Theresa Smith's Blog, page 128
August 2, 2018
Book A Day: Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice
Day 12:
Interview with a Vampire
This is a long-time favourite of mine. Steeped in old world atmosphere with such memorable characters: Lestat, with his flamboyance, his utter selfishness, his endless attention seeking, and his ultimate cruelty; Claudia, the ancient child who could never grow up, her love for Louis as fierce as her hatred for Lestat; and Louis, who wore his eternal life like a millstone, guilt marring his every step, love and hate warring within him. I understood Louis, felt his pain acutely, felt the weariness of his life’s journey, appreciated the complications of his relationship with Lestat. Interview with a Vampire is a beautiful and terrible story, nothing at all like today’s pop culture vamp fiction for teens. The film was incredible also and remains one of my favourites.
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In a darkened room a young man sits telling the macabre and eerie story of his life – the story of a vampire, gifted with eternal life, cursed with an exquisite craving for human blood.
August 1, 2018
New Release Book Review: Isobel’s Promise by Maggie Christensen
About the Book:
A promise for the future. A threat from the past. Can Bel find happiness?
Back in Sydney after her aunt’s death, sixty-five year-old Bel Davison is making plans to sell up her home and business and return to Scotland where she has promised to spend the rest of her life with the enigmatic Scotsman with whom she’s found love.
But the reappearance of her ex-husband combined with other unexpected drawbacks turns her life into chaos, leading her to have doubts about the wisdom of her promise.
In Scotland, Matt Reid has no such doubts, and although facing challenges of his own, he longs for Bel’s return.
But when an unexpected turn of events leads him to question Bel’s sincerity, Matt decides to take a drastic step – the result of which he could never have foreseen.
Can this midlife couple find happiness in the face of the challenges life has thrown at them?
My Thoughts:
Isobel’s Promise continues the story of Bel Davison, who we first met in The Good Sister. Unlike its predecessor which was a dual time-slip narrative, Isobel’s Promise is entirely contemporary. It picks up pretty much where The Good Sister left off so there’s a nice thread of continuity linking the two novels.
There’s a lot going on for Bel when she returns to Australia with the intent of packing up her life and moving back to Scotland so she can create a future with Matt. It seems that once Bel makes the decision to alter her life, many aspects of it begin to unravel of their own accord. The story moves along at a fairly rapid pace, split between Bel and Matt, with another perspective thrown in, that of Celia, Bel’s new employee who is going through some major changes herself. I haven’t read enough of Maggie’s novels to know what her pattern is, but I’m wondering if the introduction of Celia within this story indicates that Celia will have her own book in the near future. If so, I’ll look forward to that one because Celia’s story held my interest, almost more than Bel’s did, if I’m entirely honest.
There were a couple of characters that really missed the mark for me in this novel. Lou, Bel’s friend, was not a very nice person at all and despite Maggie alluding to the firm history between Lou and Bel, I just wasn’t feeling that connection. Lou had very little to recommend about her and I couldn’t imagine why anyone would have put up with her rudeness for any length of time. Elspeth, Matt’s daughter, was another one that grated on my nerves, but Matt did too when it came to her. She’s a forty year old woman but he seemed to indulge her tantrums as though she were two. Unfortunately, I never warmed to Elspeth, I think she simply wore out her welcome to soon with me, and even after everything played out the way it did, I still couldn’t rouse any sympathy for her. Maybe it’s because she was a similar age to me and I just couldn’t imagine ever acting in such an infantile manner. Matt seemed to despair of her and indulge her in equal measure. He had definitely created a rod for his own back there.
Isobel’s Promise is a solid story and fans of Maggie Christensen will enjoy all it has to offer. For me, I felt it difficult to connect to Bel and I honestly put that down to the age difference, likening it to when I read a novel with a teenager at the helm. The age gap was too vast and I was consequently too removed from her generation to fully appreciate what was going on in her universe. I didn’t encounter this so much when I was reading The Good Sister, but I attribute that to the historical fiction aspect of that particular story. I’ve noted with myself as a reader that I am affected by the ages of characters more when it’s a contemporary read. It’s almost as though as soon as a story is set in the past, things like age and what generation a person is cease to matter. Weird, I know, but what we don’t understand about ourselves we should just accept! Older readers will appreciate Isobel’s Promise, for sure, because I do think Maggie does a fine job at catering for the more mature audience who wants to read about characters experiencing life at a similar stage to themselves.
