In the Shadow of Blackbirds - Cat Winters

A candidate for the William Morris Debut Award, In the Shadow of Blackbirds tells the story of young Mary Shelley Black's dark adventure as she flees Portland, Oregon during the fall of 1918. Her father has been swept up in the anti-German hysteria that reigned during WWI here in America. He has been arrested on treason charges and she is left to flee to San Diego to live with her Aunt Eva until his case can be settled.

This novel is full to brimming with so much historical detail that it makes it hard to believe. It's more a comment on the history of the time all wrapped up in a ghost story. Mary Shelley becomes re-acquainted with a boy she knew as a youngster. Stephen Embers has grown up to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather. He has become an excellent photographer. However, his brother has inherited the photography business, and Julius is trying to cash in on the grief-stricken families of those lost during the trench warfare in Europe. He has branched into the area of spiritualism by photographing family survivors with the 'ghosts ' of their loved ones. Stephen hates this kind of exploitation, so he leaves the family business and enlists in the Army.

Mary Shelley is left to wait for the return of her friend. When news of his death in the trenches arrives, she begins having strange nightmares, visitations, and psychic sensations that hint at a much more complicated death for Stephen. Against her Aunt Eva's instruction, she embarks on a dangerous mission to solve the mystery of Stephen's death and let his soul rest, knowing that she has made things right here in the physical world.

Mixed up in all this mystery is the real-life danger of the Spanish Flu pandemic that was sweeping the world during this time. Death seems to stalk everyone here in the physical world and in the spiritual world of Stephen Embers. Mary Shelley must go out into the chaotic world of flu-stricken San Diego in order to ask questions, research the science of photography and Spiritualism, interview young veterans of the war to try to find the answers to the mystery of just what happened to her first love when he entered the service and found himself deep in the bloody trenches of France.

While a neatly told story, I had trouble with the first person narrative. It's not my favorite type of story exposition, so I struggled with all the "I's". I also found the concept of a 16 year old girl being given the freedom to travel alone, roam the streets of San Diego whenever, go in and out of Red Cross hospitals, not attend school, etc. hard to believe. That's fiction for you, though. What's unbelievable is wrapped and packaged into a good story. This is a good story. It just would have benefited from some more work to make it a better story. As a debut novel, it shows the potential of Cat Winters. I'm hoping that she changes up her POV in her next writing endeavor and focuses her overall story line a bit more. We'll see!

In the meantime, the novel fit well into the R.I.P...X reading challenge, as well as my annual goal of reading more award-winning YA and children's literature. If you hit the above link, you can see what other participants are sharing for their R.I.P...X reading challenge posts. This is a fun annual challenge ... check it out!

The Winter People - Jennifer McMahon

I was initially drawn to this audiobook because the turn of the seasons makes me crave mystery and ghost stories. I love listening to audio books, as I work around the kitchen so McMahon's creepy story about wishing a loved one back from the dead seemed a perfect distraction from canning tomatoes and making mincemeat for winter pies.

The story opens with a young couple living at the turn of the century in a small Vermont farming community. It's wintertime and bitterly cold. Food's a bit scarce, the farmhouse is drafty, but Martin, Sara, and their daughter, Gertie are making ends meet. Martin hunts in the woods behind the farmhouse, determined to care for his little family. The growing season is short and the fields are rocky, but martin ekes out a living for them. We read of one fall day when he returns to the house, having found a ruined homestead deep in the woods. He's found a bone ring that he gives to Sara. Her reaction is strong and definite ... get the ring out of the house and go bury it, return it to the earth. But Martin doesn't. He holds onto it ... his first mistake.

The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern

How ironic that a young woman whose name translates "Morningstar' has written such a magical tale about the night.  Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus is an enthralling tale of love, twisted ambition, mystery and obsession, but mostly it's a tale of controlling one's dreams, visions and future. All these themes are wrapped up in a story about a magical circus that appears mysteriously at the turn of the 20th century and travels the world, attracting a cast of really memorable characters.

Celia and Marco are two very talented and sensitive young people taken into tutelage under older and far more experienced teachers ... magicians, illusionists, one might say, madmen. They are bonded at a young age to be in competition with each other. BUT WHY? AND HOW?

The Night Circus becomes the playing field for these two to begin molding a surreal and completely entrancing experience for the public, a circus like no other. This circus magically appears in places all over the world. It opens its gate at night and closes at dawn. Its troupe of artists include the most talented of acrobats, illusionists, fortunetellers, lion tamers and animal trainers. The characters become intertwined in their circus lives, as Celia and Marco produce tent after tent of increasingly intricate magical experience for circus-goers. What begins as a way for them to hone their considerable talents becomes a glorious collaboration of love. BUT ... and that's a big but ... their mentors have had other plans for their future and that future has no place for them to be together. One must extinguish the other in some fashion.

