discovers that this excerpt is merely the beginning of a manuscript about a child murder written by Luisa Davila, the main character in the larger novel. And as the reader is saying “Whew,” at the thought of having escaped three hundred pages of such writing…

September 2, 2009 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: ,  Â· Posted in: Mystery/Suspense, Spain, World Lit, y Award Winning Author

THE DEVIL YOU KNOW by Mike Carey

THE DEVIL YOU KNOW, is a wonderfully entertaining, chilling, thriller. The novel abounds with otherworldly creatures – demons, ghosts, zombies, and lycanthropes, (loup-garou). The Devil himself, or one of his high ranking minions, even makes a brief appearance. However, some of Carey’s human characters are so evil that the supernatural seem charming by comparison. What makes the novel really unique is the humor.

August 12, 2009 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , ,  Â· Posted in: Humorous, Noir, Sleuths Series, Speculative (Beyond Reality), United Kingdom, y Award Winning Author