Short Book Reviews: Another Time-Traveling Mystery Romance from Kelley Armstrong

A Twist of Fate, by Kelley Armstrong (Subterranean)

This time-traveling-mystery-romance, set in the world of A Stitch in Time, is every bit as charming. In the first book, a door through time allowed 21st Century Bronwyn and 19^th Century William to fall in love and build a life together. William’s best friend, August Courtenay, has suffered a double loss. First his sister, drowned in the pond on the family estate. And then his beautiful wife, Rosalind, who went riding along the ocean cliffs one night and never returned, leaving her husband to raise their infant son alone.

Rosalind did not perish, as everyone believes. On an impulse, she rode out to William and Bronwyn’s home and stumbled through the time portal. For the past four years, she’s been marooned in the present time, learning new skills while she desperately searches for a way to return.

Now she’s back.

Matters are not so simple as a happy reunion. First she has to explain her absence to her possessive husband. After the death of his sister, he’s likely to think she abandoned him. Has he remarried? Is he happy in a new life? Rosalind decides to investigate before showing up on his doorstep and through a twist of fate, ends up as her young son’s new governess. Not only that, but her son is one of the few people who can see the ghosts that haunt the mansion, a gift of his mother’s “Second Sight.” Who—or what—are the ghosts after?

Rosalind’s first-person voice is engaging and emotionally urgent. I loved all the ways she had adapted to modern life and then took those skills and empowerment back to the past. Her fierce, unwavering devotion to her son was pitch perfect. On the minus side, I had trouble with how much she dithered about telling August who she was under her convincing disguise. Like other readers who are not primarily romance fans, I find the misunderstandings created by the lack of a simple, direct conversation frustrating, although they are common to the genre. To Rosalind’s credit, she is in many other ways a resourceful character. One of the high points of the story came near the very end, when she confronts her husband with his pathological abandonment issues and informs him that he will have to work through them.

If you, like me, loved Bronwyn and William’s story, you’ll want to grab this one, too!

Book Review: A Literary Attempt at a YA School Story Mystery

The Temple House Vanishing, by Rachel Donohue (Algonquin Books)

I requested an ARC of this book based on the description: a mystery set in a Catholic boarding school. Twenty-five years before the opening, Louisa, a brilliant but lonely student, and Mr. Lavelle, a charismatic art teacher, have mysteriously disappeared. Victoria, who knew them both, has just committed suicide at the school itself. Why did she kill herself? What happened to Louisa and Mr. Lavelle? Did they elope together? Were they murdered or did they perish through an accident? Or were the disappearances unrelated? The atmosphere of an isolated Victorian mansion set on a cliff in Ireland added to the appeal.

Very early in the book, however, I became increasingly disappointed and frustrated. By the end, I was ready to throw the book across the room in disgust, except that I was reading it on my Kindle and I don’t treat my electronic devices so cavalierly. Based on the description, The Temple House Vanishing promised me a genre novel – YA, school story, and mystery, all in one – and yet it consistently violated the conventions of all three, and not in a skillful way.

The opening point of view, a journalist who happened to live on the same street as Louisa and who is investigating the disappearance, was hard to relate to and never made any sense to me. She isn’t involved in the events, and her own life, irrelevant to the rest of the story, seemed remote and uninteresting. Then we get into Louisa’s story, narrated by herself. Therein lies the second hurdle, because Louisa doesn’t sound or act like a teen, even one who’s stuck in her head. Almost all teens, whether intellectual “brains” or not, center their lives around the fundamental issues of those years: independence from parents, confusion about who they are and what they want to become, desperate need for approval from peers, and so forth. Hormones saturate their bloodstreams, and the parts of their brains associated with executive functions, delayed gratification, and long-term planning, won’t mature until their mid-20s. It doesn’t matter how bright or academically gifted they are, they are still at the mercy of these internal storms. Louisa’s first-person narrative reads like the overly elitist pontifications of a writer with a very poor memory of her own teenaged years, or perhaps one seen through extremely adult-colored lenses, and with no understanding of the conventions of the genre. I cannot imagine a teen reader finding Louisa believable or interesting.

