Book Review: SUMMER'S EDGE

Title: Summer’s Edge

Author: Dana Mele

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Pages: 336

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

 

Spending a summer weekend at the Hartfords’ lake house has been an annual ritual for high schoolers and childhood friends, Emily Joiner; her best friend Chelsea; her other best friend, Kennedy Ellis Hartford, who is also Chelsea’s ex-girlfriend; Emily’s twin, Ryan, and Ryan’s best friend, Chase. But things have changed now.

Exactly a year after the lake house burned down, trapping Emily inside and killing her, her friends, Chelsea, Kennedy, Ryan, Chase, and Chase’s girlfriend of two years, Mila, have gathered together again. They have all been invited to the grand reopening of the lake house. The survivors will gather at the lake house on the anniversary of the tragedy of Emily’s death, after a year of no contact whatsoever with any of the others. They will spend one last weekend together before they all go off to college.

But the reunion is fraught with tension. They are all wary of each other, as they trade grievances and accusations. Chelsea finds the others, except Ryan, untrustworthy and their explanations and statements fraught with lies. And then Chelsea begins to hear Emily’s voice.

Everyone believes that Ryan wants revenge. But is the truth as simple as that?

 

The story is written in the first-person present tense PoV of Chelsea in the present known as the Summer of Egrets, the PoV of Kennedy two years ago in the Summer of Swallows, and Emily one year ago in the Summer of Swans. It was Emily who had the idea of naming the summers they spent at the lake house after birds. If the summer of egrets sounds a little too much like regrets, there’s a reason why.

Besides the three main PoVs, there are short chapters, the longest a mere 106 words, from an unknown PoV, alternating with every chapter in Chelsea’s account. This unknown PoV seems to have vengeance on their mind. All the action in the book, in each of the three PoVs, takes place on just one night, June 17, in different years in each of the accounts.  

The book is named after the Hartfords’ boat, Summer’s Edge, where some of the most critical action takes place.

 

WHAT I LIKED:

The author does a good job of creating an atmosphere of menace, especially in the scene with Chelsea in the attic and later in the cellar. The tarot cards, the accusations and counter accusations and the unsettling game of Truth or Dare, all add up to a sense of uneasy and brisk action in the story.

The characters are all friends, but there is enough relationship drama to create trouble for everyone. And when Chase introduces Mila to his friends for the very first time, the friendship dynamic gets all messed up. Mila is particularly annoying, as is often the case when an unknown person is initiated into a group where the dynamic is already settled and accepted.

Kennedy’s PoV introduces a paranormal element into the story.

The writing was nice. Here’s a sample of quotes I liked:

Love changes things. It redraws the map.

There are a lot of ways to be haunted. A place, a person, a memory.

No one who hates flowers haunts a garden.

In a hit and run, it isn’t the hit that’s the crime. It’s the run.

Parts of the truth as just as deceitful as blatant lies.

 

WHAT I DIDN’T:

Except for Ryan, I didn’t find any of the characters likeable. They claim that they would die for the others, but they would just as soon be ready to kill their friends too.  

The voices of the three PoVs sounded exactly alike. There was nothing by way of tone or vocabulary to let us know whose head we were in.

 

WHAT DIDN’T WORK FOR ME:

I found it odd that the author gave Emily and Ryan surnames, and Kennedy’s full name is repeated several times. But Chase, Mila and Chelsea don’t get a mention of their surnames even once. Also Chelsea and Chase sound too alike. The author should have come up with names that didn’t sound so similar.

 

ALL SAID AND DONE: The book is a delicious blend of the paranormal with the mundane reality of how mistakes have the capacity of destroying young lives and promising futures. 

 

Book Review: THE RAVENSWOOD WITCH

Title: The Ravenswood Witch

Author: Jenni Keer

Publisher: Boldwood Books

Pages: 354

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The book begins with an unnamed woman, fleeing from some danger, who collides with a stranger and ends up spraining her foot. The stranger, Marcus Greybourne, is the owner of the massive and ill-reputed house, Ravenswood. He convinces the constable that the unnamed woman is his wife, Luna Greybourne, not the criminal wanted for murder that the constable is seeking.

Marcus offers the woman protection while her badly sprained foot heals. In return, he requests her to pretend to be his wife for a brief period. She accepts the offer.

While she pretends to be Luna Greybourne, there is no sign of the real Mrs Greybourne. Soon the new Mrs Greybourne discovers that there is a very real sense of danger in and around Ravenswood. There are scratches on the walls and marks of devil worship have been gouged into the wood of the bedpost. Then she hears talk of the old witch that is supposed to live in the woods behind the house, who supposedly curses people and dances naked, performing acts of devil worship. Until the housekeeper, Mrs Webber, informs her that Luna Greybourne is the witch.  

Her only friend is Bran, a raven she nurses to life, and Mr Findlay, a medicine man who uses herbs and potions, along with medicines, a man who was once friends with the real Luna Greybourne, and promises to help the imposter, whenever she might need his aid.

As she eases into her new life, getting closer to Marcus, she wonders if she could stay with him forever. But she knows that can't be. The danger is getting closer, and time is running out.

The book is written in the 3rd person omniscient past tense PoV and in the 3^rd person past tense limited PoV of Eloise Haughton, a rich and, true to her name, haughty girl whose slightly obsessive love for Daniel Thornbury, a working-class man, ends up setting the plot of this story in motion. The story of Eloise was written in an affectionate, teasing tone, that reminded me of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

The author builds up an aura of intrigue and mystique with her writing. The Ravenswood scenes, in particular, were written with a deliciously creepy air. Thankfully, the love story, with a markedly different tone, doesn’t appear intrusive at all.

Slowly, Bran, Mrs Webber and the two Lunas grew on me. Luna, the Ravenswood witch, though physically absent, except in flashbacks and recollections, was nevertheless drawn well and felt alive.

Eloise is a little selfish and overindulged and I didn’t like her at all. I liked her even less at the end of the book. Mr Findlay is referred to by everyone, including the 3^rd person narrator, as ‘cunning’, which I found odd, until I discovered its archaic meaning, possessing some occult knowledge, a meaning that has now fallen into disuse.

The writing was good and held my interest. Sample this quote:
When your whole world had been destroyed, you clung to any small fragment of solid ground.

What I liked about this book was the deftness with which the author sneaked the twist in.

There were some errors though. Daniel is first described as 19 years old, and then as 25, without us getting any sense of the years having passed from the time Eloise first meets him to the end of that strand of the story.

A crucial plot point in the past, relating to the murder investigation, doesn’t get resolved; I thought we needed closure on that.

I also found the pace too slow for a greater part of the book. Things took much longer to heat up than they should have. For a long time, it was business as usual.

Also, I couldn’t understand why Marcus and the second Mrs Greybourne continued with their charade when they were alone.

The book ended on a note of hope and renewal that felt good for everyone, though Mrs Webber might have different thoughts on the issue. 

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

Book Review: ANCIENT GHOSTS

Title: Ancient Ghosts

Author: Edel Marit Gaino

Translator: Olivia Lasky and Lea Simma

Illustrator: Toma Feizo Gas

Publisher: Inhabit Education Books

Pages: 200

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

This book is a collection of ten paranormal stories from Norway. The stories are accompanied by illustrations, black and white impressions, daubs of black ink that grew to resemble the picture that the artist had in mind. There are 25 illustrations in all, including 15 full-page ones.

I found the cover, with its image of a ghastly, skeletal body with sharp claws and fangs, disturbing, yet intriguing.

Unfortunately, most of the stories barely measure up to the fear evoked by the cover image.

The Old Graves On Our Moor: The narrator, a child, learns from his uncle of the finding of a 1000-year-old undecomposed corpse. Later, the child has an encounter with it.

