Book Review: THE SUBLET

Title: The Sublet: A Short Story

Author: Greer Hendricks

Publisher: Amazon Original Stories

Pages: 61

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐

 

Aspiring novelist Anne, overworked and harried mother of 9-year-old twins Ben and Beatrice and devoted wife of Paul, has a gig ghostwriting The Well, the book of celebrity self-help guru Melody Wells. For all her ease manifesting abundance, Melody can’t seem to manifest her book.

When Melody points Anne and her husband in the direction of an apartment that would be perfect for their growing family, Anne is thrilled. But very soon, she learns that Melody’s intentions may not be as honest as she thought.

 

The tone of the story was mostly calm and unhurried. When Anne drives herself off to a particular location, we get a hint that the pace might be about to pick up, but that doesn't happen.

The author doesn’t mention a surname for Anne and Paul. The lack of a surname may be irrelevant to other readers, but it is a pet peeve of mine.

None of the characters were well developed. There was nothing nuanced about Anne or Melody.

Melody never exuded any kind of menace. Nor did the house for that matter, though it seemed that the author was trying to project it as some kind of haunted house. There was nothing creepy about it.

The new house projected no aura of danger. The kids didn’t feel a thing. They could all have lived there without sensing any danger.

I couldn’t see the point of the story. The blurb says weird things start to happen but that is not really true. All in all, their life seemed rather pleasant.

It was odd that the couple went looking for a new home, leaving their kids behind alone. No babysitter. Just two nine-year-olds by themselves for an extended period of time.

The only thing the book managed to do was to present the fakeness of the celebrity wellness culture.

What was the point of the mysterious locked closet? It was a Chekhov’s gun that wasn’t fired.

Anne bemoans that she is a chauffeur, nurse, teacher, cook and a plethora of roles rolled into one. Her tone indicated that she was one-of-a-kind, but ask any mother, those are the roles we all do.

There are far too many pop culture references. Modern Family, Matthew Perry, Anne Hathaway, Nicole Kidman, Mont Blanc, Squid Games, to name a few. Beyond a point, it seemed like a lot of name-dropping.

There is nothing scary about the big reveal.

 

(I read this book on NetGalley. Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.) 

Book Review: THE BABY EXCHANGE

Title: The Baby Exchange

Author: Hannah Parry

Publisher: Hannah Parry

Pages: 284

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

 

Mae Miller is not in a good space. One of her two best clients, child actor Raphael Cooper, is undergoing dialysis and is out of work. Her other best client, best friend Billy Mac, is being poached by big talent agent Matthias Bloom, her mother is suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease and she has no money for her care. When Mae discovers that she is pregnant as a result of a one-night stand (it’s a cryptic pregnancy and she is 37 weeks along), it seems like nothing could possibly get worse.

Hoping to earn some money and get her child adopted, Mae contacts reality TV show, The Baby Exchange. At first, all she cares about is the money. But over the next few days, the baby becomes increasingly real to her. Will Mae exchange her baby for money?

 

As an idea, the premise was novel. But the execution left me feeling dissatisfied.

 

The book was plagued with excessive description. The book even began with unnecessary description before introducing the Main Character and then giving us irrelevant details about her day so far. Thereafter, it persisted with giving us long descriptions of nearly every character and location, even going to the extent of describing TV sets and the outfits of minor characters.

 

I did warm up to Mae in time, once I realized that she was only 24, still young and not quite capable of handling the problems she was faced with. But the extended and unnecessary introduction to her life didn’t work for me. Also, her refusal to answer the calls of Raphael’s mother Adele, despite knowing that Rafa was seriously ill, made her appear inhuman.

On the other hand, characters like Elsa, Mae’s mother, Israel, her caregiver, and the women at the reality show, Aphrodite, Tamara, Scarlett etc. are flat, each a replica of the other.

I liked the bond between Mae and Billy Mac. Billy had some potential but the plot didn’t give him much of an opportunity to shine. As an antagonist, Bloom was weak. The presence of Padma Rao, Indian-American, helped to check the diversity box.

 

The author makes the setting, Hollywood, come alive, not so much physically but as a presence throughout the story. She refers to Hollywood as a “tawdry city with its tinsel surface and anorexic underbelly.”

I also appreciated her similes:

She hurled the words at him like they were dinner plates.

His voice was as empty as the desert at dawn before the wind rose.

 

The humour is subtle. We see one example of it when the nurse tells Mae to breathe and the 3^rd person narrator tells us that Mae “wasn’t aware that she had stopped”.

 

As a light-hearted read about a young girl who finds that being an adult is financially quite draining, it was fun. But there were many issues that needed to be resolved.