July 31, 2018
New Release Book Review: Hey Brother by Jarrah Dundler
About the Book:
Before leaving for war in Afghanistan, Shaun Black gives his little brother Trysten a mission of his own. Keep out of trouble.
Trysten tries, but with Mum hitting the bottle harder than ever and his dad not helping, Trysten responds the only way he knows how, with his fists – getting into a fight at school and lining up for another one with his uncle who’s come to stay.
When the family receives news that Shaun will be home for Christmas, Trysten is sure that good times are coming. But when Shaun returns, Trysten soon realises he has a whole new mission – to keep Shaun out of trouble.
Hey Brother tells the story of a tough kid from the bush whose world comes crashing down on his shoulders. But with his own blend of fury, resilience and deadpan humour, Trysten proves to be up for every challenge.
Shortlisted The Australian/Vogel’s Literary Award 2017 Australia
My Thoughts:
More often than not, the books I like the most prove the hardest to review. There can be a hundred reasons why I liked a book, but when it comes to articulating this with actual meaningful sentences, I end up with this:
I loved this novel.
That’s where I’m at with Hey Brother. Pushed to convey a bit more, I can stretch it to this:
I loved everything about this novel.
“Then she grabbed Shaun’s head, slammed it into her belly, threw her own head back and wailed. She wailed up into the night sky like she wanted every single one of those stars to feel her sadness and fury.”
Hey Brother is incredible. Honest in a raw emotional way that is quintessentially Australian. It’s full of swear words and insults and dodgy behaviour by adults but everything is so perfectly within context and delivered with such ease. Truly, Jarrah Dundler is an amazing writer; where has he been hiding? And wow, as far as a debut goes, I’m more than a little in awe. Jarrah’s bio indicates that he works as a peer support worker with people who have a lived experience of mental illness. He certainly brings this insight to the page with sensitivity and a brutal honesty that is at times uncomfortable but always entirely on the mark.
“Decisions, mate. That’s what defines you in the end. Some advice for ya – before you make one, try and give it a little thought beforehand, would ya? ‘Cause, believe me, regret’s a fucken cunt of a thing to live with.”
Hey Brother is a story about a family in crisis. They’re in crisis at the best of times, but another crisis hits them when Shaun, the eldest son, returns home from a tour of Afghanistan suffering PTS. Kirsty, his mum, is not stable herself and veers from highs where she cleans in a frenzy and bakes night and day to the lowest of lows where she lies on the couch for days under a sheet drinking herself into oblivion. Kirsty was sadly all too familiar to me and made me appreciate Jarrah’s insight all the more. Greg, his dad, lives in a caravan away from the house, hiding in his own filth and nursing a guilty conscience, communicating only with Trysten, Shaun’s younger brother, who acts as a go-between for his parents. Into this mix wanders Trev, Kirsty’s drug addicted alcoholic criminal brother who regularly shows up when he’s hankering after a place to stay. Trysten, our protagonist, is a tough little warrior, fourteen years old, well versed at fending for himself when his mum is mentally awol, sharp tongued but with the biggest heart of gold you could ever hope for in a son. He is, without a doubt, an iconic character. A true blue mate, defender to the end for those he loves. He just leapt off the page, his personality was so well defined. Characterisation is definitely one of Jarrah’s strong points. He has a unique ability to show the range of human traits that can exist within one person, the patches of this and that which all knit together to make a person who they are. And then he applies some pressure, and then a bit more, until one person becomes another, because that’s what can happen when breaking point is within reach. Every single character within this novel, from the major players through to the supporting cast, were wholly three dimensional. Living, breathing, flawed people. I would no sooner form an impression of someone and then Jarrah would pull the rug out from under me and I’d be reassessing, humbled for being so judgemental.
This novel was often funny, and even more often sad. I felt this constant welling of emotion while I was reading, the poignancy all too raw at times. The way Jarrah ended this novel was utterly perfect but it had me weeping. It was so incredibly moving. Hey Brother is about family, and not just the close bond between Shaun and Trysten. It’s about loving your tribe, no matter how imperfect they are, because they’re yours, and they’ve got your back. It’s about stepping up and saving each other instead of stepping back and watching the fall. And it’s about believing that life, no matter how dark the days get, is worth living. It’s always worth living. I feel changed by this novel, and grateful that Jarrah Dundler has given it to us.
