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The Wedding Gift by Kathleen McKenna

Posted on December 11, 2011
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Reason for Reading:
  • I believe I picked this book out when I intended to read spooky books for October – oh well, better late than never!

I also recommend:

Summary from Goodreads:

17 year old Leeann Worthier is the perfect girl in town – or so she says.

George Willets is the heir to a booming petroleum business.

When they announce their engagement, George’s controlling mother is unimpressed and Leeann absolutely refuses to live with her mother-in-law. So George gives his new wife a house as a wedding gift.

Thirty years before, the same house had hosted a grisly scene: George’s uncle and cousins had all been slaughtered, his aunt Robina accused of both murder and suicide.

The house is a gorgeous, well-maintained mansion but has stood empty since the tragedy. It’s intimidating, but who is Leeann to turn down a free house? When the ghost of Robina begins to haunt Leeann, she realizes she’s made a huge mistake …

My Review:

So, for a good ghost story I should be completely creeped out, afraid to turn off the lights when I go to bed.

Based on that criteria, this one wins, hands down.

Here’s what made this story so strong – yes, it had a ghost story, yes, it had a fantastic mystery – but most of all, it had an authentic voice.  Leeann was perfect.

Now, I’m not saying she’s perfect as in a perfect person – because she definitely has her share of faults – vanity, self-centered-ness, disloyalty being among a few of them, but her method of speaking, the dialect Kathleen McKenna uses to tell the story through Leeann’s eyes is so incredibly powerful that I couldn’t help but feel taken into the story and led through it, as if I was holding Leann’s hand through it all.

And then there’s the murders, and the mystery, and the ghosts, and the scary house given as a wedding gift, and the lavish spending, and the relationships and so much more which rounds this book out to be one of those books that you read as the goosebumps creep up your arm and you find yourself looking over your shoulder for that small noise you just heard… I’m rambling, but I think that adequately describes how this book made me feel.

In short: Fan of ghost stories? This one won’t disappoint.

Check out these review(s)!

Curled up with Books

Mandy the Bookworm

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Killing Season by Priscilla Royal

Posted on October 6, 2011
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Reason for Reading:
  • Medieval mystery – I couldn’t resist (plus the cover photo is amazing!)

I also recommend:

Summary from GoodReads:

Baron Herbert’s return from crusade should have been a joyous occasion. Instead, he grows increasingly morose, withdraws from his family, and refuses to share his wife’s bed. When his sons begin to die in strange accidents, some ask whether Herbert harbors a dark sin for which God has cursed him. The baron suddenly sends for Sir Hugh of Wynethorpe, begging his friend to bring spiritual and secular healers but giving little explanation for the request. Worried about Herbert’s descent into melancholy and the tragic deaths, Sir Hugh persuades his sister, Prioress Eleanor of Tyndal Priory, to accompany him as well as a respected physician, Master Gamel. Although he is pleased when the prioress brings her healer, Sister Anne, he is dismayed to find Brother Thomas included, a man he has reason to despise. Perhaps there is a malign presence at this storm-blasted castle, oddly named Doux et Dur. Tensions spark among family members and soon between those who came to help. Death’s scythe harvests more victims, and it is not long before Ecclesiastes’ grim words seem all too apt: there is a season for everything under heaven, including a time to kill.But is there also a time to heal?

My Review:

I love it when I pick up a book that is, say, 8th in a series, and fall madly in love with it.  Why?  Because that means I have 7 more to enjoy before the 9th comes out!

Priscilla Royal might just be one of my new favorite authors.  The Killing Season set the mood so incredibly perfectly and boasted such a thrilling cast of characters that I fell madly and deeply in love with them before I was even 2 chapters in.

And the story wasn’t shabby either!

Gothic mysteries, to me, involve big, creepy castles, lots of rain and mist, thrilling, ghostlike mysteries and generally make me want to curl up on my sofa with a hot cup of tea, under my blanket, and shiver while I read the book.  That happened during the reading of The Killing Season.