As late as the 10 percent mark, we were still getting background information about Mae’s childhood in a foster home, her mother’s institutionalization, her work as a casting agent and her mother's Alzheimer's Disease. The plot of the book doesn’t start till the 11 percent mark when Mae learns that she is pregnant.

 

The names Mae and Billy Mac were just too similar. There is a child actor called Raphael, affectionately called Rafa, and a nurse called Raya. They don’t have any scenes together but why in a world of a billion names, must their names sound so alike?

 

Joe, Mae’s neighbour, brings her a crumpled piece of paper that, he says, fell out of her handbag. The narrator tells us that the paper came from a fortune-teller machine at the beach. But Mae never went to any such machine. Where did the paper come from then?

 

It was odd that the doctor didn’t call her in for regular checkups, didn’t give her a list of things she could or couldn’t do, didn’t schedule any blood or diagnostic tests or sonograms.

 

I was disappointed with the resolution.

 

 

(I read this book on NetGalley. Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.) 

Book Review: THE ABANDONMENT OF HANNAH ARMSTRONG (BOOK ONE: SARATOGA WOODS)

Title: The Abandonment of Hannah Armstrong (Book One: Saratoga Woods)

Author: Elizabeth George

Publisher: Elizabeth George

Pages: 407

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

 

I signed up to read Saratoga Woods because I’m a big fan of Elizabeth George and enjoy reading her Inspector Lynley series. But I couldn’t quite get into this one at the beginning. It was a slow start.

 

When 14-year-old Hannah Armstrong’s stepfather, Jeff Corrie, turns out to be a criminal, a fact she learns about because she has the power to hear people’s thoughts, her mother, Laurel Armstrong, uproots them from California to Whidbey Island, near Seattle. With a new name, the young girl, now Becca King, is sent to live with her mom’s old friend, Carol Quinn, who has promised to shelter her.

When Becca reaches Whidbey Island, she learns that Carol has died of a heart attack. With Laurel unavailable on the burner phone, Becca has nowhere to go in a strange town.

When Derric, a new friend, has a nasty fall on a bike trail, he goes into a coma. The town sheriff, Dave Mathieson, who is also Derric’s adoptive father, is sure that the young girl who called 911, the owner of the burner phone, has something to do with the accident. Will Becca be able to stay out of trouble, or will it come looking for her?

It is up to Becca to sort through the confusion in her own mind, and stay afloat and out of trouble until her mom returns for her, while solving the mystery of who might have wanted to hurt Derric.

 

This is a coming-of-age story with fantasy elements. Besides Becca, there is another character who might have a supernatural power. But where the other person has the gift under control, Becca is still figuring out her way around it.

The story is written in the 3^rd person omniscient PoV. The writing is more tell than show, which is the author’s style, but I still enjoyed it.

Here’s a sample of her metaphors:

The idea of missing someone was like the swooping of a bird too close to her face.

She came into the room like a tractor rolling over a field.

Debbie gave him the kind of look a teacher gives to a kid when she suspects there are lice crawling in his hair.

 

Elizabeth does a great job recreating Whidbey Island in our minds, a place where everyone knows everyone else.

 

In her most vulnerable state, Becca encounters a slew of characters. There’s Debbie Grieder, who offers her shelter in her motel, Diana Kinsale who is sympathetic towards her, Seth Darrow, a school dropout and musician who helps her, and Derric Mathieson, a boy from Uganda who she finds fascinating. Then there’s Jenn McDaniels who can’t stand Becca, Hayley Cartwright, Seth’s former girlfriend who he suspects broke up with him on account of Derric, Debbie’s grandchildren, Josh and Chloe, Seth’s grandfather, Ralph, and his dog, Gus, and Derric’s parents.

 

As befitting a series, Becca has individual subplots with Seth, Debbie, Diana, Derrick, Josh, Chloe and Jenn. Seth has subplots with Hayley, her parents, grandfather Ralph, dog Gus and Derric.

 

The stories of these characters converge in multiple ways. For the greater part, it all seems like delicate wisps of unconnected threads. It’s only at the end that they come together.

The first description we get for Becca comes from the most minor of minor characters and it’s not flattering, but by then, we’ve bonded so well with her, we don’t care. We feel sorry for Becca, stranded in a strange place with no safety net.

 

While I loved the book, there were some things that rankled. There are multiple characters whose names begin with the letter D. There’s Debbie Grieder, Diana Kinsale, Seth Darrow and Derric Mathieson. Why did the author flout the fundamental rule of not naming characters after the same letter?

