Short Book Reviews: Louisa Morgan's Powerful Take on Ghosts, Abuse, and Friendship

Louisa Morgan is a writer of astonishing depth and power. Now she brings her superb talents to a modern tale of abuse, friendship, and hope.

Clinical psychologist Beatrice Bird has always had a touch of “second sight,” a benign and occasionally useful talent for lucky guesses. An impulsive experiment with psychedelics during the Haight-Ashbury era transforms her intuitive gift. Now she sees ghostly figures attached to living people, embodiments of abuse, terror, and guilt. As the years pass, these manifestations become increasingly difficult to endure. She flees to a remote island community, where her only social contacts are a few nuns and a pair of opinionated cows. Just as she settles in to a life of isolation, her life collides with that of another refugee. Timid Anne Iredale is clearly on the run, willing to go to any lengths to hide her identity as the wife of a powerful judge. Beatrice’s gift, however, reveals the most horrific phantoms yet: a mewling child clinging to Anne and a specter of unalloyed evil looming over them both. Soon the two are thrown together on a journey of courage, healing, and redemption.

Morgan tackles complex and difficult issues with compassion, intelligence, and page-turning drama. The story unfolds like a spiral, circling through two very different lives, past and present, peeling away layers of illusion and façade until they are woven together in a triumphant, deeply moving unity. Clear your schedule before opening this book, because once you start reading, you won’t want to put it down!

Short Book Reviews: Deadly Secrets: A Brilliant Depiction of a Trans Teen

 Mad Honey, by Jodi Picoult; Jennifer Finney Boylan (Ballantine)

Jodi Picoult’s writing never fails to blow me away. She tackles complex and difficult issues with compassion, nuance, and page-turning drama. I’ll gladly gobble up anything she writes, so I nabbed a copy of Mad Honey without reading the description. I wasn’t familiar with co-author Jennifer Finney Boylan; Picoult’s name on the cover was enough to sell me. And what a journey the two of them took me on! The collaboration was a brilliant idea, a duet of two distinct voices with two authentic life experiences.

I won’t elaborate on the plot too much, because the plot twists are half of what kept me up way too late, turning the pages. Suffice it to say that the backstory of boy-meets-girl, each from a family with hidden trauma, quickly explodes into tragedy. From there, the story—told in alternating points of view of the girl and the boy’s mother—plays out from that turning point, one story unfurling into the past, the events leading up to the crisis, the other taking the story forward. If this sounds confusing, it isn’t. The dual timelines/narrators layer connection upon connection like a four-dimensional tapestry. I found myself falling in love with characters and wishing them happiness even when I already knew this would never be their fate.

It is a mark of the skill of the authors and their chosen narrative structure that the twin struggles of a trans teen coming into their own and an abused woman seeking safety and empowerment perfectly mirror and inform each other. The story left me wanting to rush up to everyone I know and demand that they read it!

 

 

Short Book Reviews: Domestic Revenge Thriller

 The Violence, by Delilah S. Dawson (Del Rey)

 What a powerful, disturbing, exhilarating novel! In the beginning, three generations of women are struggling with domestic violence and oppression in different ways, with Chelsea in the middle generation. Her husband terrorizes her, sometimes choking her into unconsciousness and keeping her isolated and financially dependent on him. Her mother, once a destitute teen mother, has sought security in a loveless but wealthy marriage and become obsessed with conformity and her own survival. Now her teenage daughter is about to fall into the same trap when her once adoring boyfriend shows a dark, possessive side. Chelsea knows her chances of making a successful break for freedom are slim to none with her husband’s law enforcement and lawyer buddies to corroborate his side of the story. Her life seems hopeless until The Violence strikes, a viral epidemic that causes bursts of unprovoked, deadly rage that leave no memory of their deeds. In a scenario eerily reminiscent of the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, the rich wall themselves into enclaves while lawlessness takes hold. Soon Chelsea finds herself separated from her family, on the run in a landscape of senseless carnage. Then she stumbles on the Violence Fight circuit, successor to pro wrestling with its vivid persona, costumes, and choreographed moves, and she begins reclaiming her life.

Part revenge-wish-fulfillment, part allegory of what happens when the downtrodden revolt, part examination of society-wide misogyny, The Violence delivers a breath-taking page-turner.