The story opens with a cold journey to a castle and a cast of characters already comfortable with one another from previous stories – but that did not take from the book, especially as I had not read the previous books in the series.  I was introduced gently to them and never once felt lost of bewildered.  The setting was a medieval one and immediately my imagination filled with the clothing, the craggy surroundings and the looming castle ahead through the mists.  And then – tragedy strikes.

I just shivered writing that.

This was a historical mystery unlike anything I’ve read before.  If I had the money right now I’d be purchasing every book in the series, this one was that good.  Read it, immerse yourself in Priscilla Royal’s writing.  I promise you will not be disappointed.

Check out these reviews!

Genre Go Round

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The Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian

Posted on September 30, 2011
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Reason for Reading:
  • Huge, huge fan of Chris Bohjalian’s books.

I also recommend:

  • The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian
  • Room by Emma Donoghue

Summary from GoodReads:

Chip and Emily Linton wanted to escape a nightmare. Months before, Chip had ditched the jet he piloted into Lake Champlain after both its engines failed. His decision led to disaster: More than three dozen passengers died and Linton himself had lapsed into a PSTD response that verges on insanity. Now, he, his wife, and twin 10-year-old daughters have escaped, or so they think, to a decrepit Victorian mansion in New Hampshire’s sleepy White Mountains. Before long, however, the house and neighborhood around it become scenes of threatening paranormal visitations and the family is thrust into a realm where uncertainty is the only norm.

My Review:

I’m not usually a ghost-story type of girl, but when Chris Bohjalian puts a book out, I read it.

The Night Strangers is the story of a man who is not Captain Sully, of the infamous Hudson River Plane Landing.  It’s the story of Chip, a man who attempted a water landing in a plane he was piloting and subsequently lost the bulk of the passengers and crew on board.

What is unique about this book is the tools Bohjalian uses to tell the story.  Each character in Chip’s family has a voice, but Chip’s voice is in the 2nd person.  Bohjalian makes you, the reader, his voice.  He puts you in Chips shoes.  The result?  Mindblowingly messed-up.

Witchcraft, alchemy, ghosts, mental disorders, strained family relationships, loss, grief, hope, survival – it all exists within the pages of The Night Strangers.  I was unable to put this one down and just gripped onto the sides of my Kindle, desperately reading to find out what happens next.

For fans of Bohjalian’s psychological thrillers, you won’t want to miss this one.  Put it on your list – like me, you won’t regret it.

 

Check out these reviews!

Tell Me a Story

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The Girl who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson

Posted on September 8, 2011
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Reason for Reading:
  • I’ve actually read Girl with the Dragon Tattoo twice now.. and people keep telling me I need to read the rest of the series, because they are better.

I also recommend:

Summary from GoodReads:

Part blistering espionage thriller, part riveting police procedural, and part piercing exposeé on social injustice, The Girl Who Played with Fireis a masterful, endlessly satisfying novel. Mikael Blomkvist, crusading publisher of the magazine Millennium, has decided to run a story that will expose an extensive sex trafficking operation. On the eve of its publication, the two reporters responsible for the article are murdered, and the fingerprints found on the murder weapon belong to his friend, the troubled genius hacker Lisbeth Salander. Blomkvist, convinced of Salander’s innocence, plunges into an investigation. Meanwhile, Salander herself is drawn into a murderous game of cat and mouse, which forces her to face her dark past.

My Review:

So, despite reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo twice, I still had no desire to pick up these last two books of the Millennium trilogy.  There they sat, on my TBR list, woefully looking at me and wondering just what they’d done wrong – when what they’d done wrong was nothing they’d actually done int he first place, it was their dratted older sister, that Dragon Tattoo book.

You see, I was insanely bored.. TWICE (once for pleasure, once for book club) through the first half of Dragon Tattoo.  I’m just not all that interested in Swedith politics, business or.. well anything outside of just every day human stories, and IKEA of course.  Mikael has a kind of milque-toast personality to me, yes, I know he’s all gung-ho about exposing things but he’s just so.. bland.  So the book really came alive for me with Lisbeth Salander, who ended up redeeming the whole thing.