“Our family. How we’d broken apart and come back together and how we might break apart again, but we’d always come back to the place that’d shaped us. Back home.”
July 30, 2018
New Release Book Review: The Botanist’s Daughter by Kayte Nunn
About the Book:
In Victorian England, headstrong adventuress Elizabeth takes up her late father’s quest for a rare, miraculous plant. She faces a perilous sea voyage, unforeseen dangers and treachery that threatens her entire family.
In present-day Australia, Anna finds a mysterious metal box containing a sketchbook of dazzling watercolours, a photograph inscribed ‘Spring 1886’ and a small bag of seeds. It sets her on a path far from her safe, carefully ordered life, and on a journey that will force her to face her own demons.
In this spellbinding botanical odyssey of discovery, desire and deception, Kayte Nunn has so exquisitely researched nineteenth-century Cornwall and Chile you can almost smell the fragrance of the flowers, the touch of the flora on your fingertips.
My Thoughts:
The Botanist’s Daughter by Kayte Nunn takes the reader back to a time and place where the interest in botanical medicine was gaining momentum. Plant based medicines, particularly the history of, is an interest of mine and when this novel popped up on my radar, I knew it was one I needed to read, especially once I found out about the author’s own passionate interest in botany. Usually, when an author has a passionate interest in the topic they are writing on, you can be assured you’re in for a good show. I highly recommend checking out Kayte’s Pinterest board on The Botanist’s Daughter. You can really see where she got much of her inspiration from and there’s a definite magic associated with seeing the novel come to life when you’re viewing all of the images she’s saved. Spending time looking at that was a great way to finish off this novel.
The Botanist’s Daughter is a time-slip narrative, or dual perspective if you prefer, where one character in the present day discovers a link to a person from the past and we become privy to two stories moving along within different eras. I absolutely loved this novel, both eras, both women, both journeys. It just hit the right note for me from the very beginning. The magic of finding a box with treasures from the past drew me in and held me captive. And the seeds! What a find, and how incredible that under Anna’s guiding green thumb, she got them to sprout after lying dormant for so long. It was this botanical aspect of the story that interested me the most. The quest for cuttings and seeds and the power of plants that stretches across the ages. More so though, the knowledge about the power of plants, because it’s one thing to have a plant that has useful properties, but it’s entirely another to understand its uses. Kayte tapped into this with intricate detail throughout this novel, highlighting how botanical art was also a source of information about the plants depicted, their origins and uses, the dangers and benefits. There was a lot more to this stream of art than pictures of pretty flowers.
“Anna was once again reminded of how extraordinarily long some plants had been around for, blooming, dying and blooming again across the centuries, seeds scattered on the wind, seedlings divided and shared, sold and replanted in foreign soil.”
The setting of Chile was vividly engaging and I applaud Kayte for how beautifully rendered this was. Likewise, Cornwall and Sydney both popped off the page, but it was the sections set in Chile that really swept me away. Our two leading ladies were a treat to spend time with, but if I’m honest, I preferred Anna, our modern day heroine to Elizabeth, our 19th century botanist. There was an arrogance to Elizabeth that proved to be her undoing. Throughout the story, her deception over her new friends and family unsettled me and it came as no surprise that this cost her dearly in the end. I lamented the fact that she hadn’t trusted in those around her when the true consequences of her stealth were realised. How easily things could have differed if she had confided in her husband and ensured he understood the danger that was lurking over them. But even she underestimated the greed associated with being the first botanist to bring a new and powerful plant out into the world. She miscalculated the urgency, and I think, to a certain degree, also felt guilty about the wrongness of what she was doing, which was essentially stealing a dangerous plant that she had obtained via means that were deceptive. My sense of foreboding that had been plaguing me was sadly realised but in a far more terrible way than I could have possibly envisaged. I did love Daisy, her loyal maid, who proved herself to be the most honourable and trustworthy of companions. Her steadfast promise to Elizabeth was honoured across the generations and I appreciated the way this linked the past with the present for Anna and her mother and sister. The way this story from the past played out was evidence of Kayte’s mastery over her own novel. She didn’t shy away from pulling the rug out from under us. It was a bold move, but it took The Botanist’s Daughter from being a good novel to a truly great one.
