A Series Of (Un)Fortunate Reviews

It's time for some straight talk.  I'm feeling like I'm over the Grantchester Mysteries as a book series but not necessarily as a TV series.  There was a spell earlier this year where I read a couple books in a row from this series, and Sidney's whole act about being "conflicted" about solving crimes/mysteries and always being pulled into any hint of trouble in the vicinity of Grantchester (and now Ely) worked on my nerves.  Like either solve mysteries or don't, either prioritize your family over your mystery solving or don't, but this fretting and obsessing over this work/family/mystery solving balance is getting old.  Well, guess what!  It seems Sidney heard and heeded my advice.  The fretting/obsessing over his mystery solving and whether or not he should be doing it is at a minimum in this installment of the Grantchester Mysteries . It's the late 1960's in Sidney Chambers and the Dangers of Temptation by James Runcie, and this is the ...

Lost Among the Living is the fifth novel by Simone St. James.  I reviewed her four preceding novels on this blog: The Haunting of Maddy Clare , An Inquiry into Love and Death , Silence For the Dead , and The Other Side of Midnight .  Click the titles to read those reviews.  St. James' next novel, The Lost Girls , is set to be released next year.  I really enjoy the mix of suspense, supernatural, and mystery in St. James' novels.  Set in post-World War I England, they're a perfect blend of historical novel, mystery, and horror.   Lost Among the Living is creepy and atmospheric, and St. James is expert at spinning a good, old fashioned ghost story. Jo Manders, a grieving widow, accepts a position with her husband's aunt, a difficult mistress, as the woman's paid companion.  However, from the moment Jo arrives at Wych Elm House, it is clear that things are not right either in the house or in the family.  Phantom footsteps follow Jo around the h...

The Other Side of Midnight is the fourth novel by Simone St. James.  Her previous novels, The Haunting of Maddy Clare , Silence For The Dead , and An Inquiry Into Love And Death were all reviewed here on the blog.  You can click the links to read those reviews.  Simone St. James is an excellent writer, and I've enjoyed all of her books.  They are English period supernatural thriller/historical fiction.  Each has been a page turning, suspenseful, atmospheric, creepy, supernatural read.  Her next novel is due in April 2016. 1925.  London.  The death and terror of the war has sparked an obsession with the occult and so-called psychics who claim the ability to contact the dead.  Frauds prey on the survivors left behind who are desperate to speak with their lost loved ones one last time.  In all of England, the sole proven true psychic is Gloria Sutter, a flashy, manipulative, competitive woman, who contacts the dead for a price--she's ...

Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline is the first book by this author that I've read.  I'm not sure how I first came across it, but it's been on my books-to-read list for a while.  Recently my library acquired a copy, and since I was between books, I thought, hmm, let me try this one and see if it sticks.  Sometimes when I'm between books I have a problem starting and actually sticking with a book to the end. The historical part of the story of Orphan Train is actually inspired by true events.  There really was a train in the 1920's that took orphaned children from the Children's Aid Society in New York City out to the Midwest in a quest to find families to place them in.  Some of these children are still alive today.  However, I don't think that the characters of Molly and Vivian are based on any real life people. Molly Ayer has spent the last nine years bouncing among over a dozen different foster homes.  She's developed a tough shell and a ...

The Haunting of Maddy Clare is Simone St. James' first novel; it's a ghost story set in 1920's England.  It was a page turner and hard to put down, and it was suspenseful and scary, and there was a ghost, a mystery, and a romance, and I loved it, and no library in Lebanon County has An Inquiry Into Love And Death , St. James' follow up to her debut!  So now I'll have to see if I get it from outside the county.  Her third novel will drop in April 2014.   The Haunting of Maddy Clare is a historical/period drama combined with a ghost story mystery (which basically means, it's right up my alley because ENGLISH PERIOD DRAMA and GHOST STORY) populated by characters each in their own way equally damaged and scarred by tragedy. 1922.  Rural England.  London city girl, Sarah Piper, comes to the English countryside in the employ of the young, handsome and charming Alistaire Gellis.  Gellis, a veteran of World War I, has parlayed a lifelong fascination with...

I'll Be Seeing You by Suzanne Hayes and Loretta Nyhan is the other book that I was reading while I read My Name Is Mina .  I liked I'll Be Seeing You a lot better than that Mina book.  This is the kind of book that sneaks up on you and sucks you in before you realize what's happening.  It's a pretty fast read and once the letters start going back and forth between the two women, it turns into a page turner because you want to find out what's going to happen in their lives and will their men make it home from the war and then what's going happen next when they do come home and wait, it's the end of the book?!  But what happens in the post-war years to these women and their families? According to book jacket, the story reflects the authors' own story, and there's an interview at the end of the book that explains this.  Apparently, the authors are penpals over email who met through one of their blogs.  As of the day of the interview they had not ...

Emily's Ghost is the first novel I've read by Denise Giardina, but it's not Giardina's first novel.  Even though the book is based on real life people, it is important to note (and not forget) that this is a novel of historical fiction, and, based on some readings I've done online, great liberties were taken in the portrayal of the characters based on real people and the relationships and dynamics between said characters.  I've also read other online reviews of the novel--some people liked it, others didn't.  One person took extreme issue with the title because it is misleading.  The subtitle is "A Novel of the Bronte Sisters," and I must admit the subtitle did puzzle me a bit because the novel and title clearly focus on Emily Bronte.  I thought the subtitle made it sound as if this might be the first in a series.  Whether this is true or not, I have no idea.  I'm not sure that I would read subsequent novels in this series. I felt as if this ...

Remarkable Creatures is not the first Tracy Chevalier novel that I've read, and I'm sure it won't be the last.  Previously I've read The Virgin Blue and possibly another one.  I find that I always enjoy her novels and often they are hard to put down despite the long chapters.  Usually long chapters annoy me because I like to read a book by chapter, and I don't like to go away from it or put it down in the middle of a chapter.  Indeed sometimes long chapters are enough to put me off a book entirely.  And don't even get me started on Hemingway's The Old Man And The Sea --an entire book made up of ONE chapter: it was enough to drive me to distraction. Set in early nineteenth century England, the chapters alternate between two narrators: Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpot.  Anning and Philpot are two female historical figures that influenced fossil science despite the restrictions set upon their gender by nature of the time period.  The novel tells the ...

"When I was a boy, my mother used to say that hell was the painless place where everything has been forgotten." ... "Why?" "Because there's no love. That's why there is no pain." ... "Then what's heaven?" "An inferno where you burn, remembering all that should be remembered." from page 182 The Sixth Lamentation is William Brodrick's debut novel and the first in a series starring Father Anselm, a monk who resides at Larkwood Priory in England. Brodrick himself is a former Augustinian friar who now lives in Europe with his wife and kids. His debut novel is an engrossing, page turning, twisty mystery. In the wake of the German occupation of France during the second world war, a group of students calling themselves The Round Table smuggled Jewish children out of Paris to a French monastery in the countryside. Here the children were hidden in the monastery's sister house's orphanage until identity documents for t...