The Girl who Played with Fire was better – much better, but still.. long portions smack dab in the middle that just seemed to drag the story on endlessly.  This book was so incredibly long, it was frustrating me, frustrating me to read the fumbling of the police and to sit through all of the work and shuffling Larsson had to do to get everyone’s thought processes to sync.  And don’t even get me started on yet another cliffhanger – so glad I waited to read this one.

Is The Girl who Played with Fire better than Dragon Tattoo?  Yes.  Definitely.  However there were still things about it that irked me, it’s length being one of the major ones.   And I’m still not sure what exactly Salander’s actions on Grenada had to do with anything – that part of the story seemed really out of sync.  Oh well though!

Now I’m bound to read The Girl who Kicked a Hornet’s Nest because after the cliffhanger here, there really was no doubt about it!

Check these reviews!

The Book Cellar

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The Poisoned House by Michael Ford

Posted on August 28, 2011
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Reason for Reading:
  • I’ve been wanting to read more ghost stories, this one showed up as available and I snagged it!

I also recommend:

Summary from GoodReads:

The year is 1856, and orphan Abigail Tamper lives below stairs in Greave Hall, a crumbling manor house in London. Lord Greave is plagued by madness, and with his son Samuel away fighting in the Crimea, the running of Greave Hall is left to Mrs Cotton, the tyrannical housekeeper. The only solace for the beleaguered staff is to frighten Mrs Cotton by pretending the house is haunted.

So when a real ghost makes an appearance – that of her beloved mother – no one is more surprised than Abi. But the spirit has a revelation that threatens to destroy Abi’s already fragile existence: she was murdered, and by someone under their very own roof. With Samuel returned to England badly wounded, it’s up to Abi to nurse him back to health, while trying to discover the identity of the killer in their midst. As the chilling truth dawns, Abi’s world is turned upside down.

My Review:

I have a love/hate relationship with ghost stories.  I love the thrill I get from reading them, and I hate the “over the shoulder” compulsion I get.  I do not like spooky things, so I read The Poisoned House by the light of the day.

What I got was pure entertainment.  No, the story wasn’t really anything knew and I guessed at the outcome about 1/3rd of the way through the book, but still – I wanted to read because I was being entertained, spooked and it felt good.  I loved the atmosphere of the house, the cast of characters and the Cinderella feel that Abi had.

So while the book really didn’t have much that I could go on and on about, it did provide me with a fun few hours of enjoyment and, really, isn’t that what you want from a good ghost story?

Check these reviews!

Letters Inside Out

I <3 Reading

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The Lantern by Deborah Lawrenson

Posted on August 19, 2011
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Reason for Reading:
  • I’m a huge fan of gothic mysteries.

I also recommend:

Summary from GoodReads:

When Eve falls for the secretive, charming Dom, their whirlwind relationship leads them to purchase Les Genevriers, an abandoned house in a rural hamlet in the south of France. As the beautiful Provence summer turns to autumn, Eve finds it impossible to ignore the mysteries that haunt both her lover and the run-down old house, in particular the mysterious disappearance of his beautiful first wife, Rachel. Whilst Eve tries to untangle the secrets surrounding Rachel’s last recorded days, Les Genevriers itself seems to come alive. As strange events begin to occur with frightening regularity, Eve’s voice becomes intertwined with that of Benedicte Lincel, a girl who lived in the house decades before. As the tangled skeins of the house’s history begin to unravel, the tension grows between Dom and Eve. In a page-turning race, Eve must fight to discover the fates of both Benedicte and Rachel, before Les Genevriers’ dark history has a chance to repeat itself.

My Review:

I finished reading this book a few hours ago and I am still battling the chills it brought to life.  Holy smokes, this one blew me away.

I’m a huge fan of Kate Morton, I loved Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier and so it was inevitable that I’d pick up The Lantern, gothic romantic mystery? Yes please!

I have to say, I was intrigued enough for the first half of the book to keep reading. I, like Eve, needed to know the secrets.  I was confused by the narrative but quickly got used to it and appreciated that I didn’t have to read long before going back to the other story.

Then, something magical happened.  I started jumping at every little noise, looking over my shoulder at the slightest breeze of air touching it and whimpering with needing to know exactly what was going on.