The Botanist’s Daughter is Kayte Nunn’s first novel of historical fiction and I have to say, she’s done a marvellous job of it. The novel moves along briskly with a full cast of characters, all doing their bit to tie the threads of this story together. We are treated to a spark of romance between Anna and a lovely gentleman who appears as the perfect match for her, but I do like how Kayte kept the focus on the family mystery and Anna’s journey to redefine her own life, rather than distracting from the main storyline with this romantic inkling. All in all, The Botanist’s Daughter is a novel that I recommend highly to lovers of historical fiction and all things botanical. The sumptuous cover with its beautiful images of birds and flowers extending into the inner jacket is equally as delightful as the story that it’s wrapped around.
July 29, 2018
New Release Book Review: Find You in the Dark by Nathan Ripley
About the Book:
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In this chilling and disquieting debut thriller perfect for fans of Caroline Kepnes’s Hidden Bodies and Jeff Lindsay’s Dexter series, a family man with a habit of digging up the past catches the attention of a serial killer who wants anything but his secrets uncovered.
For years, unbeknownst to his wife and teenage daughter, Martin Reese has been illegally buying police files on serial killers and obsessively studying them, using them as guides to find the missing bodies of victims. He doesn’t take any souvenirs, just photos that he stores in an old laptop, and then he turns in the results anonymously. Martin sees his work as a public service, a righting of wrongs.
Detective Sandra Whittal sees the situation differently. On a meteoric rise in police ranks due to her case-closing efficiency, Whittal is suspicious of the mysterious source she calls the Finder, especially since he keeps leading the police right to the bodies. Even if he isn’t the one leaving bodies behind, how can she be sure he won’t start soon?
On his latest dig, Martin searches for the first kill of Jason Shurn, the early 1990s murderer who may have been responsible for the disappearance of his wife’s sister. But when he arrives at the site, he finds more than just bones. There’s a freshly killed body—a young and missing Seattle woman—lying among remains that were left there decades ago. Someone else knew where Jason Shurn left the corpses of his victims…and that someone isn’t happy that Martin has been going around digging up his work. And when a crooked cop with a tenuous tie to Martin vanishes, Whittal begins to zero in on the Finder.
Hunted by a real killer and by Whittal, Martin realises that in order to escape, he may have to go deeper into the killer’s dark world than he ever thought…
My Thoughts:
It’s been many years and a lot of crime thrillers since a novel has frightened me as much as Find You In The Dark. The last novel that put such fear into me was Silence Of The Lambs, read back in the 1990s. Less of a ‘whodunit’ and more of a ‘how the heck is this all going to play out’ type of thriller, Find You In The Dark is a thrilling and terrifyingly clever story.
There’s a transparency to Find You In The Dark that really worked well in terms of ramping up that fright factor. It’s more about the twists and connecting the dots than not having a clue about who is doing what. I liked that I knew who the killer was. I liked that I knew exactly what Martin Reese was doing. All too often, thrillers seem to be aiming for that surprise perpetrator, the one person who seemed all above board suddenly being revealed as the resident psychopath. Sometimes this works, but sometimes it’s just tiresome and stretches believability. But, there is a very big difference between transparency and predictability, and Find You In The Dark is not at all predictable, in any way. The twists and connections being made never ceased to keep me on guard. Knowing who was doing what in no way prepared me for what they were going to be doing next. And believe me when I tell you, my shocked face was my regular face whenever I was reading this novel.
In terms of Martin Reese, he was an interesting character, infused with many shades of grey. Objectively speaking, he was a liar. He was also a pretender, excellent at projecting multiple versions of himself. For more than twenty years he had been hiding his hobby from his family, which to be frank, was completely understandable given how creepy weird it was. While I really liked Martin in terms of who he was within the context of his family, there was definitely something off about him. In terms of character development, Martin Reese was right up there with the best of them. Perfectly balanced in his creation, you couldn’t wholly like nor dislike him, he was just too complex for ordinary assessment. His ability to manipulate a situation to suit his own needs, combined with his intelligent foresight and meticulous attention to detail, gave me cause to both admire him and be terrified of him in equal measure. In the end, he proves himself as a family man, but the way he goes about it left me with no doubt that he was not a man to underestimate.
