The Wrath of Angels - John Connolly (Book Review)

Title - The Wrath of Angels

Author - John Connolly

Summary -

A plane wreckage is found deep in the woods of Maine, there are no bodies but a satchel of money. More money than the two men who have found it have ever seen. Good men. Honest men. Tempted men. They do something that they would never have done before and take the list. Doing this they set in motion a series of events that would end up hurting those they love and bringing forth a malevolence that they had never known. An evil that doesn't care about the money. It cares about the list of names that was concealed in the missing plane as well.
Charlie Parker is a private detective who specializes in malevolence. Charlie has made a career of hunting those things that go bump in the night. The list of names is a record of those who have made deals with the devil. People and spirits that work on the side of evil. Only for some strange reason, Parker's name is on that list as well. Now those who stood with him before, question who Parker serves.

"..But there was one other who had been intimately involved in the matter of Brightwell and the Believers, one who knew more than anyone else about the bodies that decayed but did not die, and migrating spirits, more perhaps than he had even admitted to me. His name was Epstein, and he was a rabbi, and a grieving father, and a hunter of fallen angels..."

Aided only by his closest allies, Louise and Angel, Charlie Parker must find the wreckage and retrieve the list before any one else does. It is his only hope to clear his name.
In his way is a demon and her child, a serial killer known only as the Collector who kills those who are evil and now believes Parker to be among the damned; and a small spirit child who seeks to trap those in the woods and keep them with her.

"..It was to Harlan, and to Harlan alone, that Barney Shore told the tale of the girl in the woods, a girl with sunken eyes, and wearing a black dress, who had come to him with the first touch of snow, inviting him to follow her deeper into the woods, calling on him to play with her in the northern darkness..."

Parker must face an evil greater than any he has faced before. A serial killer that judges his soul and a spirit that wants to keep it. Parker, who after his long journey of redemption, is not sure how much of a fight he wants to put up to save what is left of his soul.

Review -

The Charlie Parker series just won't stop! Each novel adds to the mythos that John Connolly has created around his paranormal detective yet stands solely on its own. There is not one that simply leads to the next. This is the 11th in the series and we can only hope it will go on and on.
To really appreciate the darkness that is the Charlie Parker novels you have to pick up other writing by John Connolly. The Samuel Johnson stories for young adults. The Book of Lost Things. The fairy tale stories laced with humor and wit. Turning the dwarves of Snow White into socialist activists who fight for better working conditions and fairer wages is short of brilliant. I wont tell you what book that is in, you'll just have to look for yourself.
The darkness of the Charlie Parker series would be overwhelming if not for the moments of wit Connolly has infused into the narrative. The scene in the ice cream parlor where Angel and Louis have to control themselves when a group of drunk men get out of hand, only because Parker's young daughter is with them. It doesn't matter, because she tells her mom anyway how Angel cursed and Louis threatened to shoot someone.
There are real characters here that take over sections of the novel that you come to care about greatly. Characters that live and breath in you mind long after the last page is turned and the book put away.
But it is Parker and his struggle that is central to the novel. It is the binding principle throughout the entire series. How far can Parker go before he slips into the evil that is waiting for him. How close is he and is that why his name appears on the list? How much more in cost can Charlie Parker pay? A wife and child tortured and murdered. His career gone. Friends and family disowning him or dying at the hands of those he hunts. Another wife and child lost to him for their own safety. The whispers in the woods from the dead child that was his daughter. The bitterness that only the hunt will salve.
Parker is on the side of the Angels. But which ones. The Better Angels or the Fallen ones.
Another awesome read from John Connolly.

The Fainting Room - Sarah Pemberton Strong (Book Review)

Title - The Fainting Room

Author - Sarah Pemberton Strong

Summary -

Evelyn has the perfect life. A big house. A wonderful doting husband in Ray. A life of leisure and wealth. A far cry from the life she left behind. But it is the life she left behind that is catching up to her. The life of a battered woman. The body covered in tattoos that harkened back to an earlier time. A time when she was little more than a teenage bride in a traveling destitute circus.
A life she thought she had left behind except for the recesses of her mind. A mind that is haunted by the past and a dead husband.
Ray has the perfect life. A beautiful home given to him by his wealthy parents. A job doing what he loves and a wife he adores. A wife who's past excites and thrills him. A past he doesn't understand holds dangers that in his world he cannot fathom.

