“My mother used to talk about passages and, once in a while, about ordeals. We all have them; we are all shaped by them. She thought the key was to find the healing in the hurt.”

Book Review:

Review by Eleanor Bukowsky  (OCT 8, 2011)

In Chris Bohjalian’s The Night Strangers, Chip Linton is a forty-year-old commercial airline pilot who is traumatized when, through no fault of his own, one of his regional planes goes down in Lake Champlain. In the aftermath of the accident, Chip, Emily, and their ten-year-old twin daughters, Hallie and Garnet, move from Pennsylvania to an isolated three-story Victorian near Bethel, New Hampshire, in the scenic White Mountains. Emily resumes her career as a lawyer, the kids enroll in the local school, and Chip becomes a do-it-yourselfer, replacing wallpaper, painting, and doing carpentry around the rickety old house.

Unfortunately, Chip is an emotional wreck who sees a psychiatrist to treat his depression, guilt, and anxiety. He has upsetting flashbacks and vivid nightmares and knows that his career in aviation is most likely over. Although Chip adores Emily and his daughters, they are not enough for him. He cannot help but mourn the loss of his livelihood.

The Lintons soon have concrete reasons to regret their move to Northern New England. There is something creepy going on in this town. The place is filled with greenhouses. Various herbalists and botanists grow exotic plants, talk like aging hippies, and constantly bring over homemade food that they foist on the Linton family. In addition, it is possible that the Linton house, which was once the scene of an untimely and unnatural death, may be haunted. If Chip was teetering on the brink of madness before he moved to New Hampshire, living here may very well push him over the edge. The Night Strangers is a tale of psychological horror in which Chip and Emily gradually suspect that when they relocated, they may have jumped from the frying pan into the fire. Chip starts having visions and hearing voices; his family is also under threat from others who are up to no good. How will the Lintons cope with the various forces threatening to tear them apart?

Chris Bohjalian has always been an outstanding descriptive writer who uses setting brilliantly. He has a gift for creating sympathetic characters with whom the reader can readily identify. This time, alas, he may have bitten off more than he can chew. Chris’s mental deterioration alone would have been a strong enough centerpiece to this book. Even adding a haunted house into the mix might work. However, Bohjalian overreaches when he veers too far into Stephen King and Ira Levin territory. He concocts an outlandish (yet oddly predictable) plot that throws the book seriously out of balance. What should have been a compelling narrative about the demons that inhabit our minds becomes, quite literally, a story about evil incarnate. Still, Bohjalian creates readable dialogue, brings Chip, Emily, and their girls to life, and engages our interest in the fate of his protagonists. In spite of ourselves, we hold our breaths, wondering whether this horribly tormented husband, wife, and two children will ever reacquire the peace of mind that they once took for granted.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 252 readers
PUBLISHER:	Crown (October 4, 2011)
REVIEWER:	Eleanor Bukowsky
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Chris Bohjalian
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: Secrets of Eden Before You Know Kindness The Double Bind

Bibliography:

Bibliography:

• Hangman (1991)
• Past the Bleachers (1992)
• Water Witches (1995)
• Midwives (1997)
• The Laws of Similars (1999)
• Trans-Sister Radio (2000)
• The Buffalo Soldier (2002)
• Before You Know Kindness (2004)
• The Double Bind ( 2007)
• Skeletons at the Feast ( 2008)
• Secrets of Eden (2010)
• The Night Strangers (2011)
• The Sandcastle Girls (2012)
• The Light in the Ruins (July 2013)

Other:

• Idyll Banter: Weekly Excursions to a Very Small Town (2003)

Movies from books:

• Past the Bleachers (1995)

“The Army needed between ten and twenty death-row inmates to serve in the third-stage trials of an experimental drug therapy, codenamed Project Noah.   In exchange for their consent, these men would have their sentences commuted to life without parole.  It would be Wolgast’s job to obtain the signatures of these men, nothing more.  Everything had been legally vetted, but because the project was a matter of national security, all of these men would be declared legally dead.  Thereafter, they would spend the rest of their lives in the care of the federal penal system, a white-collar prison camp, under assumed identities.  The men would be chosen based upon a number of factors, but all would be men between the ages of twenty and thirty-five with no living first-degree relatives.”

Book Review:

Review by Betsey Van Horn (JUN 7, 2010)

In this staggering book of speculative fiction, Cronin has proven that he can transcend genre and, with his power of language, create a distant world that feels close and credible. This is not your typical zombie or vampire novel; it isn’t cheesy or reductive. It shares some characteristics with its progenitor, The Stand, and fans of King’s work will be arguably riveted by this (more updated) novel. But there are as many differences as there are similarities, and Cronin’s ambitions are ultimately more complex and expansive. Cronin covers a longer period of time and delves more densely and philosophically into the dark and grey areas of the human psyche. Also, his poetic and luminous language and metaphysical subtext eclipses, in my opinion, King’s earlier work.