Detective Sandra Whittal was a character I enjoyed a lot. For thrillers to work for me, they need to have a police presence, as I lean more towards the police procedural line of crime thrillers more than the domestic noir. Whittal was as authentic as they come and I was as drawn into her obsession with Martin Reese just as much as she was. That transparency that I mentioned earlier really came into play here with Whittal. She figured out pretty early on that Martin was shady, she seemed to hover around the truth, connecting some of the dots smartly while missing others. In the background, her partner was beavering away at his own angle, knowing full well that while Sandra was on point about Martin, she was way off base in terms of the case at hand. The working dynamic between these two was solid. The personal dynamic was a little more complicated, but I really like where the author went with this.
Nathan has a great way of writing that gives every character, both primary and secondary, a three dimensional quality. I felt secure in my knowledge of each person, and they were all unique too, flawed and edgy. As to the serial killer, well, he really was well drawn out. He made my skin crawl. Human life was entirely expendable to him. His level of planning was beyond meticulous. This was a person who lived comfortably in the shadows, who had mastered living unseen. He was the ultimate puppeteer, which I found far more terrifying than a straight up killer who has little self control. This guy oozed control, both over himself and others. Despite being in a situation of his own making, I really felt sorry for Martin for having ever had the misfortune of putting himself into this guy’s line of sight.
I have read that this novel has had the rights sold for a TV production. It certainly has the plot complexity and character development to support coming to life on the small screen. I just hope we get to see it here in Australia if a show does come to fruition. Find You In The Dark throws out some thought provoking threads around right versus wrong and the repercussions associated with vigilante justice. I agree with Detective Whittal when it comes to Martin and his body finding extracurricular adventures. Despite what he kept telling himself, there was something more beneath the surface of his supposed public service actions:
“It means he sees the major part of what he does as something to be hidden away. Something about himself he wants to keep obscure, because it’s closely linked up to a deeply antisocial something or other about him. I think he’s more interested in what got these girls dead than he is in getting their corpses back into family hands.”
Thrilling and disturbing, Find You In The Dark gets my full recommendation.
July 28, 2018
Book A Day: The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
Day 11:
The English Patient
In 1992 this novel was one of two titles that won the Man Booker Prize for fiction and this year it took out the special 50th anniversary Golden Man Booker. Seems I’m not the only one who thinks it’s one of the greatest novels ever written.
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Haunting and harrowing, as beautiful as it is disturbing, The English Patient tells the story of the entanglement of four damaged lives in an Italian monastery as World War II ends. The exhausted nurse, Hana; the maimed thief, Caravaggio; the wary sapper, Kip: each is haunted by the riddle of the English patient, the nameless, burn victim who lies in an upstairs room and whose memories of passion, betrayal, and rescue illuminate this book like flashes of heat lightning. In lyrical prose informed by a poetic consciousness, Michael Ondaatje weaves these characters together, pulls them tight, then unravels the threads with unsettling acumen.
July 27, 2018
Book A Day: Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson
Day 10:
Snow Falling on Cedars
I bought this novel when it was released in its movie tie in format. Both the film and the novel are stunning. This is a story that is as simple as it is complex; deeply atmospheric in its isolated setting. The snow, so deep and never-ending, is one of the things I remember solidly from this novel. And regret. There was so much regret present, intermingled with tragedy. It has a permanent place on my shelves, but it might be one I need to dig out again to refresh on the details.
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Gripping, tragic, and densely atmospheric—a masterpiece of suspense which leaves us shaken and changed.
Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award 1995 and the American Booksellers Association Book of the Year Award
San Piedro Island, north of Puget Sound, is a place so isolated that no one who lives there can afford to make enemies. But in 1954 a local fisherman is found suspiciously drowned, and a Japanese American named Kabuo Miyamoto is charged with his murder. In the course of the ensuing trial, it becomes clear that what is at stake is more than a man’s guilt. For on San Piedro, memory grows as thickly as cedar trees and the fields of ripe strawberries—memories of a charmed love affair between a white boy and the Japanese girl who grew up to become Kabuo’s wife; memories of land desired, paid for, and lost. Above all, San Piedro is haunted by the memory of what happened to its Japanese residents during World War II, when an entire community was sent into exile while its neighbours watched. Gripping, tragic, and densely atmospheric, Snow Falling on Cedars is a masterpiece of suspense—one that leaves us shaken and changed.