The fate of The Night Circus rests in how Marco and Celia respond to this more urgent challenge. They have come to cherish their mates in the circus troupe, respect and care for the public and the legions of reveurs (dreamers) who follow the circus from place to place. How can they put this warped challenge to rest and save the circus?

I loved this read. It's a debut book by Ms. Morgenstern and is soon to be a motion picture with a proposed fall 2015 release. I think I will be glad that I read the book before seeing the movie. There is so much depth and 'premise' to the words of her story that I frankly have problems envisioning how it will be made visual and how dialogue will be able to convey the intricacy of the story. I fear it will lose much of the magic of the novel.  The settings are so incredibly rich in imagination that each reader is bound to have strong images in mind. The characters, too, are well described and in the case of the main characters well-developed so seeing a movie casting director's vision may be disturbing when one has one's own concept of the character. And just how can that magical circus clock of Herr Thiessen's be conveyed through film ? I just don't know ... but I suppose time will tell.

This is the first book reaction linked with this year's RIP X literary event. See details at The Estella Society blog to read other reactions/reviews and/or to join with other lovers of Gothic, mystery, horror,  and fantasy genres.

R.I.P. X - Fall's Annual Spooky Read Challenge Is Here!

Oh, goodie! It's here again! The autumnal tradition of reading all things spooky, eerie, Gothic, horrific! This year I'm starting by listening to the audio version of The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon. It's pretty creepy because it takes place in Vermont, which is practically right next door ! It's also a classic ghost story ... perfect for the first fall storms and blustery leaves!

I love the R.I.P. challenge. Originally begun by Carl Anderson of Stainless Steel Droppings, it has been taken on by Andi and Heather over at The Estella Society. For complete details on participating in the different levels of this year's R.I.P. challenge, check out their post ... and then get ready to choose your poison, stack up your creepy reads and get busy!

I'll be finishing my audio book and moving on to a good murder mystery ... stay tuned !

The Ocean At The End of The Lane - Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman has an incredible imagination. Let that be said.

In The Ocean At The End Of The Lane, he has given us a story, that at first glance, can be taken as a fantastical adventure in which a young boy faces powers of both good and evil during a painful time in his life. The story seems a sort of fairy tale memory that is told in retrospect when a man returns to his childhood home for a family funeral. As he wanders down the road from his childhood home and comes to the land that belonged to the neighboring family, he returns to a particularly trying time when his parents took in boarders, his mother was forced to return to work, and a strange and evil nanny came to stay. The young boy takes refuge in a friendship with a girl who lives on a neighboring farm. The friendship takes on magical elements that spiral into the mystical and fantastic. In the process, the young boy learns hard truths about adults and their human frailties, faith and trust in friends and family, and courage in facing evil.

Hard lessons are learned that cave in the 'pillars' that have supported his young life. We can't always count on our parents to keep us safe, sometimes trusted adults don't live up to our expectations, learning to trust again is a necessity to surviving psychologically, friends sometimes go away, sometimes we do things when we're afraid that we regret, sometimes it takes great bravery to face our fears.

This is a book that could easily be read as an archetypal take on the fairy tale, but it can also be picked apart and thought about on much deeper levels ... I will admit that it spooked me and made me wonder about the adults that I remember interacting with in my neighborhood when I was very young. My experience of their lives was just so very naive and, while I never experienced true evil or danger, there were some close encounters with sickness and eccentricity in some neighbors that I was reminded of while reading this book.

Neil Gaiman intrigues me. Let that be said.

The Witches - Roald Dahl

We always did read-aloud time in our family. All three of the kids were read to right up through elementary school and into middle school, too. Consequently, I miss reading aloud and being read to!

The popularity of books on tape, though, never really caught on with me until I retired and found myself home alone, the kids having grown and flown. Nowadays, you can usually find an audio book on the kitchen table with an accompanying book. I listen to audio books while I cook or putter in the kitchen at dishes and housework. 

The past couple days have been great fun, as I've reacquainted myself with Roald Dahl's fun adventure story called The Witches. This is the perfect read/listen for the Halloween season! I've known the story for ages, as the kids read it when they were young and we used to watch the movie adaptation of the book every Halloween. Anjelica Huston is just so perfect in the character of the Grand High Witch!

When I first joined in on this year's Readers (R) Imbibing (I) Peril (P) reading challenge at Carl Anderson's Stainless Steel Droppings blog (see link here RIP-IX reading event,) I noticed the title of Dahl's kid classic as the number one entry on the link up page. "Oh!, I thought, I haven't thought about that old story in sooo long!"  That's when I knew I'd seek out an audio version of the book to see how it would feel to have it read to me! 