"..There were bad things inside her; things Ray knew nothing about..."

Into this home comes Ingrid. A student at the local private school who is in the midst of being suspended for drinking when she finds that she cannot go home. Her father and new wife are out of the country. Evelyn and Ray decide to take her in. A distraction for the cracks that are being to unravel their marriage.
Ingrid is smart, but rebellious in her musings. She sees in herself a writer of detective novels and begins to sense a mystery in the lives of her caregivers. Slowly she begins to peel back the layers of the relationship between Ray and Evelyn.

"..Each of these possibilities produced the same flare of panic in his chest. Down the hall she was still crying. In the sea of the sound of her sobs Ray sat down, put his head on the desk and cried, too, not only because he had hurt Ingrid, not only for the loss of her who he could never have, but for the loss of the part of himself he most cherished: the part he thought of as Arthur Braeburn Shepard, a good man..."

In her fantasies, as the noir detective she writes about, Ingrid is falling in love with the red haired, tattooed Evelyn with the dark past. Oblivious to the haunting desire that is in Ray's eyes.

"...Why's it called a fainting room?" Ingrid asked.
"That's what the Victorians called it. Some of the houses from this period have a room like this on the second floor. After climbing the stairs in tight corsets," Ray smiled, "breathless ladies would go into the fainting room to sit down and sniff sal volatile to recover themselves..."

The three, in the large house, this one summer, are colliding in their emotions and desires. Until they are breathless seeking a rest in The Fainting Room.

Review -

I really liked The Fainting Room. The characters drive this novel and in this S P Strong has done a masterful job. Evelyn is powerful as the wife with the haunted past who finally has all she ever wanted but finds herself imprisoned in a gilded cage. Ray is the husband, so used to having all he wants, how he wants until he finds something he wants that even he knows he must deny himself. And then there is Ingrid, the lost girl whose desire for a family pushes her way into their lives.
The Fainting Room is a well written emotional roller coaster of a book that explores forbidden passion as well as the frail fabric between reality and the fantasies we sometimes wish we had instead. It is a novel about what happens when you get everything you want and find out that the only thing that can take it from you is yourself.
Evelyn's character drives this book for me. Her secrets and tendency to violence lay just under the surface and she is losing the ability to control it. She wavers between the woman she is and the girl she use to be. She is so well written that I found myself rushing through the parts of the novel where she wasn't present just to get to the next scene she was in.
A very good read.

  

The Farm - Tom Rob Smith (Book Review)

Title - The Farm

Author - Tom Rob Smith

Summary -

It is a normal day for Daniel, his life proceeding at a comfortable level. On the outside all is fine and he seems happy. Then comes the call from his father, the call that changes everything. The call that begins the process that strips the veneer from his life.

"Dad?"
"Your mother...She's not well."
"Its so sad."
"Sad because she's sick? Sick how? How's Mum sick?"
Dad was still crying. All I could do was dumbly wait until he said:
"She's been imagining things - terrible, terrible things."

Daniel's parents had left England and travelled to Sweden, the country of his mother's birth. The place she had run from at such an early age. Now his mother is ill and Daniel must get to her. As he plans to take a flight he receives another call, this time from his mother and she tells him to wait. That she is coming to him. When she lands she tells him he cannot talk to his father. She tells him there is a conspiracy to prove she is mad. She tells him a story so incredible...

"..In no more than a brief aside, my mum had swept away my entire conception of our family life.."

Daniel's mother, Tilde, tells Daniel the true reason she and his father had left to go to Sweden. The truths of her childhood and her lost friend Freja. And now, while she has little time, the truth of his father and the men of the small village they had settled in and the disappearance of the young girl Mia.
Daniel must hear his mother out as his father Chris is now following her with his own tales of his mother's madness.
Daniel is forced to choose between his parents and their truths and what truly happened to the people he loved on the Farm.