The story is teased out gradually, moving back and forth from places as far and deep as a Bolivian jungle, to the deserts and mountains of the west and southwest, to the concrete jungle of Houston, Texas, and many stops throughout. The disparate narrative threads converge to a point after the first 250 pages, and then we are thrust into a new world order at a place called The Colony. Some readers feel that this middle section is rather slow, but it is actually where Cronin shines. He introduces new characters that are likely to stay the course of the trilogy, and he is more meditative and succulent in his prose. The final 250 pages illuminate ambiguities that may still be humming and create a climax that heads toward a continuation.

There is a lot more than good and evil at play here, although the moral heft is evident, as human forces must combat malevolent viral creatures. But the incipience, growth, and psychology of these viral entities is not so simple. The relationship between the survivors and the creatures is more like a Venn diagram than a dualistic paradigm. Moreover, the human condition is explored in different states of wakefulness and sleep, in a myriad of conscious states, and connects all beings, whether viral or human. It also raises the question of, “who are the monsters?”

Divided into eleven sections, (with numerous chapters), the novel covers approximately one hundred years, starting circa 2014. However, there are three time periods that are pertinent to the story, two that are covered in detail. Each new section is headed by a short verse of Shakespeare from a play or sonnet, or else a poem by Shelley or other poet that has a poignant significance to the narrative. For instance, this verse by Henry Vaughan, from “The World:”

I saw eternity the other night
Like a great ring of pure and endless light,
All calm as it was bright,
And round beneath it time in hours, days, years,
Driven by the spheres,
Like a vast shadow moved in which the world
And all her train were hurled.

Cronin’s sense of place; of time; of timelessness; and his magnificent explorations of memories; of memories folded and unfolded and twisted in time; and of the self and the Shadow self, are examples of his bridges from genre to literature. He balances intellectual and action narrative with enough gusto to keep all audiences satisfied. The plot and story have a solid pace, although he takes his time to develop his characters and illuminate the back-stories. Additionally, as in his superb novel, The Summer Guest, Cronin’s prose glitters with moving beauty. “…while you sank into the dreamy softness of your seat and sipped ginger ale from a can and watched the world float in magical silence past your window, the tallest buildings of the city in the crisp autumn light and then the backs of the houses with laundry flapping and a crossing with gates where a boy was waving from his bicycle, and then the woods and fields and a single cow eating grass.”

There are, occasionally, some minor snags in the construction. A few devices are employed at intervals, and there are times when a character is improbably saved from the clutches of disaster. Yet, the author does it with panache, in dramatic scenes portrayed with a soulful and melancholy elegance. He avoids melodrama. He gets inside the head of his characters, and they are made of flesh and bone, not straw. It is also satisfying to see that this is a very diverse cast of multi-ethnicities. The landscape of people is naturally rendered, not making a statement but rather reflecting a realistic ethnic pool of combinations.

The Passage is the first of an ambitious trilogy. The journeys on foot or by hoof, by machine or by dream, are full of serrated adventure. And it immerses you in all strains of love–sibling, maternal, paternal, friendship, romantic, and a crushing one of cross-purposes. And it has stars, the moon, bones, and blades, guns and garrisons, trees and cliffs. And did I say stars? A-

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 2,381 readers
PUBLISHER:	Ballantine Books (June 8, 2010)
REVIEWER:	Betsey Van Horn
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Wikipedia page on Justin Cronin
EXTRAS:	Excerpt and Web Site
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	More Post-Apocalyptic: Our American King by David Lozell Martin The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Bibliography:

• Mary and O’Neil (2002)
• The Summer Guest (2005)

• The Passage (2010)
• The Twelve (2012)
• City of Mirrors (2014)

“I could feel my hair catch fire, then I could smell it. My flesh began to singe as if I were a scrap of meat newly thrown into the barbecue, and then I could hear the bubbling of my skin as the flames kissed it. I could not reach my head to extinguish my flaming hair.”

Book Review:

Review by Bonnie Brody (NOV 21, 2009)

The Gargoyle is one of the most gripping novels I have ever read. I am not one to usually read books more than once and I can probably count on two hands those novels that I’ve read two or three times. This is my second reading of The Gargoyle and it is even better the second time around.

The book is a first person narrative, told by a man who is severely burned in a car accident. He is driving in a ritzy sports car, stoned on cocaine, alcohol and other drugs du jour, when his car goes out of control. The bottle of booze he has been drinking from is held between his legs (a most unfortunate place for it to be) and when the car explodes in a wreck of fire, most all of his body turns to cinder. He is not expected to live, but miraculously he does. While recuperating in a rehabilitation hospital, he reflects on his past life as a good looking stud, a pornographer, drug addict, alcoholic and sex addict. He sees his life as valueless but does not know how to turn himself around. He is now a “monster” to most who see him – – a man without a face and with most of his body parts missing. He is in constant pain and his hospital rehabilitation is an effort that will take years to complete.