Then we meet Victoria, who becomes the object of Louisa’s bloodless passion. Both girls exhibit a disconnection between their intellectual philosophizing and their relationships so extreme as to verge into psychotic dissociation. I never perceived, through their speech or behavior, or through the inner voice of the narrative, any shred of genuine emotion until very near the end, when it became clear that Louisa was just as infatuated with Victoria as Victoria was with Mr. Lavelle. But for the most part, each experiences a pale, distant imitation of obsession, not the visceral stuff of teen suicide pacts or Romeo and Juliet. Not a hint of lesbian romance, requited or not, could I discern.

Book Review: A YA School Story Mystery Falls Short

 The Temple House Vanishing, by Rachel Donohue (Algonquin Books)

I requested an ARC of this book based on the description: a mystery set in a Catholic boarding school. Twenty-five years before the opening, Louisa, a brilliant but lonely student, and Mr. Lavelle, a charismatic art teacher, have mysteriously disappeared. Victoria, who knew them both, has just committed suicide at the school itself. Why did she kill herself? What happened to Louisa and Mr. Lavelle? Did they elope together? Were they murdered or did they perish through an accident? Or were the disappearances unrelated? The atmosphere of an isolated Victorian mansion set on a cliff in Ireland added to the appeal.

Very early in the book, however, I became increasingly disappointed and frustrated. By the end, I was ready to throw the book across the room in disgust, except that I was reading it on my Kindle and I don’t treat my electronic devices so cavalierly. Based on the description, The Temple House Vanishing promised me a genre novel – YA, school story, and mystery, all in one – and yet it consistently violated the conventions of all three.

The opening point of view, a journalist who happened to live on the same street as Louisa and who is investigating the disappearance, was hard to relate to and never made any sense to me. She isn’t involved in the events, and her own life, irrelevant to the rest of the story, seemed remote and uninteresting. Then we get into Louisa’s story, narrated by herself. Therein lies the second hurdle, because Louisa doesn’t sound or act like a teen, even one who’s stuck in her head. Almost all teens, whether intellectual “brains” or not, center their lives around the fundamental issues of those years: independence from parents, confusion about who they are and what they want to become, desperate need for approval from peers, and so forth. Hormones saturate their bloodstreams, and the parts of their brains associated with executive functions, delayed gratification, and long-term planning, won’t mature until their mid-20s. It doesn’t matter how bright or academically gifted they are, they are still at the mercy of these internal storms. Louisa’s first-person narrative reads like the overly elitist pontifications of a writer with a very poor memory of her own teenaged years, or perhaps one seen through extremely adult-colored lenses, and with no understanding of the conventions of the genre. I cannot imagine a teen reader finding Louisa believable or interesting.

Then we meet Victoria, who becomes the object of Louisa’s bloodless passion. Both girls exhibit a disconnection between their intellectual philosophizing and their relationships so extreme as to verge into psychotic dissociation. I never perceived, through their speech or behavior, or through the inner voice of the narrative, any shred of genuine emotion until very near the end, when it became clear that Louisa was just as infatuated with Victoria as Victoria was with Mr. Lavelle. But for the most part, each experiences a pale, distant imitation of obsession, not the visceral stuff of teen suicide pacts or Romeo and Juliet. Not a hint of lesbian romance, requited or not, could I discern.

Short Book Reviews: The Ratings Are Not Real

 Rated, by Melissa Grey (Scholastic)

We humans are obsessed with labeling ourselves by categories and numbers: our age, our class, our weight, our IQ, our SAT scores, our GPA, and so on. In the larger world, the caste system in all its cultural versions locks the social order into place. In Melissa Grey’s world, ratings control access to education, health care, housing, and opportunity. The system was devised by John Maplethorpe, who also founded the elite high school where six students – Bex, Noah, Tamsin, Hana, Chase and Javi – find their lives change and their assumptions challenged when graffiti appears on the school’s front doors: The ratings are not real.

At first, the lives of the six students could not be more dissimilar. Bex is an overscheduled academic superstar, Hana an anorexic figure skater, Chase an athlete desperate to maintain his falling rating, Noah a shy photographer, Tamsin a Tarot-reading rebel, and Javi a professional virtual game star. Each discovers a note signed by “The Jester” and containing a riddle:

On the day of the prophet false

One mustn’t dance a forbidden waltz

A copper found and a fortune told

All beside a box of gold.

Drawn together, each of the six plays a vital role in deciphering the riddle and revealing the identity of the jester. In the process, friendships are forged and romance blooms. These are teens, right? More importantly, each comes to question the status quo and discovers their own power to change it. Reading this story as an older adult, I was infused with hope. The spontaneity, courage, and ruthless honesty of young people can indeed transform the world.

Short Book Reviews: Fear and Longing in 19th Century Spiritualism

House of the Patriarch, by Barbara Hambly (Severn House)

This latest “Benjamin January” mystery begins with yet another commission to find a missing daughter. In this case, the lost girl is a young lady from a modestly well-to-do white family, recently introduced into society but given to fanciful questions. The last thing Ben wants is to leave his family and put himself at risk of being nabbed by slave-catchers, or worse. But the fee will mean his family’s security during a long lean season.

That said, House of the Patriarch stands apart in its depiction of the social experiments that flourished at the time. Spiritualism (séances, communicating with the dead), communal living, charismatic leaders, all abounded. The Mormon church and others trace their beginnings to this time. The “House” to which Ben ventures is the resident of one such leader. Since the leader has also a reputation for helping escaped slaves on their route to Canada, Ben disguises himself as such and quickly infiltrates the hidden areas of the house. Needless to say, plot twists and dark secrets abound.

Hambly marries her knowledge of history and social customs to a pitch-perfect story of human fears and longing.

Very Short Book Reviews: Orphans and Swordswomen and Haunted Houses, Oh My!

The Orphans of Raspay, by Lois McMaster Bujold (Subterranean)

Another Penric adventure! With pirates! Calloo callay!

Our stalwart cleric, host to the chaos demon Desdemona, is returning from a routine (read: tedious) mission when his ship is taken over by pirates. He and the rest of the passengers are to be sold as slaves at the nearest port, once free but now ruled by aforementioned evil-doers. While captive, he encounters two young girls destined for the same fate. While he is confident that he’ll either be ransomed or able to negotiate his freedom through his (and Des’s) penchant for persuasion, the girls have no such resources. Of course, he takes them under his protection, which complicates and lends special urgency to escape efforts.

I loved seeing new aspects of Penric, who is as resourceful and determined as evr, as well as watching his relationship with Desdemona evolve yet further. And really, Captured by Pirates is a great way to begin any story.

 

Burning Roses, by S. L. Huang (Tor.com)

I loved S. L. Huang’s Null Set, which is science fiction (ish), with a heroine whose superpower is her genius at mathematics. Burning Roses takes us into the realm of fantasy with two aging women dragon hunters in a world in which humans can assume animal form, and distinguishing between them and true beasts poses critical moral questions. Each woman has her own tragic background, her own guilt, and her own path toward redemption. Rose, a European who came to this Asian-inspired land with her lover and daughter, has a long and tortured history through twisted fairy tales. The story pits the healing power of friendship against the crippling belief that one is beyond forgiveness. I loved the depth of the book, and also that the dragons are feathered, a bit like phoenixes. It’s not a long book, but one that should be read slowly, pondered over, and savored.

 

The House on Widows Hill, by Simon R. Green (Severn House)

Ishmael Jones, intrepid (and extraterrestrial) secret agent, takes on a haunted house, along with his charming companion, Penny. The story opens with a peek into Ishmael’s history, hints of the space ship crash that landed him on Earth and the existence of a second survivor. In return for help locating another of his kind, he agrees to investigate an old house with a nasty reputation. It’s the usual set-up, with Ishmael, Penny, and an assortment of psychics and ghost-hunters and such agreeing to spend an entire night in the house. Of course, spooky things happen. Of course, Ishmael and Penny don’t for a second believe these are due to supernatural apparitions.

Of course, things then take a seriously twisted turn, one even Ishmael can’t explain away.

The opening of the book felt comfortably familiar, with the legends and warnings about the house, the introduction and frictions between the guests, and the early, inexplicable events. But this is Ishmael Jones at work, and the story unfolds in the hands of a gifted writer who is much too savvy to follow expectations.

Marvelous fun, but with moments of reflection. I hope Ishmael gets his answers, but not too soon. The journey from here to there provides excellent entertainment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Short Book Reviews: Murder Mystery in a City Without Night

A Man of Shadows by Jeff Noon, Angry Robot, 2017. 

From the first page, I loved this surreal, hallucinatory world. The story centers on a city where eternal day is created by artificial lightning: every space is saturated with brilliance, and the entire society depends upon those with the never-ending task of replacing light bulbs as they burn out. Without natural night and day, the usual measurement of time becomes meaningless, giving the city’s inhabitants the choice of living by many calendars; some are the products of commerce (“Business Standard Time”) but others are whimsical and capricious. Sometimes it’s all a person can do to keep with the necessary changes to their wristwatch. Not surprisingly, many suffer disorders of time due to constant disruption of the body’s internal rhythms. The luscious prose and bizarre imagery perfectly reflect the disorientation of the characters.

Outside the city lies a treacherous region of Dusk, transversable only by special trains, and beyond it, Nocturna. (A few asides refer to regions outside the city’s influence, where crows grow and cows graze in unaltered days and nights, so we know the entire planet has not succumbed to artificial divisions of day and night.) Mysterious mists swirl through Dusk, and those who venture into them emerge changed or not at all. Not surprisingly, Dayzone is far from idyllic, beset by not only light-sickness but a serial killer and kidnappings. The protagonist, a private detective named Nyquist, is drawn into this dark side of light when he takes on the case of the missing daughter of a wealthy, powerful man. His search reveals not only dangerous connections but his own unresolved past.

Innovative world-building enhanced by a surreal and highly literate prose style offer both a challenge and a reward to the reader. My only complaint was that Nyquist is so perennially sleep-deprived, and the text is so reminiscent of the way thought fractures under disruptions of the normal circadian rhythm, that I kept wanting to curl up and nap. Recommended , especially for those who enjoy a hefty dose of weird in their fiction. 

Short Book Reviews: Lessons from an Early Novel

The Seventh Canon of the title refers to a principle in the practice of law: that an attorney shall do his utmost to represent the best interests of his clients. In this case, that leads to attorney Peter Donley becoming a detective to solve the murder of which his client, Father Thomas Martin, is accused. There’s more to the murder than meets the eye, of course, and one plot twist leads to another. As a legal/detective thriller, the story moves right along, competent although not extraordinary.  What is fascinating and makes the book noteworthy beyond its intrinsic uncomplicated reading pleasure, is that it is an early work by an author who went on to become an award-winning bestseller. The author made the decision to leave the story as it is, set in the time in which he wrote it, and the setting reflects that era (late 1980s). More than that, I could see the glimmerings of a deeper talent within a well-executed but fairly conventional story. The author tried to give his characters internal conflict and depth of background, which was much less usual when it was written than today. If the characters and their motivation seem predictable (abusive alcoholic fathers seem to be the simplistic reason for nightmares, poor self-esteem, you name it), that’s a judgment made by today’s more sophisticated standards. Then, too, the author was laboring under fairly rigid genre restrictions. Given the expected length (or lack thereof) of this type of novel when it was written, there just isn’t much room for the kind of in-depth character development possible at longer lengths. Today, the same story might well be viewed as a psychological thriller, with the expectation and scope to delve more deeply. So the resulting story must be viewed in context: not only the effort of a fledgling author, but a product of its literary times. I found that understanding this context enriched my reading experience and recommend the book not only for the story itself but for insights into how genre types as well as individual authors mature and change.

Decades ago, a well-established science fiction author told me of a novel written in the late 1950s in which the plot hinged on the inability of the human body to withstand the gravitational forces of space flight. No matter how good the story was (and the author thought it very good), it would not longer fly, not after Yuri Gagarin’s 1961 flight. Around 1984 I wrote a science fiction novel that hinged on the “Star Wars” satellite defense system President Reagan promised to build; another learning experience on the dump heap. Dugoni managed to write a thriller that, while dated, is still enjoyable, and for that he gets my applause.