July 26, 2018
Book A Day: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
Day 9:
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
I do love the Harry Potter series, the books just as much as the movies, and of course, I read the books first! The Prisoner of Azkaban is my favourite out of all of the books, and funnily enough, the movie is my favourite as well. I liked the character of Sirius Black, and I appreciated the twists and misconceptions that were woven into this story. I feel as though this one was a real coming of age/turning point for Harry, realising that he was not alone, and discovering some truths about his parent’s deaths. And then there’s Hermione, stepping through time like a champ – love that girl! All in all, this is the book I connected to most out of the whole series and it doesn’t matter how many times I’ve already watched the movie, I will still sit and watch this one again if it comes on TV, which it does quite regularly out here in regional TV land!
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Harry Potter’s third year at Hogwarts is full of new dangers. A convicted murderer, Sirius Black, has broken out of Azkaban prison, and it seems he’s after Harry. Now Hogwarts is being patrolled by the dementors, the Azkaban guards who are hunting Sirius. But Harry can’t imagine that Sirius or, for that matter, the evil Lord Voldemort could be more frightening than the dementors themselves, who have the terrible power to fill anyone they come across with aching loneliness and despair. Meanwhile, life continues as usual at Hogwarts. A top-of-the-line broom takes Harry’s success at Quidditch, the sport of the Wizarding world, to new heights. A cute fourth-year student catches his eye. And he becomes close with the new Defense of the Dark Arts teacher, who was a childhood friend of his father. Yet despite the relative safety of life at Hogwarts and the best efforts of the dementors, the threat of Sirius Black grows ever closer. But if Harry has learned anything from his education in wizardry, it is that things are often not what they seem. Tragic revelations, heartwarming surprises, and high-stakes magical adventures await the boy wizard in this funny and poignant third installment of the beloved series.
July 25, 2018
New Release Book Review: The Imperial Tea Party by Frances Welch
About the Book:
Written with Frances Welch’s famously waspish eye for detail, this is another fascinating, percipient, revelatory and often quite hilariously funny book from the master of Russian history.
Russia and Britain were never natural bedfellows. But the marriage, in 1894, of Queen Victoria’s favourite granddaughter, Alicky, to the Tsarevich Nicholas marked the beginning of an uneasy Anglo-Russian entente that would last until the Russian Revolution of 1917.
As Frances Welch recounts in her inimitable wry style, the three extraordinary meetings that took place during those years, although well-intentioned and generally hailed as successes, were beset by misunderstandings and misfortunes. Whether it was the Romanovs suffering the draughty rooms and wet hunting expeditions at Balmoral, or Queen Victoria complaining about the food on her first and only state visit to the Russian Empire at the port of Revel, or everyone succumbing to seasickness on arrival at Osbourne House on the Isle of Wight.
The two families could not know, as they waved each other fond goodbyes from their yachts at Cowes in 1909, that they would never meet again. King George infamously denied his Romanov cousins exile in Britain when the Bolsheviks were closing in in 1917, but the assassination of the Tsar and his family horrified him, and whether or not things might have turned out differently if he had accepted their plea for refuge has been the subject of speculation ever since.
The British and Russian Royal Families met three times before the Romanovs’ tragic end in 1918. The Imperial Tea Party draws back the curtain on those pivotal encounters between these two great dynasties; encounters that had far reaching consequences for 19th century Europe and beyond.
My Thoughts:
My endless fascination with Queen Victoria initially prompted my interest in this book, although of course, given the date ranges of the book, Queen Victoria is only in the first section, because spoiler alert, she died in 1901 and this book still had another 17 years left. My interest waned after this, despite Alicky being Queen Victoria’s favourite granddaughter. She lacked the spark of her grandmother and the author gave the impression of a dour woman who struggled to find favour with very much at all. My interest did pick up again in the last thirty pages which detailed the demise and eventual tragic assassination of the Romanov family, along with insight into their supposed betrayal by King George.
This book veered from being heavily political to lightly mundane, never really settling into any space in between, although it had a unique gossipy feel to the writing that conveyed a polished knowledge of the subject matter by the author. You absolutely cannot fault the detailed research and there are many photographs and primary sources such as letters and menus included which made for fascinating perusal. As a resource for expanding your knowledge on the Russian-British royal relations from 1894 through to 1918, this would prove to be a very useful book indeed.