I couldn’t understand the significance of the Paul Revere poem that Laurel keeps repeating, when she doesn’t want her daughter to listen to her thoughts. Perhaps its meaning will be clearer in the subsequent books.

The mystery of who pushed Derric hinges on a footprint but it’s odd that the police don’t ever latch on to that clue. The mystery itself is a slow burn; who hurt Derric takes a backseat to who was the girl who made the call to the police station.

 

While the main plot of this book ends on a successful note, the overarching story in the series shows up on the very last page, making the way for Book 2. I look forward to the next one in the series.

 

(I read this book on NetGalley. Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.) 

Book Review: THE UNDOING OF VIOLET CLAYBOURNE

Title: The Undoing of Violet Claybourne

Author: Emily Critchley

Publisher: Zaffre

Pages: 349

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

 

 

I love stories about houses, and so when this story came up, I was excited to read and review it.

 

When the story begins, Gillian McCune, an old woman in 1999, looks back on her childhood, particularly on the fateful days she spent as a guest at Thornleigh Hall, and the part she played in the events that took place there.

 

Gillian ‘Gilly’ Larking is in her sixth year at Heathcomb school when the privileged Violet Claybourne is admitted there, and they find themselves roommates. Gilly, with no real family and no good friends, is swept off her feet into Violet’s world. The friendship grows quickly with both girls believing in tandem with their Classics lessons, Nos Contra Mundam (Us against the world).

Invited to the Claybourne home, Thornleigh Hall, for Christmas, Gilly becomes enamoured with their world. There she meets Violet’s older sisters, Emmeline and Laura, and her parents, Giles and Olivia Claybourne. Gilly longs to have Emmeline and Laura see her as one of their own, as an equal. At every step, she tries to set herself apart from Violet, and closer to Emmeline and Laura, who are classist and believe themselves superior even to their sister, Violet.

Before the Christmas break is over, Thornleigh Hall will be beset by tragedy, with one life lost and another destroyed. What part will Gilly play in this travesty of justice?

 

The book is set in 1938, so the shadow of World War I still looms large over the characters. Lord Claybourne and many of the members of the police force have served in the war, but Frank Marks, a gameskeeper who lives on the grounds of Thornleigh Hall, has been a conscientious objector. As the book progresses, the characters find themselves in the middle of World War II.

 

This is a time when a woman is called upon to make a good marriage, then be a good wife and mother. It is against this background that the Claybourne family hopes that 22-year-old Emmeline will be wooed by the nearly forty-year-old Viscount Cadwallander, who might help save Thornleigh Hall from almost certain ruin.

 

The bulk of the story takes place between Christmas and New Year. The construction of the period was done well.

 

The book also makes a mention of post-partum depression and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), both conditions for which the medical science of the time might not have had satisfactory answers. Undoing is how Violet refers to the odd rituals she does “to undo what might happen.” The Undoing is Violet’s OCD. It is also a reference to how her life is undone, and how she seeks to undo that wrong.

 

The chapters end on a note of finality and expectation, inviting us to turn the page. I kept thinking about the events of this book even when I wasn’t reading it, especially about how far the characters deserved the fates that had befallen them.

 

 

The author has done a fine job with the descriptions of Thornleigh Hall, the Randolph Hotel, and Heathcomb school.

 

I can’t remember when I last detested a bunch of fictional people. I despised nearly all the main characters here. In the case of the narrator, Gilly, I must add that this was the first time that I began by liking a protagonist and then went on to change my mind about her. The author does make an effort to redeem her in our eyes, in a later part of the book, but it didn’t work for me.

 

Only the smaller characters like Frank Marks, a groundskeeper who lives on the property, and Robin, the fatherless son of Mary, the maid, and, to an extent, Violet, left a positive impression on me.

 

There are scenes featuring elaborate and intense gaslighting that are well written.

I also loved the resonance in the book, the parallels between Gilly and Robin. The fact that they have each lost a parent.

 

Gilly’s first meal with the Claybournes reveals their habits and characters, the sense of superiority they nurture in themselves. In true upper-class fashion, Laura and Emmeline insist that the foxes enjoy the fox hunt. “You can see it on their faces,” they say, in justification of their own pleasure and lifestyle. I couldn’t help reflecting on the hypocrisy of one of the sisters who hates any show of emotion but thinks nothing of the flutter of disgust that crosses her own face.

 

The colonial mindset is evident when Violet says about school, “We only learn sums, and which bits on the map still belong to us.”

 

Gilly, with her tendency to steal and lie, has her own flaws, making her believable.

 

I felt a sense of sorrow for Violet, for the ‘undoing’ of her at the hands of those she trusted. I hoped the book would not end on a note of wrongdoing and injustice. 