Amazingly, one day he is lying in his bed when a young woman named Marianne Engel, walks up to him and says quite simply, “You’ve been burned. Again.”  Marianne is a patient in the psychiatric ward but believes absolutely that she has known this burnt man in a prior life, some time in the early 1300’s when she was a nun and a scribe in the German village of Engelthal. Is she schizophrenic as her diagnosis reads or is she telling the truth? This is a hard question to cipher and forms the crux of the book.

The book is chilling in that Marianne knows many things about her paramour , things both simple and sublime. One amazing fact is that he was born with a small scar right near his heart and Marianne is aware of that. She is also aware of his life history, those events they shared and those that he suffered on his own.

I read this book with chills going up and down my spine, trying to decipher the truth(s) of the story as Marianne tells it. She captures her lover by telling him Scheherazade – like stories, one after the other, all about their lives together,
one story more interesting than the next.

Supposedly, Marianne is one of the great scribes of the town of Engelthal, writing a new version of the bible and a copy of Dante’s Inferno. Her style and script are unique and beautiful, not to be confused with anyone else’s.

What is revealed from these nights of stories after stories is that theirs was a great love, one that is to be repeated forever, through eternity. Whether the reader is a believer or a doubter, there is there is always the great question – – Could this have been possible? Is it still possible? Will this great love repeat itself through eternity?

Davidson is a writer of remarkable talent. I found it impossible to believe that this was his debut novel. He is able to combine several genres – – the psychological thriller, historical fiction, horror, and mythology. His genre is unique, and I, for one, was grasped from the first page and the story never left me outside its grip.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 313 readers
PUBLISHER:	Anchor; First Edition edition (August 4, 2009)
REVIEWER:	Bonnie Brody
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Andrew Davidson
EXTRAS:	Excerpt and Interview and Reader’s Guide
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Other explorations of “past lives:” Diary by Chuck Palahuniuk Fangland by John Marks Yes, My Darling Daughter by Margaret Leroy

Bibliography:

• The Gargoyle (August 2008)

“As it sniffed, she felt a tiny surge of relief and hope when a breeze greeted her face. The wind was blowing toward her, making it difficult for the creature to catch a scent of her.

Dropping low to the ground, it crept about, just as comfortable on all fours. Smelling the rocks and moss, the flowers and grasses, it snapped its head up and stared directly to where she lay in the shadows, its huge, luminous eyes reflecting in the moonlight. ”

Book Review:

Review by Ann Wilkes (OCT 9, 2009)

See Ann Wilkes interview with Alice Henderson on her blog site.

Alice Henderson’s Voracious gets the adrenalin pumping from the first page and doesn’t let up. Her protagonist, Madeline Keye, has a special gift that feels more like a curse to her most of the time. When she touches objects that others have touched, she sees flashes of images of what they are thinking, what they did in the past and sometimes what they are planning to do in the near future. Once her ability helped to catch a serial killer, but failed to save her best friend that was with her.

The whole town, save her new friend George, want nothing to do with her. Even her own parents thought it best that she move out at the tender age of 16.

Madeline is at a crossroads in her life. She could easily use her ability to work with the police to catch more criminals, but doesn’t like the price that she would have to pay – the disturbing visions that she would have to endure. She’s transferring to San Francisco to finish college. She can revel in anonymity in a large city where no one knows her.

Before she goes, she plans a backpacking trek into Glacier National Park, away from image-evoking objects, her small town of Mothershead, Montana and the people who shun her.

Her trip starts with disaster. She’s caught in a flash flood her first day out. A man named Noah Percival Lanchester fishes her out of the river. He brings her to his camp to give her food and dry clothes, her pack having been lost in the river. Something approaches his camp when night falls. Something large. It walks upright but is neither bear nor human. It’s an intelligent, inhuman predator that speaks like a man. Meanwhile, Noah reveals that he knows the creature. He’s been pursuing “him” for 200 years.

Madeline’s strength and courage are as palpable as her primal fear. Readers will enjoy the rich setting and attention to detail.

Henderson achieves scenes with exquisite suspense and sexual tension. Throughout the novel, she engages the readers every sense in her descriptions, carrying the reader along with all the emotions and chemical reactions Madeline experiences.

This isn’t my usual genre, but if this is typical of what can be expected, I’m going to have to start reading horror.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 5 readers
PUBLISHER:	Jove (February 24, 2009)
REVIEWER:	Ann Wilkes
AMAZON PAGE:	Voracious
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Alice Henderson
EXTRAS:	Ann Wilkes interview with Alice Henderson
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	More horror: Fangland by John Marks From a Buick 8 by Stephen King Drood by Dan Simmons

Bibliography:

• Voracious (February 2009)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: