Book Review: THE TWILIGHT ZONE: STORIES FROM THE FIFTH DIMENSION

Title: The Twilight Zone: Stories from the Fifth Dimension

Author: Several authors, letterers and illustrators

Publisher: IDW Dark

Pages: 128

My GoodReads Rating: 

The Twilight Zone: Stories from the Fifth Dimension is inspired by the Original CBS Television Series. I got excited when I saw this title on Edelweiss. In my excitement at finding stories based on The Twilight Zone, of which I am a huge fan, I missed the fact that this was not Fiction, but in the genre of Comics and Graphic Novels.

 

There are no good guys or bad guys in these stories. There is just the Twilight Zone and how there is no coming back from it, whether for good or evil. Entering the Twilight Zone spells the end of the world as the characters know it. It is either a new beginning or the end for them. Interestingly, each story was exactly 22 pages long.

 

Blanks by Dan Watters (writer); Morgan Beem (artist); Sandy Tanaka (letterer), Nicolas Niño and Ellen Boener (co-editors); Rating:  ⭐⭐⭐  

A billionaire, Edward Kane, has contributed enormous sums of money to fund research into finding a cure for the ills of the human condition. In other words, to eliminate disease and ensure longevity and immortality. This research is being undertaken on an unknown island. Suffering from stomach cancer, with less than a year to live, Kane insists on being subject Zero for the ‘benevolent virus’ which is expected to infiltrate the body and wipe out the immune memory, removing all traces of decay and degeneration. 

He wakes up from the experiment, feeling 20 years younger, only to learn from the doctor that everyone at the research facility has been rendered faceless, without thought or feeling, as the virus mutated, stripping them of the very things that make us human.

As Kane seeks to escape on the helicopter on which he arrived on the island, the doctor destroys the helicopter, saying that the only way to contain the horrible phenomenon is to ensure that no one ever gets to leave the island. Kane, forever young, healthy and ageless, is now doomed to spend eternity with the “Blanks”.

Like the TV series, the story here succeeded in hitting long after we turn the last page, as we imagine the fate of Kane, who will likely spend eternity longing for death. The story also sounds a note of caution, reminding humankind not to mess with the essential nature of life and humanity. Mankind can play God only at its own peril.

 

World of Your Wildest Dreams by Tom Scioli (writer, artist and letterer); Rating:  ⭐⭐⭐

The story is set many centuries in the future. First Officer Arlo Chapel is leading a team into outer space. When the vessel finds a planet with an atmosphere like that of earth, they decide to make a landing. They find life on the planet, in the form of vegetation and insects. Soon they realise that the world is responding to them based on their thoughts. Presently, people show up and take them away, accuse them of killing and jail them. The crew realise that shouting out bad things causes the prison walls to weaken and disintegrate, enabling them to escape.

The captors catch up with them and reveal that theirs is an asylum world. People come to them from other worlds to seek help. The terrain on the world is such that it mirrors the individual’s inner world, forcing them to confront it and deal with the fallout. 

The beings on this planet can change their external form in order to engage with visitors based on their psychological trauma. The beings scold the earthlings for not having learned to deal with their trauma, even as a species. However, the good news is that help is at hand. This planet is a resort, where visitors stay as long as possible to get their issues resolved, days, weeks, months, years, even centuries.

While the others choose to stay back and heal, Arlo decides to head home. Once he returns to his base on Planet Earth, he is committed to an institution. Everyone thinks that he abandoned his crew, and has now constructed an elaborate fantasy to explain his guilt away.

Centuries later, human greed remains unchanged. Space vessels are being sent out to look for minerals and to open chains of coffee shops and malls, in pursuit of power and wealth. When Arlo and his team espy an animal, one of them asks, “What should we name the new species?” – a classic colonial move, establishing supremacy on lands that have rich cultures and don’t need your dominance.

There was altogether too much text here. Graphic novels and comics work only with minimal text. Here, characters keep speaking, as if they are in a novel. A lot of the conversations involve characters telling each other things they should rightly know. As a concept, I found this story interesting, but the execution fell short.

In between, there was a page from the first story that seemed to have crept in inadvertently. 

 

The Relic by James Stokoe (writer, artist and letterer); Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This story is about a cruel king who, on the strength of his army, has been plundering other lands, dominating their tribes, seizing their wealth and trampling upon their gods. Most tribes either flee when he attacks or pay obeisance. One tribe, professing to worship the Voice of the True God, refuses to flee or bow low. The plunderers break into the stronghold of the tribe. There they destroy the people completely, leaving just one prisoner, and find a power that overpowers their own. The king tells the prisoner to show him how to wield the power of this god. The prisoner leads him to their sacred temple (a museum) the first chamber of which contains the skeletal remains of creatures long gone (dinosaurs), the second chamber contains guns, tanks, fighter planes, and other weapons of destruction, and the third and final chamber contains a kitschy brand, which is being worshipped.

The story asks us to mull over a very important question. Many years, centuries or even millennia hence, when war has destroyed every vestige of progress and development that mankind has spend millennia garnering, what will the people living then worship? Our art, our learning, or something debased. The Voice of the True God, it is revealed, is a cheesy jingle created to sell a sugary sweet and unhealthy drink.

The final page tells us: In the centuries after the bombs fall, when human progress hasn’t just been taken down a rung but thrown violently off of the whole ladder, what treasures of our age might survive for those ignorant souls that follow?

Will they be drawn to a piece of exquisite art that fully encapsulates the cultural footprint of our time? Maybe some fragment of wisdom from one of our greatest thinkers that lights them a path out of squalor and darkness?

Or perhaps something more common…A throwaway gag of consumerism, dreamed up in a boardroom to catch as many thirsty eyes as possible, misremembered, deified and mistakenly placed on the highest plinth amid the ruins of mankind’s greater histories.

A kitschy advertisement for the world that was, here in the Twilight Zone. 

 

False Bottom by Nate Powell (writer, artist and letterer); Rating:⭐⭐⭐⭐

Twins Chet and Laura and Laura’s husband, Gabe, hire a houseboat to celebrate Chet’s first step towards independence, moving out of his mother's basement and getting his first apartment. Laura is happy for Chet but he persists in behaving in a curmudgeonly manner and resents the help she extends to him. They discover that the main deck of the houseboat has nothing in the way of furniture, except for a single futon and a rectangular opening filled with water in the middle of the room.

Laura is not happy that Chet didn’t go for a job interview that she has secured for him. He thinks that she is too condescending and controlling while she thinks that he’s not a functioning adult yet. They are still bickering. when Gabe hears some music coming from the cutaway, the rectangular opening.

Chet jumps into the water, and Laura and Gabe jump after him, but they cannot find him in the water. He has vanished into another world. Chet steps out of the water, and finds himself in a dark place, welcomed by some hairy beings. Their faces are in darkness, and he has a bad feeling about it. When Laura and Gabe come out of the water, they can’t find Chet at all. What’s more, it’s as if he was never on the boat. The boat itself is beautifully appointed now, furnished well with everything one might want on a holiday. Gabe tells Laura to forget about Chet. He is content to move on without deadweight Chet but Laura won’t give up on her brother. Except that now they are in the Twilight Zone and the situation is out of their control. Laura jumps into the water once again and comes up to the floor of the cutaway. There he is. Separated by glass, the siblings can never find their way to each other again.

 

Silent Warning by L Marlow Francavilla and Francesco Francavilla (writers); Francesco Francavilla (artist); Sandy Tanaka (letterer); Rating: ⭐⭐

In a world in which the biggest danger is the sound you cannot hear, Dr Emily Sorensen is a soundwave virtuoso. But other scientists look upon her work with scepticism and even derision. When a meteor crashes into the ocean, Dr Sorensen is called in. A research nearby has picked up sonic pulses and the government needs Dr Sorensen’s help to decipher their meaning. At the base, Dr Sorensen meets four men, Chief James Eddington who heads the mission, marine biologist Dr Andy Carson, seismic expert Lt Arthur Jeffreys and Lt Michael Oguri, the pilot.

The men have no regard for Dr Sorensen’s competence. There may also be some dismissal of her because she is a woman. The men decide to step into the water to investigate the activity below, despite Dr Sorensen’s warnings and reservations that there may be toxic gases around.

This story was more like a disaster flick, where the destruction is mindless, and not as a result of an act of hubris on the part of the characters. 

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

Book Review: THE KNOCKING

Title: The Knocking

Author: Laura Lee Bahr

Publisher: Little A

Pages: 288

My GoodReads Rating: 

EA (Edith Ann) Howe, a budding newspaperwoman, travels to the home of Horace Greeley of the New York Daily Tribune to show him the editorial she has written on the Congressional Compromise. She finds Greeley’s house a massive and dark mansion, with a reputation for being haunted. Mr and Mrs Greeley have buried four children. Only three-yo Charlotte is still alive.

At the mansion, EA meets Mary Greeley, who seems deranged, Cathie Fox, an 11-yo ward of Mr Greeley, and Jessica Elliott, Cathie’s beautiful English governess. Cathie is a medium and can channel and talk to spirits. Mrs Greeley uses Cathie’s services to connect with her dead children, especially Arthur, the child she loved the most.

All EA wants to do is to get Greeley to print the editorial she has written in favour of the liberty of the former slaves and against the Congressional Compromise which revokes the freedom of the emancipated slaves. But her views are too radical for Mr Greeley. He gives her a test to prove her worth; she must write an article on Cathie’s abilities. In fulfilling her new assignment, she gets caught up in the middle of danger.

 

The story is written in the first-person present tense of EA.

 

WHAT I LIKED:

I liked the character of EA, her passion and pluck. Her backstory gives her the demons and vulnerability that come out to haunt her in a home that is supposedly haunted. Her heart is in the right place, and she cares for issues related to women and former slaves. She is sensitive to the pain of others and aspires to be America’s third newspaperwoman. Her experience with publication tells us how hard it is for women to get ahead in male professions.

 

There’s a thread of humour that is woven through her self-deprecation and even her interaction with Jane Swisshelm, her mentor, and Mr Greeley.

 

I especially liked the line in her editorial where she questions what kind of world is it when one cannot discuss what is moral, what is good and evil… To compromise with evil is to be complicit in it. She believes that the world is leaning towards authoritarianism, and that there is too much power in too few hands. I liked this about EA, that she has convictions and is willing to speak up for them.

After Greely insults her for having morals and ethics like a schoolgirl, she thinks, May the schoolgirls take over this earth if they are the only ones who will speak the plain truth.

 

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE:

When EA comes to know about Jessica’s intentions, she does nothing about it. For someone who has ranted on about justice, she refrains from taking the smallest step towards the cause. When it really mattered, it appeared that her quest for justice wasn’t real. Her unwillingness to pursue justice made her weak, physically and morally, after establishing her as a strong character for the greater part of the book.

 

WHAT DIDN’T WORK FOR ME:

There was much scope to make the story about EA and her own relationship with her mother. Instead, she is one good protagonist around whom the story happens, mostly to other characters. The plot events concern Cathie, Mary Greeley and Jessica Elliot, Cathie’s governess.

We don’t hear enough about the mother who tried to kill her and killed her older brother. That would have made a far more interesting story than that of Cathie and Jessica.

 

ALL SAID AND DONE:

I didn’t like the way this story turned out. Even the aura of the haunted house failed to materialize. It was a dank, dark place, but the menace of the haunted house wasn’t evident.

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

Book Review: THE MUSIC MAKERS

Title: The Music Makers

Author: James D Snyder

Publisher: Pharos Books

Pages: 264

My GoodReads Rating: 

Greta lives with daughter, Heidi, a librarian and violinist, and son, Max, a car mechanic and musician who aspires to make it big in the West and is working on a way to escape. Greta invites Leo Strus, the janitor at the school where she teaches, and a musician, to join them in playing folk songs to entertain people on street corners on Sundays. They are the music makers.

When winter sets in, the Music Makers need an indoors venue, and are led to a trade union hall, which is ‘wired’. At first, they only sing folk songs and feel-good music, but then Max, in a fit of passion, sings Wind of Change by The Scorpions. This brings them to the attention of the Stasi and the KGB.

The story is set in 1989 in East Germany.

 

WHAT I LIKED:

Greta is writing a book that the Stasi and ruling party would approve of, but it is also a lesson in sarcasm. I particularly liked the excerpts, which are bolstered with true examples from history.

The writing of the larger book by the author combines the best of non-fiction into the fictional telling of the characters’ lives. The very real developments on the historical front are juxtaposed against the lives of ordinary people. We learn how the playing of the music served to remind Germans about another time before the War, how the demonstrators continued to protest safely.

We see how slowly the desire for freedom begins to spread. I enjoyed the history lesson about East Germany’s rejection of Western ideology and its fascination for Western technology.

When Max sings Wind of Change, presenting the lyrics, I had to stop reading and listen to the song once again, after ages.

I liked Max’s quote: …we may not be able to knock down or dig under the wall, but we can make sound travel over it.

 

WHAT I DID NOT LIKE: Nothing.

 

WHAT DID NOT WORK FOR ME:

The story employed different forms. It began as a letter, then became an interview with the characters, excerpts from a book that one of the characters is writing, and bits of historical accounts.

In the letter, Greta Braun writes to her sister, Christa, who lives in the country with her husband, Bruno, with a business idea. The business idea and the characters Christa and Bruno were incidental to the story, and so the form seemed forced as a means of bringing us readers up to speed. A kind of story-so-far. Greta uses the letter to tell her sister, and us, about the routine surveillance in the police state, the rhythms of life, the loss of ownership to the state in a Communist society etc.

In Chapter 2, the form changes to a character interview, with the author conducting full interviews with five important characters, who we haven’t met so far, although we know a little about two of them, Max and Heidi, Greta’s kids. The other three characters, Gerhard Koln, Stasi officer, Vladimin Pushkin, KGB officer, and Leo Strus, a janitor and musician, are totally new to us.

It’s not a commonly used technique. Authors do this generally outside the pages of the book. Involving readers in this exercise drops the barrier between us. So we end up getting a lot of the background information in one huge dump, but it seems different because of the format.

In Chapter 3, the action moves forward from April in Chapter 1 to May Day that year, and the form changes to non-fiction writing. In between, there is another form: Excerpts from Greta’s book, Lessons in Leadership.

There was a mistake in the numbering. Lesson 7 was numbered 6 by mistake. Another issue that I had with the writing was the change of tense from one paragraph to another.

 

ALL SAID AND DONE:

I was quite young when history was being made, and I enjoyed this read.

 

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

Book Review: THE BLACK CAT DETECTIVES

Title: The Black Cat Detectives

Author: Kit Gray

Publisher: Crooked Lane Books

Pages: 304

My GoodReads Rating: 

Mila MacAllister is a 28-yo magician in a small town, Corvin’s Crossing, hoping to make it to the big league. On the morning of her performance, at which she expects to be scouted for a resort that is looking for performers, Mila finds three black kittens, with the mother nowhere in sight, in a box in the alley outside the club where she is to perform. She rescues them and takes them to the vet and decides to adopt them.

That evening, Mila’s successful performance comes to a sudden close when the body of her boyfriend and manager, Brandon, comes crashing through the roof to the stage, with Mila’s pocket knife protruding out of his chest.

 

The story is written in four PoVs, the 3^rd person PoV of Mila and the 1^st person PoVs of the three kittens named Bippity, Boppity and Boop. Bippity is female, Boppity is male, and Boop is non-binary. The other two kittens use they/them pronouns while referring to Boop.

 

WHAT I LIKED:

I liked the emphasis on friendships and the family ties you build for yourself.

I am no lover of cats, yet I was quite amused and intrigued by the antics of the kittens. The characterization of the kittens is done with a gentle touch. Bippity sees herself as a leader, born to lead her siblings. Boppity fancies himself as a great warrior and is always ready for battle. Boop is always gentle, preferring naps and cuddling to anything else. The curiosity, independence and vulnerability of the cats rang true, even though I know very little about cats.

The voices of the three kittens were strong and striking.

The descriptions of the foods cooked by Ms Fi, and Q and Mrs Scarborough all popped off the page.

In terms of diversity, Asia is well represented through Ms Fi and Becca Varma, Mila’s best friend.

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE:

The focus should have been on the murder mystery. Instead, the cats took up excessive space, causing a lot of repetition, given that there are three kittens and only one Mila.

Why Becca should be a Varma, an Indian origin surname, makes no sense. We see no evidence of her background or culture, making the name tokenish. She might as well have been white.

In keeping with what has almost become the trope of the genre, Mila was both smart and dumb.

I found the conclusion rather tame. The killer wasn’t convincing enough, nor was their rationale for killing.

The Physics-based superpowers of the kittens weren’t very clear.

Mila’s back story was minimal. It was unclear why she left her parents’ home. They neglected her, and led their own lives, but her trauma suggested something far worse. Also, where and how she learnt magic was something that wasn’t explained.

 

WHAT DIDN’T QUITE WORK:

In one place, Bopp had male pronouns used, possibly a typo that slipped past.

There is a whole chapter set at the vet’s where Mila takes the three kittens. This chapter was wholly unnecessary.

 

ALL SAID AND DONE:

This was a cozy mystery that ultimately ended up being more cozy and less mystery, with the kittens overshadowing the resolution of the mystery. 

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

Book Review: WHEN THE RAIN CAME

Title: When the Rain Came

Author: Matt Eicheldinger

Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing

Pages: 314

My GoodReads Rating: 

Aurora, 17, lives with her foster parents, Niko and Jada, when the rain begins. A relentless mix of drizzle and downpour that scientists call an unprecedented global disaster. As the water levels rise, the mansion they live in gets flooded. Niko and Jada are preppers and they have prepared for the worst eventuality, with emergency bags all ready for use. They also impress upon her the rules. Rule no 1: You prep for you and no one else. Rule no 2: Two is one and one is none.

Niko and Jada provide for Aurora but show her no affection. One night, Jada lets her guard down and shows Aurora her vulnerable side. The next morning, Niko and Jada have disappeared, gone with their emergency bags. Once they have gone, Aurora finds a map to a place called the Hill, which promises a refuge. When the mansion is attacked by men with criminal intentions, Aurora escapes, intent on getting to the Hill.

Along the way, she befriends a young boy called Kota and learns of the Dark Pools, supposedly controlled by Shui gui, a supernatural entity, that swallow everything in their path. Both Aurora and Kota are in a vulnerable situation and they settle into a protective sibling vibe. For Aurora, who has never had a family, Kota is the nearest thing to one.

In the midst of terrifying challenges, the two learn to prioritise and think on their feet. Will they ever manage to get to the Hill? When they reach it, will they find it a place of safety or danger?

 

This is Book 1 of a trilogy, and is written in the 1^st person POV of Aurora.

 

WHAT I LIKED:

The chapters are short. The author has done a wonderful job with the setting. The writing was urgent and atmospheric, making me feel sadness, fear and concern for Aurora and Kota.

The descriptions were beautiful:

Each drop explodes like tiny bullets, turning the surface of brown liquid into a roiling battlefield of ripples and waves.

When that sky meets the horizon of the water, steam rises in a ghostly fog, shrouding the scene in an apocalyptic mist.

Rain pounds everything in sight, a thousand tiny hammers drilling into the surface of the churning water.

The action keeps us on edge, as Aurora battles dangers as varied as cruel humans, wild animals and the wrath of nature. The characters’ actions and the description of the setting and the situation complement each other.

There is an ironic foreshadowing in the words, Today … ended as a memorable day. A good day. And maybe tomorrow will be even better, that piqued my interest.

The thing that struck me about this book, from the very first paragraph, was the voice of Aurora, how strong and expressive it was.

We get a sense of disaster and chaos, a dismantling of order. The disaster helps us understand what is truly significant, and how we humans chase the wrong things. Things that people owned and took pride in, cars, bicycles, fences, all trapped under the moving slush of filth and debris.

The tagline of the book 'If everything falls apart, what will you hold on to?' was something that the book succeeded in living up to.

 

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE:

This book would have fit squarely under the genre of Climate-fiction, a genre of literature that is sorely needed these days, but no one, not even the preppers, ever addresses why it is raining for months on end.

The world is in chaos, and yet some systems are working. Even when Niko and Jada begin to run out of food and water, there is no mention of sanitation issues. In one building where the children take refuge, Kota uses the toilet, so sanitation is apparently fine. None of the characters talk about bodily discomfort issues. There is a nightmare on, and sewage entering homes should have been the first consequence.

There are some things that don’t make sense. How is a parking lot dry when tall buildings are flooded, with only the tips visible?

I would have liked to have had a little more back story about Kota. He seems to be a token diversity character. We are not told anything about his background, except that his grandmother has told him about the shui gui, spirits from Chinese folklore, while he calls his father Baba, a term for father in Indian, Middle Eastern and African cultures.

 

WHAT DIDN’T WORK FOR ME:

The situation isn’t rooted in time and place. We get no sense of when this is happening, a future time, or even a parallel earth.

When Kota steps into an abyss inside a building to get a canoe, Aurora gives him a flashlight which he clenches between his teeth, before swimming away. Moments later, both Aurora and another character, Markell, ask him a question, and he answers both questions easily. We are not told about him having taken the flashlight out of his mouth to answer.