What fun! The version I received from my public library's inter-library loan program is quite old, but the CD's are still in pretty good condition. The story is narrated by the actor, Ron Keith. He does a great job. It was really fun to hear his voice develop 'a smile' in it when he read particularly funny or clever parts of the story. You can hear the delight he is taking in the story and that adds to the charm of the experience.

I found myself cheering on the young protagonist of the story, as he came face to face with the dreaded witches that his dear grandmother warned him of in her many stories and tales of witches that live right among us! Imagine the smarts and derring-do it would take to outsmart a whole convention of withces! Therein lies the fun in Dahl's fast-moving romp of a story! It's a delight and one book that most elementary kids would love to experience! It's the perfect Halloween week read!

RIP IX - A Little Something Different

I have discovered, through a fellow blogger, a new graphic novelist/artist - Emily Carroll has done some truly interesting stuff with the horror genre. Here is a taste of her work, no pun intended. The piece is called Out of Skin and appears on here website. Check it out!

Her first book is called Through the Woods and is a collection of short horror stories that are made incredibly powerful because of her imagery.  I believe Out of Skin is included in the book. Really. Check it out! The book is intended for young adults and older. You'll see why when you get a look. It would be far too scary for youngsters.

Emily Carroll's webpage offering

This book and the website are the perfect addition to my reading and looking challenge at Carl's literary event called RIP IX. This is horror of the first order - spare words, strong images, and a lasting creepy impression. Good work, Emily Carroll!

Shutter Island - Dennis Lehane

I can honestly say that this book creeped me out in a very big way. It's 9 AM in the morning and I have spent the last three hours turning pages because I just HAD to get Terry Daniels, US Marshal off that evil rock of an island safe and sound. UH OH ... government conspiracy theory may go out the window. Wait, what? WHAT?

This is a book so horrifying because it hits you right where you are the most vulnerable - your fear of losing control and your grip on reality.  Loss of control is the scariest of scary situations for most people. It's what causes the panic for anyone who has a phobia. It's the premise behind strapping you into hellish amusement park rides, It's the dirty little secret behind why we inwardly squirm and steer clear from people who are obviously delusional. Being out of control or being in a situation where we have given control over to others who don't honor our vulnerability is terrifying. What's equally terrifying is being with someone who you think is solid, only to find that they are a quivering mass of psychoses. What seems real turns out to be unreal. What's unreal is the comforting way you wish things would continue. BUT ... if things go bad with the unreal situation , then what? THEN WHAT ?

US Marshal, Terry Daniels is a rock of a guy - smart, strong, always thinking. He's had his hard knocks in life. He's seen the worst of fighting and liberation activities during WWII. He's slowly bounced back from a drinking problem that he hangs on a case battle fatigue and become an esteemed US Marshal. He's slowly recovered from the tragic death of his wife in a horrid apartment fire. But he misses her and remains obsessed with finding the worthless dirtbag that set the building on fire. On top of it all, he's sent to Shutter Island to investigate the disappearance/escape of a deranged inmate. This, while actually doing undercover investigating for a US Senator into the top-secret psychiatric experiments that the staff are performing on inmates at the facility. This is a recipe for a classic cop thriller, but readers get more than they bargained for here ... and that's all I'm going to say about that.

Lehane has given his fans a story that will haunt them and make them return to the book to ponder Daniels, his partner, the doctors, the inmates, the events on Shutter Island and ultimately, the nature of reality and how we perceive it, deal with it, and live with it.

Shutter Island certainly fits with a current literary challenge that I've hooked up with ... RIP IX and I'll be sharing this reaction with the others at the review site.

RIP IX - Heart-Shaped Box - Joe Hill

" Horror is rooted in sympathy, after all, in understanding what it would be like to suffer the worst."

                                                                                                                        - Joe Hill

Judas Coyne has seen his share of  'the road'. He's spent years running from a horrible childhood in a podunk region of Louisiana. He's become a hardened, jaded, heavy metal rocker with a following of Goth groupies who he identifies by the states from which they've run. He's toured extensively and spent years on the road with his band, his groupies, his hangers-on, and his team of lackeys. He's a hardened man with a penchant for all things dark and creepy, so when his assistant suggests that he buy a ghost as a gimmick, well, what the Hell. And Hell is just what arrives at the door via UPS.

When a dark suit arrives in a large box, Jude thinks he's been taken for a sucker. Poor guy. Within hours, a presence establishes itself and it means no good for any involved with Jude. As for Jude? The elderly man making his presence known means to take Jude for a ride on 'the night road' - a ride that will take him straight to Hell.

