Charlie St. Cloud by Ben Sherman

You've heard of the artist formerly known as Prince who is now known as Prince (again).  Well, this is the novel formerly published as The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud.  Its title (which I quite like a lot better than its current incarnation) was shortened to Charlie St. Cloud when it was adapted as a major motion picture.  I have not yet seen the film, and I thought I should read the book before I see the film.  And I'm glad I did.  Charlie St. Cloud (the character) is a six-foot-three, twenty eight year old man played by Zach Efron who is neither six-foot-three nor twenty eight years old.  I'm not sure how I feel about the younger, shorter St. Cloud because, let's face it, Efron can't pull off a twenty eight year old man yet.  I'm trying to reserve judgment until I see the movie, but still there are already mixed feelings about the casting choice for the lead character.

When Charlie's fifteen and his brother, Sam, twelve, the boys' are in a horrific car accident while out doing that which they shouldn't: joyriding in a neighbor's car while neither boy has a license.  In the immediate aftermath of the crash, both boys are killed.  However, Charlie is miraculously revived en route to the hospital while Sam is not.  In the in-between while both brothers are dead they make a promise to each other: neither brother will leave the other behind.

When Charlie is brought back, he returns with a gift.  When the sun goes down Sam emerges from the twilight and the brothers spend their nights together playing ball and going swimming.  Charlie's gift works only within the confines of the Waterside Cemetery where Sam is buried and where Charlie works as caretaker.  Charlie can also see other recently dead and in addition to his other duties in the cemetery, he helps the dead move on to the next level.  However, Charlie's gift comes at a price: he can never stray far from the borders of the cemetery, and he must never miss a twilight meeting with Sam or his gift and Sam both begin to fade.  As a result of the promise the brothers made, they are bound to each other and to the cemetery and neither one is able to move on.

Then Charlie meets Tess, a young woman and proprietor of a sail making firm.  Tess deeply misses her father, who died suddenly two years previously.  Since then she's lived an adventurous and daring existence until a nearly deadly practice voyage scares her to death.  She meets Charlie after this near death experience and only a week before she's due to embark upon a history making solo circumnavigation sail of the world.

Both Tess and Charlie have been crippled in their lives in different ways by their overwhelming grief.  When they meet both question for the first time the ways in which they have chosen to live their lives and cope with their grief.  Was the cost of their grief worth what they've missed and is it too late to change?

The cleverly, skillfully written book will have the reader returning to previous passages to re-read them when the truth is revealed.  This is a haunting, thought provoking book, and I recommend you check it out the next time you're in the library.

--Reviewed by Ms. Angie

The Dead Travel Fast by Deanna Raybourn

I did some reading over the holiday weekend that in the run up to the holiday I hadn't had as much time to do.  I read two and a half books and am halfway through another.  Reviews to follow on those.  This review is for Deanna Raybourn's The Dead Travel Fast-- a rare stand alone novel for the author, who has the Lady Grey mystery series to keep her busy.  I wish she had more stand alone novels because I really liked this one, and currently I'm avoiding getting sucked into another series or author to follow.  There are too many authors/series that I already follow, and sometimes it is agony waiting for the next release or installment to drop--AGONY!

I could easily turn this post into one that obsesses over the new books that I'm waiting for (im)patiently to drop in 2011, but I won't.  It'll be hard, but I will restrain myself and return to the title at hand: The Dead Travel Fast.  Now.  As an aside: with most books you can see why they are titled what they are--the titles make sense and connect to or relate to the story.  With other books one puzzles over the title and wonders what its connection is to the story because, well, it doesn't make sense.  This is one of those books: its title doesn't really make any sense to me.  There aren't any dead travelling fast or really travelling anywhere in this book.

In the wake of her beloved grandfather's death, Theodora Lestrange, determined to earn her keep as a writer, takes leave of her beloved sister and Scottish homeland with a small inheritance and three dresses to her name.  No easy feat in 1853, she travels across an ocean and a continent to a remote castle that oversees an impoverished village in the Transylvanian countryside to visit a much loved boarding school friend, Cosmina.  Cosmina is due to be married to Count Andrei Dragulescu, the master of the castle and village alike.  Upon Theodora's arrival, all is not as she expected it both regarding her beloved friend's betrothal and the machinations and manipulations of those who live within castle walls.  The villagers themselves are intensely held in thrall of the terrifying legends of strigoi (vampires) and werewolves who are said to plague the surrounding forests at night.