Review -

Slow to begin with, this novel picks up speed and force as it builds its mystery with layer after layer of secrets and lies. You are left to wonder as Daniel must, is his Mom going mad or is his father a murderer?
You are witness as the family is torn apart by its own desire to find the truth in one another. Tilde's descent into her convictions drag her son and husband down into the same abyss.
Daniel must face the reality and step into the past of his mother's life to find out what created this break with reality. Or else, is it a break at all and is she correct.
A very good read.

Cress (The Lunar Chronicles #3) - Marissa Meyer (Book Review)

Title - Cress (The Lunar Chronicles, #3)

Author - Marissa Meyer

Summary -

In Book #1, Cinder, the cyborg girl Cinder confronts the evil Lunar Queen Levana and the reality of her own hidden past. In Book #2, she teams up with the young girl and pilot Scarlett and cage fighter Wolf. Along the way they pick rogue pirate Space Captain Thorne. That is a quick summary of two very good and exciting YA, sci-fi, fantasy books that I strongly urge you to pick and read before you read Cress.
In Book #3, Cinder and her crew are orbiting the Earth deciding on their next course of action. The forced marriage between Queen Levana and Emperor Kai of Earth. Levana expects through this marriage to rule not only her Lunar kingdom but Earth as well. Cinder has learned that she is the long lost Princess Selena; true heir to the lunar kingdom sent to Earth as an infant for her safety from Levana when her ship crashed and she was horribly injured. Resulting in her becoming the cyborg girl she is now.
The crew receive a communication, alarming them as they felt no one knew where they were. Cautiously they answer the call. It is a young girl named Cress who has information of Levana's plans that she is willing to trade for your escape.

"...I'm not on Luna!" The words tumbled out of Cress, coaxed on by a twist of hope. "You don't have to come to Luna. I'm not there."
Cinder scanned the room behind Cress. "But you said before that you couldn't contact Earth, so you're not..."
"I'm on a satellite. I can give you my coordinates..."

"How long have you been living in a satellite?"
She twisted her hair around her fingers. "Seven years...or so."
"Seven years? By yourself?"
"Y-yes." She shrugged. "Mistress restocks my food and water and I have net access, so it isn't so bad. But...well..."
"But you're a prisoner," said Thorne.
"I prefer damsel in distress," she murmured...

For seven years the girl named Cress has been isolated on a satellite orbiting Earth, monitoring all transmissions for Queen Levana, when a new task was set before her. Find the fugitive Cinder and her crew. But for Cress, it was an opportunity of another kind. The chance to escape from her captures and join Cinder on her quest.

Review -

I have a hard time deciding which of these books I enjoyed the most. Cinder, Scarlett or Cress. For the uninitiated into Marissa Meyer's fantasy sci-fi world. Cinder is Cinderella. Scarlett is Red Riding Hood and Cress is Rapunzel. Wolf, from Scarlett is the big bad wolf but with a change of heart. And Levana, was think every evil female Disney stepmom and Queen and you got her. Emperor Kai, is the Prince only in these tales it is he who needs the saving.
But don't get the wrong message, these books are far from feminist ravings, they encompass far more. There is class warfare, Orwellian themes of the all powerful Government and the controlling of the minds of its people and enemies.
Into all of this steps Cinder. She is far from beautiful, her scars and metal body parts keep her from seeing the true beauty that she is. A powerful albeit reluctant hero.
Scarlett, who's family loss haunts her. There is a grandmother here that doesn't quite make it. And Wolf whose prior acts of violence he seeks to rectify as his love of Scarlett is the most powerful emotion he knows.
There are many other characters in and out of these books, characters who resemble a childhood memory but whose part in these tales is stunningly their own.
Meyer has done far more than re-write a fairy tale or two. She has had the audacity and originality to re-write beloved characters into an adventure all her own.
A very good read!

Tempting A Sinner - Kate Pearce (Book Review)

Title - Tempting a Sinner

Author - Kate Pearce

Summary -

As young lovers, Benedict Keyes and Malinda Rowland are separated by class. Benedict, the heir to English aristocracy, and Malinda the daughter of a sergeant in the English army.
When Malinda's father dies in battle, seeking to protect her and her mother, Benedict rashly marries her. But when his father learns of it he has the marriage annulled and Malinda sent away.
Eighteen years later Malinda returns to England and with Benedict's help, begins to unravel the mystery behind her father's death. But in their way are the secrets of the past and the ones they keep from one another.