Joe Hill's story might just have gone all gory and ghoulish, like so many other schlocky horror reads and don't get me wrong, it does have its moments of gore and disgust. Hill redeemed himself in my eyes, though, because he spent so much time exploring Jude's relationship with his girlfriend. Marybeth, otherwise known as Georgia, might go the way of all Jude's other 'lovers', but for the ghostly presence of 'Old Man Craddock'.  Marybeth and Jude are bonded when they are faced with defending themselves from the hatred of a ghostly father of one of Jude's previous 'girls'. What they face forces them to look at each other, the past life of the girl that Jude 'sent home' to Craddock, their own individual pasts, and the horrid future they face if they can't help right wrongs that must be reconciled. Jude's character undergoes an awakening that leads him to recognize just how flawed his life has been when it comes to women. He re-evaluates how he treated 'Florida', Craddock's daughter and in so doing, he recognizes a dark secret that Anna had - a secret that destroyed their relationship and brought on a tragic sequence of events. Jude, with Marybeth's love and support, finally does the right thing.

This was a pretty good audio book. I listened to it on a road trip out to New York and during meal prep time at home ... Stephen Lang did the reading and was fine in the character of Jude Coyne. The producers provided these edgy, sawing guitar riffs that began each CD ... it always put me on edge and served to get me a bit tetchy before beginning to listen to the story - a good trick. 

No spoilers, here. All I'll say is that it ends well.

shared at the review site for RIP IX - check it out and join the reading!

20th Century Ghosts - Joe Hill

I have discovered Joe Hill. During the day, I listen to Heart-Shaped Box on audio as I putter about in the kitchen, but at night, I have been enjoying his collection of short stories called 20th Century Ghosts.

I've curled deep in the covers before bedtime and read about a young girl whose spirit haunts a movie theater and who inspires the people who have seen and spoken to her to keep the theater open at all costs. Do spirits sometimes require us to maintain their earthly dwelling place? After living in a house in Rowley, Massachusetts that was haunted by an elderly man who became quite disturbed at some renovations that we were making, I related to this story.

Another story tells of a boy who has agonized over a childhood prank that had dire consequences and the haunting disappearance of the friend that urged him to commit the dangerous act. The fact that the boy's brother may have caused the friend's disappearance compounds the enormity of the boy's fearful guilt. Yes, guilt is a haunting emotion that can poison one's life.

I've read about a deranged father whose superstition regarding vampires destroys his family and ultimately leads to a darker deed. Are there really vampires hunting us? Hmmm ...

I've squirmed through a story about a murderous kidnapper who has the tables turned on him by one of his many victims. That particular story was the creepiest to me, for what mother doesn't have heart palpitations at the thought of one of her children being taken by a stranger with evil intent?

There seems no end to the dark imagination of Joe Hill and this time of year is the perfect time to light some candles, soften the other lights and enjoy a spooky read. Horror and mystery are not my usual chosen genres. Putting myself in an uncomfortable place as a reader is all for a purpose, though! It's time to participate in Carl's annual literary challenge called RIP IX, a book/story/movie share of all things mystical, horrific, Gothic, murderous, and fantastical. 20th Century Ghosts is the first of my offerings, not a new book or a new author, but new to me and my tender sensibilities! Next up, Heart-Shaped Box !

To join in the reading fun, hit the link for Carl's RIP IX post that I created above and check out all the options for participating ... there's a lot of good creepy reading out there! September and October are ripe for a jaunt through the genres of horror, mystery, crime series, Gothic horror, psychological thrillers, et cetera! Come on ... double dog dare you!

A Spooky Reading Challenge - R.I.P. IX

Okay, I'm up for this! Fall is here and before you know it Halloween will be knocking on our doors and rattling the window latches. Leave it to Carl to spur me to dig a bit into the murky, muddy, malevolent depths of the genres of fantasy, horror, mystery, Gothic romance, suspense, and real-life non-fiction mayhem. His seasonal literary challenge is called R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril and it runs through September and October. Visit his site called Stainless Steel Droppings  (cursor over blog title = link to site) to read about all the options for participating in this literary blogshare!

I am always impressed by Carl's level of preparation for his literary events. The badges are clever and really beautiful. He is always diligent in catching up with his participants. His themes are always fun and wide open to different readers' interpretations. To boot, he always promotes good dialogue between his various participants.

I'm opting to participate on a few levels. Thus far, I have an audio version of Joe Hill's haunting thriller called Heart-Shaped Box, Dennis Lehane's creepy psychological cop story called Shutter Island, a collection of spooky short stories by Joe Hill called 20th Century Ghosts, and finally a movie edition of Susan Hill's novel called The Woman in Black that stars Daniel Radcliffe. These titles and the movie should give me a few creeps ... I'm also looking for a real-life story that will creep me out. Suggestions anyone? I've already read Helter Skelter, In Cold Blood, and The Devil in the White City ...

So ... that's my scary reading list for the next couple months. What are you planning to check out as Halloween approaches? Check out Carl's blog to see about this neat reading share!