I’ve read a lot of books with psychological torture, but I have to say  - I think an event in this book about takes the cake.  I won’t say anymore about it, but .. yeah, you’ll know when you read it.

If you love books that just tingle with mystery, sweeping, beautiful descriptions of homes fallen into disrepair and ruin, filled with mystery, ghosts and more then The Lantern is a must-read.

 

About the Author

 

For more reviews on The Lantern by Deborah Lawrenson, please follow the book tour.

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Two for Sorrow by Nicola Upson

Posted on August 11, 2011
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Reason(s) for Reading:
  • Interesting cover and premise!

Summary from Goodreads:

They were the most horrific crimes of a new century: the murders of newborn innocents for which two British women were hanged at Holloway Prison in1903. Decades later, mystery writer Josephine Tey has decided to write a novel based on Amelia Sach and Annie Walters, the notorious “Finchley baby farmers,” unaware that her research will entangle her in the desperate hunt for a modern-day killer.

(Read more summary from Goodreads here.)

 

My Review:

Two for Sorrow was a very, very heavy read for me.  Most mysteries tend to be somewhat heavy, but the subject matter here made it almost over the top.

I took several breaks and read this book while reading another, just so that I could keep a cool head and try to wrap my mind around what was occurring here.  While parts of the book was cripplingly interesting,  other parts were a little confusing, which, combined with the heavy subject material, made for just a bit of a rough reading experience.

One mistake I made before picking up this book was assuming that, even though it was the third in the series, I’d be able to get into it.  I was wrong.  There were names and events being tossed around that made me feel as if I’d walked into a conversation that had begun well before I got there.  I was still able to get enough put together to get the gist of the story, and I was still interested enough in the resolution to finish, but it was a very confusing ending to me – as I still am trying to put pieces together and figure out who was who.

I’m not sure that I am interested enough to pick up the series from the beginning, but we’ll see.  My opinion has changed before after time has allowed me to work through things to my satisfaction.

About the Author

 

For more reviews on Two for Sorrow by Nicola Upson, please follow the book tour.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from TLC Book Tours. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

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The Raising by Laura Kasischke

Posted on June 29, 2011
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Reason for Reading:
  • I was in the mood for a thriller!

I also recommend:

Summary from GoodReads:

Last year Godwin Honors Hall was draped in black. The university was mourning the loss of one of its own: Nicole Werner, a blond, beautiful, straight-A sorority sister tragically killed in a car accident that left her boyfriend, who was driving, remarkably—some say suspiciously—unscathed.

Although a year has passed, as winter begins and the nights darken, obsession with Nicole and her death reignites: She was so pretty. So sweet-tempered. So innocent. Too young to die.

Unless she didn’t.

Because rumor has it that she’s back.

My Review:

I just finished this book and I’m seriously messed up.  In The Raising, Laura Kasischke tackles sororities, hazing, murder, and cover-ups and she does it from the viewpoints of several people involved: the witness, the victim, the victim’s boyfriend, the best friend, the professor.   They all have intricate parts and slowly, but surely, Kasischke weaves together their stories patiently bringing the reader to the end conclusion.

Except, was there one?  From here on out will be some spoiler-type information so if you are interested in this book, feel free to stop and move on!

This book was unputdownable good.  The story was written well, the pace was exciting, information was given to me in the perfect amounts and I was actually biting my nails at one point and crying out with anger at actions that occurred.  But then it reached this huge climax… and nothing happened except a jump to a completely different time.

That, folks, is the most frustrating thing you can do to someone reading a book like this.

So while I loved the tension and mystery (and could have done without the sex scenes and much of the language), the end of the book left me frustrated, angry and astonished that it ended .. like that.

So I’m torn – I could recommend this book, but if I did so I’d do it with a warning.  Be prepared for the ending, it may not be what you are expecting (or hoping for).

Check out these review(s)!

Proud Book Nerd

Wordsmithonia

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Miss Timmins’ School for Girls by Nayana Currimbhoy

Posted on June 22, 2011
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Reason(s) for Reading:
  • It’s a Boarding School story – and Boarding School stories are almost always fun!