The story isn’t really scary but the sense of brooding atmosphere that the author incorporates into the telling might frighten a child on a dark night.

The Copper Kettle: Three friends set up camp at a wild reindeer bog, where one of them has a frightening experience with a supernatural being.

The third story, The Grouse, is preceded by a note with a trigger warning for sexual assault and the numbers of two helplines. This story was really scary but there is nothing paranormal about it. This one is about the depravity of men.

The Mudhole is another story about the real danger posed by quicksand.

In The Mirror, two teenage girls, playing around with an old superstition on New Year’s Day, learn a lesson.

In The Raven, the shooting of a raven ensures the end of a hunter’s shooting adventures.

The Dream-Seers: This one was more of an anecdote than a real story.

None of these stories are likely to give you sleepless nights, but even the momentary sense of unease can be effective in a well-written story.

But the heavyweights, it seems, had been saved to bring up the rear in this book. The Four-Eyed Dog was one story that really gave me the shivers.

The Invisible Dog started out really scary. It even built on the promise, but the conclusion undid the effect.

The scariest of the lot was the last story, The Fishing Trip, which was beautifully written. This was the only story in which the terror was actually palpable and not something to be nurtured by one’s imagination. 

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

Book Review: DUNMOOR

Title: Dunmoor
Author: London Clarke
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Pages: 367
My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

This is my second book by London Clarke. The first was The Neighbour.

The book covers a period of two years from 1817 to 1819.

In the Prologue, we come to know of a mysterious letter sent by Lord Drake Winters to his half-sister, Augusta, hinting at a dark secret in their past. Lord Winters has just sold the ancestral house, Dunmoor, to Luke Lennox, who intends to convert it into a home and school for orphans and foundlings.

Lady Helena Winters, abandoned by her husband, Drake, is already reeling from the scandal. Her father takes her to Dunmoor, with the intention of investing in Lennox’ efforts and helping his daughter get over her sorrow.

At Dunmoor, Helena’s father falls in and they are forced to extend their stay, enabling both her and Luke to witness the strange and frightful events together.

Once there, Helena is dragged into the terrors that inhabit Dunmoor and its surroundings.

Will these terrors defeat Luke's plans? Will Helena and Luke get out alive? 

The book is written in the 3^rd person past tense point of view of Helena and Luke.

Early on, the author creates a deliciously creepy vibe. There is something otherworldly about Dunmoor House. Shadows appear and footsteps sound when no one is around, and the forest behind the house is dark and menacing. The trees seem to be alive, and keep coming closer to the house.

The scenes about the terrors at Dunmoor and in the forest were well written but the overall impression wasn’t one of horror at all. There was a surfeit of evil entities involved and that undermined the effect. 

There are ghosts. There is the evil of child sexual abuse, rape, incest, devil worship and orgies. This excess weight causes the book to totter under the burden.

The story also seemed to lose focus for a while when Luke, frightened by the supernatural horrors he sees in the forest, flees to London and gives in to a life of drinking and gambling as a way to forget those evils.

That Lennox and Helena will have a romantic relationship is a foregone conclusion, but the manner in which they fall in love is rather rushed. Nor does Lennox come across as particularly noble or courageous. He has lost Penelope, his fiancée, but he doesn’t spend too much time grieving for her.

On the contrary, I found Alex Jameson, in spite of his rakish image, far more compelling.

Helena is academically inclined and enjoys studying Maths and Geometry, pluses in my opinion, but she isn’t written with any sense of warmth.

I ended up warming more to Lady Persephone than to Helena. The former has suffered through a lot. It couldn’t have been easy living in those times on her own terms. The story written from her viewpoint would have been even better.

Also, it would have been better if the children had played a more active role in this book. None of the kids here have been endowed with personalities, making it hard for us as readers to invest in them. It is Lennox and Helena who are made to appear larger-than-life for their efforts to ‘save’ the children.

Even poor Lucy is given short shrift. Just because she is poor, it seems as if Helena is dismissive of her feelings for Luke, and tells Lucy that some other working class individual with a bland personality is better suited to her. And this when she and Luke have not yet acknowledged their feelings for each other.

On the whole, this book didn’t meet my expectations. I will not be awaiting Book 2 of this duology.

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

Book Review: WHISPERS AND SCREAMS

Title: Whispers and Screams
Author: Kerri Lapierre and Nadia Teoli
Publisher: Independently Published
Pages: 66
My Goodreads rating: ⭐⭐

This book, with 13 stories of horror, promised to be one terrifying read. It was anything but.

The presentation needed improvement. The names of the stories were only mentioned in the Contents. The stories themselves were separated by images, but there was no mention of the names of the stories.

The stories were badly written. Tenses changed arbitrarily within paragraphs and even sentences. In one story, a sound is described as being too ornate to be made by the wind. Another sound is described as being ‘soft and quiet like a nursery rhyme.’

All the stories end abruptly. Short stories don’t allow room for much character development, but here, stories end before they even begin.

Come Closer was the only story that I thought could have turned out better if more effort had been put into it. The rest of them are all developments of banal ideas that you have read better versions of in other places.

Of course, the collection isn’t meant for grownups. But even my teenage daughter, who loves RL Stine, found the stories weak, unable to even create an atmosphere of foreboding.

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

Book Review: THE GARDENER

Title: The Gardener
Author: Anne Ferretti
Publisher: Independently published
Pages: 232
Goodreads rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Riley lost her parents in a car accident when she was just 10. Her father saved her but died trying to save her mother. Her mother’s body was never found. The experience gave her supernatural powers. She can see coloured auras around people that help her know their emotions. She has also come to know of people called Voids, pure evil, who have a white aura.

In the present day, Riley is a detective, using her unnatural abilities for good. Her new partner, Liam Silverman, is brash and young, and she is just figuring him out when they come to know of a five-year-old girl, Sarah, bloodied and missing a fingertip, but otherwise unhurt wandering the street. Her observations of her days in captivity lead the police to the horror of finding the body parts of seven young children in an abandoned dockyard, with the seven severed heads in the garden of an unused house.

The body count keeps piling up, and Riley comes to know of a serial killer, whose kills seem to be inspired by the nursery rhyme, Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary, How Does Your Garden Grow? The serial killer, named the Gardener by the media, keeps committing more heinous killings, using medieval torture devices, matching his kills with each line of the rhyme.

The leads converge around Robert Pearson, a hedge fund tycoon with a strange relationship with his adoptive mother. Why is the Gardener killing people who have an association with Pearson?

 

The description of the accident was heartrending. The powerful writing made me feel the child’s pain.

The book has been written in the 3^rd person past tense limited point of view of Riley and Robert. The descriptions of the killings didn’t make me feel squeamish in the least, and I appreciated not losing my dinner.

I liked all the characters, especially Riley. Her ability set her apart from other detectives of this genre. It was nice to see the slowly growing bond between Riley and Liam. Even Mary didn’t come across as evil, but as someone with a compelling backstory that we would learn about in time.

 

Another change was the cooperative working relationship between the Chicago Police Department and the FBI. In most books and films, the two are constantly sniping at each other.

I also liked the fact that Riley didn’t have a boyfriend. It’s very annoying when the love interest takes up too much room in a police procedural, especially one involving a serial killer and numerous bodies. Even later when Riley did get into a relationship, the focus remained on the job.

Another good thing was the manner in which Riley and Jason, the FBI agent, revealed bits of their past to each other. Slow and steady, while they are driving to a location, not interrupting the action. The banter between Riley, Liam and Jason, and even Paul, the captain, was good.

 

This was a ARC, so I hope the few errors get corrected. In one chapter, the bodies are found in various stages of ‘composition.’ That should be changed to decomposition.

The last few chapters of the book, soon after the police figure out the identity of the Gardener, seemed to be rushed. Despite the rushed pace and the frenzied action, there are no answers. Much of how he did what he did was not explained, and the book ended on a cliffhanger so closure will only come in the next book in the series. 

Towards the end of the book, it’s all Riley. Liam, Jason and Paul don’t figure at all. And it is odd that the guards should be so lax in a high security facility, despite being warned about the deviousness of the convict.

I’d like to read the next in the series.

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

Book Review: ELLIE JORDAN, GHOST TRAPPER

Title: Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper (Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper #1)

Author: JL Bryan
Publisher: Self-published
Pages: 220

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Ellie Jordan, the senior investigator of Eckhart Investigations, is, at a mere 26 years of age, a veteran when it comes to fighting ghosts and clearing haunted houses. She has a sidekick, a trust fund girl trained in filmmaking called Stacey Ray Tolbert, who helps her to solve her cases.

The two women are called to the home of Anna and Dale Treadwell. Anna and the couple’s 10-year-old daughter Lexa are tormented by a ghost, Mercy Cutledge, who wants them to leave the huge yet rundown mansion they have bought in the hope of converting it into a small hotel. Dale is in denial, and refuses to believe that the ghost is real.

Mercy, it turns out, brutally murdered her former employer, Capt Augustus Marsh, and was later committed to an asylum. When the asylum was closed down, she returned to the house and hanged herself.

Calvin Eckhart, the owner of the firm, wants Ellie to work with Jacob Weiss, a young accountant who is a psychic and needs to practise his psychic calling as part of his therapy. This is something that Ellie isn’t too happy about at the beginning, but then Jacob turns out to be an asset to the team.

Ellie’s and Stacey’s attempts to get rid of Mercy turn on them. Even as they struggle to get rid of her, a deeper, more malevolent evil awaits them in the depths of the house. Will they die in their attempts to rid the house of this evil presence?

The book is written in the first person past tense point of view of Ellie. The story was well written and I enjoyed it. It was good to see things from Ellie’s perspective and get to know of her fun working relationship with Stacey. The description of the house and the asylum were very evocative, inviting me to imagine the scenes. The danger at the asylum, in particular, were scarily real. The final confrontation and the resolution were well drawn out. The story wasn’t left hanging, to be continued in Part 2.

Ellie has a great sense of humour. She says, If we could learn to harness and domesticate ghosts, we could save a ton on air conditioning, especially down here in the Deep South.

Elsewhere she says, The stairs below me creaked and groaned under my weight – which isn’t that much, people.

In another instance, Ellie tells Stacey to play music to temporarily stun the ghosts. Stacey clicks her iPod on but Taylor Swift’s “We are never ever getting back together,” plays instead. It surprises the ghosts for a moment but then they get over it. Ellie says, The ghosts recovered and began to advance on us again from both stairways, clearly ignoring Taylor Swift’s firm rejection of pursuing any further relationship.

While I liked the characters of Ellie and Stacey, the book became even more interesting once the psychic element was introduced. Of course, while Ellie’s back story was believable and explained the compulsions that forced her to do such work, I could not understand why Stacey would opt to do such work just because nobody else would. After all, she is a trust fund kid. Paying the bills isn’t a pressing need for her. And her romantic interest Jacob isn’t even introduced when she makes up her mind to continue ghost trapping for a living.

Even though the book concerns the paranormal and the field of parapsychology, Ellie prides herself on being scientific in her approach. She has all kinds of impressive machines to help her corner and nab spirits and spy them. Bonus points to the author for the imagination required to ‘invent’ such machines.

One grouse I had related to Lexa’s parents. How could they continue to make her sleep alone, when the house was haunted, and the ghost repeatedly pushed the little girl’s locked door open to scare the family into leaving? Why couldn’t they invite her to sleep with them? Isn’t there safety in numbers? Especially when several characters mention the horror film trope of characters separating just before they die.