Aurora didn’t act as if she was 17. She seemed to me to be younger, around 14 or 15. Also, for someone who has lived all her life in the foster system, she has no experiences, positive or negative, related to foster homes. Just an indifference to that part of her life, which is strange. Also, she never talks about herself in the near future, her plans for when she turns 18. This adds to the impression that she might be younger.

 

ALL SAID AND DONE:

Living in a city with poor infrastructure, I have seen enough of the damage that flooding can do to assess how much worse things could get when worst-case scenarios become real. There are some kinks that should have been edited out. Despite them, I enjoyed this story about a modern-day deluge of Biblical proportions.

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

Book Review: A MOST PECULIAR PROVIDENCE

Title: A Most Peculiar Providence

Author: Angela Hunt

Publisher: Hunt Haven Press

Pages: 428

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Twenty-six-year-old Joshua Donnelly lives in a small town called Peculiar, with his mother. He handcrafts wooden toys for a living. When she passes away unexpectedly due to a stroke, his world is upended. He decides to fulfill her last wish that he “fill the house with love” by getting a dog, Hoss.

Meanwhile, Heather Thomas and her boyfriend, Brett Steelhawk, of three years, are homeless and busking together near Peculiar. Heather is pregnant but Brett doesn’t want the baby. On their last day in town, she miscarries and then finds that Brett has abandoned her.

When Sarah, a vagrant, gives birth to a baby girl, she gets Heather to promise to hand over her baby to someone kind in Peculiar who will look after the baby. With no choice, Heather leaves the baby outside Josh’s front door. What happens next? Will Josh look after the baby? And is there any hope for Heather?

When Hoss digs up a human bone in Josh’s backyard, the past threatens to overshadow Josh’s happiness in the present. Who is responsible for the crime? And will Josh pay for it?

 

The story is told from the first-person past-tense PoV of the town police chief as well as in the third-person omniscient past tense.

 

WHAT I LIKED:

The story had a warm, fuzzy vibe to it from the very first sentence. I felt as if I knew and loved the characters. I particularly loved the similes:

Like loose change in a coffee tin.

Frost glazed the glass, glittering like crushed sugar.

This story had slipped past me like a cat burglar in socks.

 

I liked the character of Josh, even though he came across as a little odd. It was sweet that he got Hoss, a huge English mastiff, because he promised his mother that he would fill the house with love.

I particularly liked the scenes between Josh and baby Maggie. The narrator, through Josh’s actions, tells us how easy it is to care for an infant. You fed them, you changed them, you held them close. You kept them safe. You loved them.

 

Some more quotes that I liked:

When you pull on the past, it doesn’t come back gentle. It comes back hungry.

Sometimes when a man stops pacing, it means he's found a place to stand.

Order is a comforting thing, but it’s fragile. And when it cracks, strange, even miraculous things have a way of slipping through.

 

The book ends with fun recipes for Hoss’s Favourite Dog Treats, Josh’s Bologna Sandwiches, Josh’s Grilled Cheese Sandwiches and Mama’s Homemade Lasagna, all written with dollops of affection and humour intertwined with life lessons and some easy philosophy.

 

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE:

I felt a little note of dissonance when Heather and Josh met. Josh was so kind, and Heather’s animosity felt forced. Of course, the reasons are explained later, but I never got over my dislike of her.

There is an element of the fantastical that runs through this book, which is unfortunately not pursued. We learn early on that Josh has the power to heal, but it isn’t used with any kind of significance. The fact that he has the power to heal should have played a greater role in the plot.

 

WHAT DIDN’T WORK FOR ME:

The story felt very old-fashioned, even though it is set in 2006. There was no mention of mobile phones or the Internet or anything that would root it in this century.

 

ALL SAID AND DONE:

This was a sweet and gentle story well told.

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

Book Review: THE NEXT WOMAN

Title: The Next Woman

Author: Caroline Corcoran

Publisher: Thomas & Mercer

Pages: 322

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Lily’s best friend, Alice, disappeared on her birthday. Living on Aurora Island, there are so many places you can disappear to. The police are unable to find Alice. Then a woman called Becca disappears and then Corinne. They are termed the Alphabet Women, as it increasingly becomes obvious that someone is kidnapping the women in alphabetical order, one women for each letter of the alphabet. An office manager at the Aurora Island Eco Wellness Retreat, Lily lives in fear of being taken when L comes around.

Ross, a journalist from Manchester, comes over to the island to start a podcast that would help find the missing women and stop the nightmare. He convinces Lily to help produce his podcast and to offer her local knowledge. And all along, the danger is inching closer. The police are at their wits’ end.