Summary from Goodreads:

A murder at a British boarding school in the hills of western India launches a young teacher on the journey of a lifetime

In 1974, three weeks before her twenty-first birthday, Charulata Apte arrives at Miss Timmins’ School for Girls in Panchgani. Shy, sheltered, and running from a scandal that disgraced her Brahmin family, Charu finds herself teaching Shakespeare to rich Indian girls in a boarding school still run like an outpost of the British Empire. In this small, foreign universe, Charu is drawn to the charismatic teacher Moira Prince, who introduces her to pot-smoking hippies, rock ‘n’ roll, and freedoms she never knew existed.

Then one monsoon night, a body is found at the bottom of a cliff, and the ordered worlds of school and town are thrown into chaos. When Charu is implicated in the murder—a case three intrepid schoolgirls take it upon themselves to solve—Charu’s real education begins. A love story and a murder mystery, Miss Timmins’ School for Girls is, ultimately, a coming-of-age tale set against the turbulence of the 1970s as it played out in one small corner of India.

My Review:

Let me just say that last year I may have overdosed a bit on books set in India.  Some were good, some were bad, but overall they seemed to have the same melancholy, morose feel to them and I promised myself I’d lay off of them for a while.

Then I signed up for this tour.  My first thought was, great, here we go again, but then I picked up the book and started reading and realized this was unlike any story set in India I’d read thus far.

The story of Charu was interesting enough – but add into the mix a murder mystery and the book takes on a new purpose and life of its own just when the story seems to start slowing down.  While I could have done without some aspects of the book, the murder mystery was quite well done and moved at a solid pace.

Nayana Currimbhoy did a beautiful job of crafting a story that had memorable characters, a good sense of mystery and thrill, and just enough emotion that it had my heart aching more than a few times for the emotions the characters were experiencing.

So, in short, I’m not sorry I picked up this story set in India, and if anything, I think its given me hope and the desire to seek out more stories like it.

About the Author

Follow Nayana Currimbhoy on Twitter.

For more reviews on Miss Timmins’ School for Girls by Nayana Currimbhoy, please follow the book tour.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from TLC Book Tours. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

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Hotel Paradise by Martha Grimes

Posted on April 28, 2011
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Reason for Reading:
  • You know.. I’m not quite sure why I picked this book out, I just pulled it out of my library pile and thought hm.. why did I pick this?  And then decided to read it to find out!

I recommend:

Summary from GoodReads:

A once-fashionable, now fading resort hotel. A spinster Aunt living in an attic. Dirt roads that lead to dead ends. A house full of secrets and old, dusty furnishings, uninhabited for almost half a century. A twelve-year-old girl with a passion for double-chocolate ice-cream sodas, and decaying lake-fronts, and an obsession with the death by drowning of another young girl, forty years before.

Like all important events in the past, there are repercussions and ramifications in the present. In the world as seen by Martha Grimes, those repercussions simmer and seethe and wind their way through hearts and souls. The ramifications can be subtle. Or exhilarating. Passionate. And they can also be deadly.

Hotel Paradise is a delicate yet excruciating view of the pettiness and cruelty of small town America. It is a look at the difficult decisions a young girl must make on her way to becoming an adult and the choices she must make between right and wrong, between love and truth, between life and death. It is a novel with extraordinary range and depth that ultimately becomes a thrilling morality play.

My Review:

I am trying to figure out why I chose this book to read, why I requested it from the library and brought it home but I just can’t remember.  That said, I’m glad I did because I did enjoy the story.

This book is a reminder of what a good mystery is supposed to be like.  Filled with memories of better days gone by, perfect descriptions of food, people and places and enough of a touch of the mystery (and a super cute mystery solver) to keep the reader guessing and trying to figure out the story.

I’m not a big fan of “who done it” mysteries, I like my mysteries to have a gradual unfolding of a story, the story being the mystery itself instead of some huge unveiling “shock factor” type ending – and that’s what I got with this book.

I’d never heard of Martha Grimes before, but I’m glad I followed whatever impulse made me pick Hotel Paradise up and I plan to check out more of Grimes works in the near future.

Check out these review(s):

Elderly Thespian

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