When a serving maid is found murdered in the castle all signs point to the visitation of a strigoi whose origins are much closer to the family and whose intention seems to be the destruction of clan Dragulescu.  It becomes clear to both Theodora and Count Andrei, between whom a heady romantic attraction and affair has developed, that no one who lives at the castle, especially Theodora, is safe.  Theodora, torn between believing the villagers' legends of the sinister supernatural or hunting for a much more believable, logical human cause for the misfortunes befalling the castle inhabitants, realizes too late that all is not as it seems both within the castle walls and among those she believed her friends.

Gothic, dark, Victorian are all words that describe this thrilling story with a romance at its heart shot heavily through with the haunting, mysterious, mythological, historically steeped atmosphere of a cold, decaying, remote Transylvanian castle built into the side of the Carpathian mountain range.  It is breathlessly suspenseful as much for the intrigue as the Victorian romance.  It is a story that takes several darkly unexpected, pulse pounding twists before arriving at its shocking, bloodcurdling conclusion.  A vividly drawn atmosphere and vibrant characters depicted in the gothic Victorian style in addition to the mysterious, dark intrigue of the murders and their provenance make this book hard to put down.

I highly recommend you check it out the next time you're at the library.

--Reviewed by Ms. Angie

Dead Connection by Charlie Price

Dead Connection is the debut Young Adult fiction novel from Charlie Price.  In a blurb on the book jacket the author Christ Crutcher calls Dead Connection witty and humorous or maybe he used the word funny.  Witty I agree with but I'm not sure I would use humorous or funny to describe this novel.  Considering its subject matter, it's not particularly serious or dark, but I wouldn't call it funny.  It is well written, well plotted, and always suspenseful--nail-bitingly so in some parts.  Its mystery is twisty and just when you think everything's been figured out, a wrench gets thrown into the works.  There is a subtle supernatural element that is integral to the plot that is done well, too.  The novel tells its story in rotating third person point of view that helps develop the story from multiple perspectives that serves to heighten the thrilling suspense.  Sometimes the device of rotating point of view annoys me because usually just when things really start happening from one point of view is when the action shifts to the next point of view.  However, the short chapters in this novel alleviated this annoyance and helped keep the pace moving at a quick clip.

Murray's in high school and he's an outcast without any friends.  He spends his free time in the cemetery near his home where his only friends, Dearly and Beloved, 'live.'  The quotes are necessary because, well, Murray can talk to the dead and they talk back; they are his only friends.  If he concentrates really hard, he can see them, too, in his mind's eye.  Recently a new voice has emerged from the ether of the cemetery, and although at first all Murray can discern are garbles and static and fragments of words, he can tell the voice is in distress.   Murray is befriended by Pearl, the cemetery caretaker's daughter, who urges him to track down the voice and figure out to whom it belongs.  Thus, both Murray and Pearl stumble upon a local mystery that has the town wound tight due to the stagnating investigation that has failed to yield any answers.

Meanwhile, Officer Gates is determined to lay to rest and resolve the investigation of the disappearance of a local teenage girl no matter where it leads or from whom the leads emerge.  Robert, a recovering paranoid schizophrenic readjusting to society after committal, struggles to recall some important information he wanted to tell someone.  And peace officer Billups, a bitter, nasty man, begins a downward spiral into alcohol addiction that will destroy his life and career and possibly take Murray down with him.

The satisfying ending doesn't wrap everything up too neatly with a bow.  In fact, it may just leave a little too much hanging up in the air for some readers, though the reader will be able to guess where the story is headed after the last sentence.  In the end Murray has what he's never had before: a family and a friend, both of the living variety, who will support him and stand by him no matter how unbelievable his ability seems to be.

I recommend you check out this read the next time you're at the library.

--Reviewed by Ms. Angie

A Thief In The House of Memory by Tim Wynne-Jones

A Thief In The House of Memory is a Young Adult fiction novel by Tim  Wynne-Jones, and it's quite a fast read--I read it in about four hours.  It's a well written, well crafted mystery for younger readers.

When Declan discovers the corpse of a would be burglar in the vacant, old mansion that's been in his family for generations, it unleashes a flood of memories of his long gone mother.  The memories are so vivid and tangible they're like visions being played out before his eyes.  These long dormant memories spur Declan to think about his mother and her abandonment of their family more than he has in a long time.  Soon Declan is unraveling the long buried, serpentine mystery of his mother's disappearance.  However, he's blocked at several turns by an emotionally distant father who lives hundreds of years in the past and who resists Declan's every attempt to talk about his mother.  Declan struggles to fill in the blank spot in his memories that surrounds the time she left and the mystery of who she really was as a person, a wife and a mother.

The characters and their relationships with each other are as well developed as the story itself.  Once you pick up this book, you'll find it hard to put it down until after the poignant conclusion.

--Reviewed by Ms. Angie