July 24, 2018
New Release Book Review: A Superior Spectre by Angela Meyer
About the Book:
Jeff is dying. Haunted by memories and grappling with the shame of his desires, he runs away to remote Scotland with a piece of experimental tech that allows him to enter the mind of someone in the past. Instructed to only use it three times, Jeff – self-indulgent, isolated and deteriorating – ignores this advice.
In the late 1860s, Leonora lives a contented life in the Scottish Highlands, surrounded by nature, her hands and mind kept busy. Contemplating her future and the social conventions that bind her, a secret romantic friendship with the local laird is interrupted when her father sends her to stay with her aunt in Edinburgh – an intimidating, sooty city; the place where her mother perished.
But Leonora’s ability to embrace her new life is shadowed by a dark presence that begins to lurk behind her eyes, and strange visions that bear no resemblance to anything she has ever seen or known…
A Superior Spectre is a highly accomplished debut novel about our capacity for curiosity, and our dangerous entitlement to it, and reminds us the scariest ghosts aren’t those that go bump in the night, but those that are born and create a place for themselves in the human soul.
My Thoughts:
“The historical richness of Outlander meets the dystopian feminism of Margaret Atwood in this highly accomplished book from the most exciting debut novelist of 2018 – Angela Meyer.”
The first thing I want to say about A Superior Spectre is this: do not go into this novel thinking it is anything at all like Outlander. It’s not. It’s a curious blend of science fiction and historical fiction, the resulting story presenting as a cautionary tale with gothic leanings about the perils of greed and power alongside the misuse of science. It’s startlingly clever yet intensely discomforting and it should possibly come with a content warning as it has the potential to upset some readers.
Jeff is the most vile creature I have ever come across in a novel. His self flagellation did nothing to balance out the perversion of his desires, it just made him even more contemptible. He is given a device which enables him to indulge in a digitised neural experience (DNE), a futuristic invention akin to time travel for your mind. Yet, because he is dying, he doesn’t follow the instructions and overuses it to the point where he has invaded the mind of a young Scottish woman living in the late 1860s, whose connection to him slowly sends her mad. Jeff’s entire life has been about him, every step of the way, so it stands to reason that he will die that way: self absorbed and self indulgent. He disgusted me and once his ‘desires’ became apparent, I will admit to distancing myself from his sections. And yet, Jeff’s sections were quite an accomplishment for the author. When you have a character who is so repulsive, reader instinct is to turn away. I felt like Jeff was trying to make us feel for him, while at the same time, the author was giving us every reason not to. It was an interesting dynamic.
With Leonora, I was fully invested in her journey. These historical sections were so steeped in atmosphere and authenticity. There was a gothic element to the setting and the sense of Victorian restraint was ever present. To me, there was a Dracula kind of feel to this part of the story, with Leonora’s mind being inexplicably invaded while her body became infused with sensation and desire. I liked this blend of the gothic historical with science fiction. It was so unique and provided a solid canvas for the author to explore many themes, most notably, the abuse of power within the context of male privilege and the idea that female promiscuity is linked with mental instability.
“We cannot do this, or it will create some external evidence of my madness. A woman who has burst from her corset, from the cage of her bones. That’s what it feels like, like I am uncontained and spreading out.”
Leonora was oppressed, in so many ways, and Jeff seemed to take it upon himself to ‘enrich’ her by infusing her with his own memories and desires. Yet he oppressed her further and it was incredibly sad to see her unravelling under his influence. And infuriating as well. I was so angry at him, wishing he would just get on with the business of dying and leave her in peace, which was what he was wishing as well! I was also angry at the other men in Leonora’s life. Her father, who simply wanted to get rid of her so he could have a new life with his new wife; Oskar, who wanted to indulge in her sexuality yet despised her for it; William, who betrayed her confidence in him. Leonora suffered in the way so many women have throughout the ages: she was not permitted to live freely, to simply be herself.
“I want to live in the Highlands – to have physical duties but to be free in my thoughts, to use my hands while my mind has time to draw connections between ideas.”
I very much liked the ending of this novel. It rounded things out for all of the characters and provided closure for the reader. I don’t mind an open ended finish but I was pleased the author avoided that in this case. A Superior Spectre is a clever piece of literary fiction. I feel there will be resistance to and adulation heaped upon this novel in equal spades. It will depend on how you approach it, but an open mind will lead to a greater appreciation.