 

(I read this book on NetGalley. Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.) 

Book Review: PORCELAIN (SHADOWS OF HYSTERIA)

Title: Porcelain (Shadows of Hysteria)

Author: Jesse Sprague

Publisher: Cursed Dragon Ship Publishing

Pages: 344

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

 

 

Gabrielle Cross is under therapy and medication to help her cope with the aftermath of a tragedy in the past. She has also previously been institutionalized. Ten years ago, when she was only nine, her parents were found brutally murdered, and she was found covered in their blood. She believed then that it was her porcelain doll, a family antique, that had killed them in order to protect her.

Now Gabrielle is trying to live a normal life, go to college, date. How long will it be before her past catches up with her?

When her date, Joe, takes her home on the very first date and pressures her for sex, she blacks out. When she wakes up, he is dead with stab wounds and noticeable strangulation marks, causing Gabrielle’s past to be brought to the fore again. She is filled with doubts and fears and the only two people who trust her are her half-brother, Michael, and her friend, Peter.

Meanwhile, Michael has begun a relationship with Cole Montez, a bisexual, divorced cop who is going through a bitter legal battle with ex-wife Joan for the custody of their 4-year-old daughter, Isa, while the banks threaten to foreclose on his house.

Then Cole is assigned the case. Will he be able to ensure justice for everyone?

 

As a child, Gabrielle believed that her doll had committed the murders. Now she is anxious to find answers. Is she really a murderer or could the doll be possessed by an evil spirit?

 

The book shines a spotlight on mental illness and schizophrenia. Peter is schizophrenic but has sought help and is doing well. Issues of mental health are written about in this book from a place of sensitivity and understanding.

 

The story is written in the 3^rd person past tense PoV of Gabrielle and Cole. For the greater part of the novel, the story shifted between the two PoVs in regularly alternating chapters. At the 38^th chapter, we get six consecutive chapters in Gabrielle’s PoV, causing the pace to flag a little bit.

 

The 3^rd person PoV of Gabrielle, with which the story began, drew me into the story. Unfortunately, the second chapter, where we get to know Gabrielle’s half-brother, Michael, through the eyes of his boyfriend, Cole, was completely unnecessary. This chapter appeared to have been put in just to bring us up to speed on the past. Michael tells his new boyfriend (and us) the story of their lives. This chapter nearly put me off reading the rest of the book.

 

Also Cole’s utter infatuation with Michael was something I found annoying. I almost gave up reading because of this thread in the story. Cole kept thinking that Michael was gorgeous which took away from the main story. Thankfully, the pace improved after the second chapter, and Cole kept his infatuation under wraps.

 

I found the two men, Michael and Cole, very boring and annoying. Lucinda ‘Cinder’, Gabrielle’s roommate and friend, was a minor character I liked straightaway for her loyalty and sense of friendship.

 

The author has a good style. The characterization, description, conflict and action are handled well. The description of Peter and Gabrielle standing atop the unfinished building had me feeling queasy. But the horror and supernatural elements were weak.

 

The book needed to be proofed better. Modicum is a noun, not an adverb as is used here.

 

After a few chapters, Gabrielle didn’t stay in ‘character’. She stopped mentioning her meds or repeating her affirmations.

 

Cole’s bisexuality was token, having no bearing on the main plot. Why didn’t the author just make him gay? The romance between Cole and Michael took up too much space.

 

Also, the doll could have been a lot more menacing. Once the investigation started, we didn’t see any evidence of the horror of the doll for ourselves. It was all in Gabrielle’s flashbacks. The doll on the cover of the book was quite creepy but we don’t get to see her inherently evil nature.

 

The doll’s relationship with Gabrielle is downplayed. Instead we get to see more of Cole and Michael, Cole and Joan, Gabrielle and Cinder, and Cole and Isa. Even Yolanda, Cole’s nanny, the most minor of the characters, gets more space here.

 

The dialogue and Gabrielle’s internal monologue get repetitive, with Gabrielle repeatedly wishing herself dead, and wondering if the doll is a part of her or external to her.

 

Despite the accusation of murder that hangs over her, Gabrielle isn’t put under surveillance. Additionally, Gabrielle’s extended conversation with Peter wasn’t as revelatory as she seemed to think it would be.

 

Isa is supposed to be 4, but I couldn’t sense her innocence. She appeared too grown up.

 

The resolution was weak. By the 82 percent mark, I had stopped caring about any of the characters. There were a number of questions that remained unanswered. Why was Joe killed a day after the horrible date? How did his death come about?

 

(I read this book on NetGalley. Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.)