"You haven't told him the truth, have you?"
"And which truth would that be, my lord?"
"The reason you left."
Malinda went still, and Benedict watched a triumphant smile grow on his father's haggard face. He stepped in front of her.
"What truth?"
"The fact that her mother was my mistress, and that your darling Malinda is my bastard, and therefore your half sister?"

Benedict and Malinda must weave their trail through secrets and lies and their own conflicted desires. Together they will find out the truth of the death of Malinda's father and the payroll he was guarding. Also Malinda learns what Benedict has become and of the activities that go on in the Sinners Club. Activities that she herself desires to be a part of.

Review -

Wow. Pearce is not shy about what she infuses her tales with. There is sexual activity for all here. Man and woman. Woman and woman. Man and man. Threesomes of various kinds. Voyeurism. All told in rich and powerful detail with a prose and tempo often missing in erotica.
But Pearce also writes a really good mystery here. Not just some filler until the next sex scene. She layers secret upon secret and discovery upon discovery. Remove the sex and you have a very good mystery novel that would stand on its own.
But why would you want to?
Surprisingly good. I will definitely be looking for others in her collection of stories.
A very good read.

The Mist In The Mirror - Susan Hill (Book Review)

Title - The Mist In The Mirror

Author - Susan Hill

Summary -

One night a young man, having supper in his private club and carrying on with his friends of the existence of a ghost on the club's grounds is asked by one of the elder statesmen the following question:

"..You...believe?"
"Believe? Oh as to that..." I made a dismissive gesture. The topic was not one I wanted to raise again, in the late, silent street.
I have...a story. It is in my possession...which perhaps you might care to read..."

The young man is given a package which tells the tale of the elder club member, Sir James Monmouth, a young orphan, who has explored all around the globe, following in the footsteps of his idol; Conrad Vane. His final destination being London as he seeks further knowledge into the life of Conrad Vane. It is Monmouth's desire to write a book about his idol. But instead he is greeted with warnings and dire predictions by those he meets and questions about Vane.

"...Then Dancer said, his voice almost a whisper. "Whoever touches, explores, follows after Vane, will be run mad, and will never afterward rest his head or enjoy his peace or have a home. He will be haunted. He will be cursed. I saw what lay ahead, Monmouth, I drew back..."

Monmouth is not deterred. Despite the warnings. Despite the history of those who have followed Vane and perished. Despite the ghostly figure of a small child that he spies everywhere he goes. Monmouth goes on. His investigation eventually brings him to Kittiscar and a mystery he had no knowledge of.
In Kittiscar Hall is the last known surviving member of a family. The family of Monmouth. The family James Monmouth was orphaned from. Before he can question her, she passes away, leaving the Hall and all the family riches to James. But she leaves him with something else.

"...She continued to stare at me but now a look of almost horror crossed her features when she spoke, her voice a whisper.
"You surely are not planning to live here at Kittiscar?"
"Why certainly I am! I have no other home. I am the heir to the house, am I not?"
"But you cannot...surely you will not."
"Why do you say so?"
"Because...because you are a Monmouth and a man..."

It is here in Kittiscar Hall that James Monmouth must come face to face with the true nature of Conrad Vane, with the legacy of the Monmouth family and the clouded features that in the mist in the mirror.

Review -

Gothic Horror. Ghost Story. Things that go bump in the night.
This is the real thing.
Susan Hill writes fog heavy, English countryside, atmospheric tension, old time Saturday morning, black and white horror like you grew up with. Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee could literally step off these pages.
Like her novel, The Woman In Black; not the slow moving Daniel Radcliff movie, but the book itself; The Mist in the Mirror, moves steadily, building tension and fear as it slowly unravels the mystery behind the legacy that James Monmouth has unwittingly inherited.
This novel is what true horror novels were before the need to splash buckets of blood on every page became the standard.
A really good read.