Then L comes around, and Lily is safe, as another woman is taken. Has Lily escaped or are her secrets about to catch up with her?

 

The story is written in the 1^st person present tense PoV of Lily first, and then, once she disappears, we get the 1^st person present tense PoV of Zadie. The chapters are named after letters.

 

WHAT I LIKED:

The chapters move fast. The chapter named M was dripping with tension.  The point where Lily disappears is the high point of the book.

 

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE:

After that, it’s downhill, and we stop caring about the missing women.

I found the resolution very disappointing, bland and downright silly. The execution was flat. The reason why 26 women were kidnapped was unbelievable in a very underwhelming way.

Lily’s backstory doesn’t hit us with the force that the author intends it to. The mystery turns out to be related to her past, but in most incidental way.

It is very annoying when a character, supposedly key, is introduced at the 87% mark. Even Lily’s dad, Duncan, was introduced at the close of the story, without Lily ever mentioning a word about him.

We never get answers to how the kidnappings actually take place, which is something we need considering the suspense that has been built.

The last chapter, the actual tying up of the loose ends, should have been summarised by a 3^rd person omniscient narrator. In podcast format, the information was annoying with Ross appearing to be some kind of a know-it-all.

 

WHAT DIDN’T WORK FOR ME:

For the bulk of the story, we have no idea what the police are doing.

There are some diversity token characters put in just because. These are Radhika, Anushka and Jameela. They have no role to play.

 

ALL SAID AND DONE:

A good premise, with a very tepid mystery attached.

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

Book Review: A NOVEL CRIME

Title: A Novel Crime

Author: Deborah Levison

Publisher: Thomas & Mercer

Pages: 332

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Marcy Jo Codburn has done everything to become a famous romance novelist, including manifesting success and writing five chapters of a novel that isn’t heading anywhere. She dreams of a successful career under the pseudonym, Summer Branigan. Her day job as a realtor isn’t going well either. Even her college-going daughter Bea considers her father, Marcy’s ex-husband Kevin, her favourite parent.

When Francesca Barber, the most successful novelist in America, embarks on a multi-city tour, Marcy and her three writing group mates decide to go see her. When Marcy catches Francesca making out with Tabi Benlolo, the Portuguese star of the movie version of Francesca’s books and the husband of her daughter Aspen, Francesca thinks Marcy has clicked a picture of them, and offers to help with Marcy’s manuscript.

Suddenly, Marcy’s life is looking up. Francesca is reading her manuscript and she has a potentially lucrative listing. It’s possible that Marcy might make a success as both a novelist and as a realtor, as long as she puts in the hard work required.

But then Marcy gets greedy. Leveraging Francesca’s secret, she wonders why she should work hard at her goal, when she could get the famous novelist to do the writing for her. As the collaboration gets underway, more secrets surface, amid a tangle of looming deadlines and an attempted kidnap that creates its own set of problems. Will Marcy ever see the success she craves? If yes, at what cost?

 

The story is written in the first-person present tense PoV of Marcy.

 

WHAT I LIKED:

I love books about books, authors and writing, so that part was interesting.

Neither of the female main characters here, Marcy/Summer and Francesca, are likeable or even morally sound. We don’t understand whether they deserve our sympathy or derision, but it doesn’t matter. The plot is the real hero here, and events happen at such a crazy pace that all you can do is sit back and enjoy the ride. This story is certainly madness and chaos unleashed. In a very good way. Everything that can go wrong does.

There is a sub-plot about Marcy trying to improve her relationship with her daughter and to present herself as a better role model for her.

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE:

I wasn’t sure how I felt about Marcy. Sometimes, I liked her; mostly I didn’t.

I dislike characters throwing food into the trash, and that happens here. Granted that Marcy wants to start eating healthy, but she should have considered donating the food, instead of trashing it.

WHAT DIDN’T WORK FOR ME:

The set-up took very long. Or felt very long.

Strangely, Francesca doesn’t ever ask to see the incriminating photo. Which is a major loophole in the reasoning behind the plot.

The scene in which Bea explains her project to her mother, repeating it for our benefit, was boring.

At one point, Bea yells out that she and Kevin are vegetarian. That is an error. It should have been Bea and Patrick, her boyfriend, who are vegetarian.

ALL SAID AND DONE:

I enjoyed the madness in this book. 

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