This was the first book in the Ellie Jordan series and I enjoyed it. I’m on my way to the second now.

Book Review: THE BROKEN GIRLS

Title: The Broken Girls
Author: Simone St James
Publisher: Berkley
Pages: 336
My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

This was a book that started slow and awkward. I almost gave it up. Thankfully, I didn't. 

I almost never give up on a book and my patience and determination to keep reading were rewarded with this slow burner that soon picked up pace. 

The Broken Girls turned out to be a thriller and murder mystery that went beyond its genre, growing to be an indictment of the Holocaust and its excesses, a paranormal ghost story, a tale of friendship spanning decades, a tale of justice denied and fought for.

Fiona Sheridan has not been able to get over the loss of her sister Deb, who was strangled and dumped at Idlewild Hall, an old, abandoned girl’s school which has been abandoned since 1979. Deb’s boyfriend, Tim Christopher, was tried and convicted of the crime, but that has not given Fiona closure. She is still haunted by the crime, unable to move on, even as Tim has spent 20 years in maximum security jail. She wonders if Tim killed Deb, or if someone else did.

Fiona gets herself an assignment, writing about the restoration of Idlewild. The new owners are Margaret Eden and her son, Anthony. Her efforts are supported by Jamie Creel, a cop and her boyfriend.

On a tour of the place, with Anthony, Fiona learns that another body has been discovered. The body of a school girl, Sonia Gallipeau, who was killed in 1950, and her body dumped in an old well.

Fiona, already grieving Deb, grieves also for Sonia, the 15-year-old orphan girl whose life had been brutally cut short. She becomes determined to find out who killed Sonia, while also seeking to find out who killed Deb.

But Jamie’s father, Garrett Creel, a former police chief, resents her attempt to revive the case. How far will he go to stymie her efforts. Will Fiona succeed? Will justice be served to Deb and Sonia?

After the Prologue set in November 1950, in which we learn that a young teenage girl is about to die, the story alternates between the 3^rd person past tense viewpoint of Fiona in November 2014, and to those of Katie Winthrop, Roberta, CeCe and Sonia Gallipeau in October 1950.

In time, we get to know the four girls, room-mates turned friends, quite closely. We learn of their individual histories, of how they came to be at Idlewild Hall, the boarding school of last resort, where parents stashed their embarrassments, their failures, and their recalcitrant girls. 

Each of them had a strong story which came out well. I was particularly touched by what Sonia had gone through, having lived at Ravensbrück prison as a young child.

Through the twin narratives of Fiona and the Idlewild girls, we are acquainted with Mary Hand, a ghost who haunts the school. A ghost who is brings to life a person’s worst fears. A ghost who terrifies you with your worst horrors. Mary was a strong presence who left her mark on the story.

Initially, I found the writing banal. The devices the employed were old and worn out. For instance, we get Fiona’s description when she looks into her car’s rearview mirror. We find Jamie talking at length, about something that Fiona already knows, but that, she says, she wants him to talk about because it’s more fun to get information from you. How bland is that!

But gradually, it seems as if the author gets more comfortable with the story, and you settle down for the ride. Simone does a great job of creating a mood of suspense and terror. It is in the descriptions and the action sequences that she truly excels.  There is something forbidding, brooding about the descriptions. The landscape of Vermont comes alive, in a way that helps one imagine it.

After the first few chapters, the writing became more intense. The fear that the characters felt, the emotions and feelings they went through became more real to us. I felt a deep sense of compassion for the four friends in 1950, with no family to love them.

I didn’t quite take to Fiona initially. Her dad was more vigorous and alive, compared to her. But gradually I began to like her. Her character underwent a positive change. From being somebody who wrote fluffy lifestyle pieces, she began to want to write a story on Idlewild. 

I also appreciated the fact that even as she grieved for her own sister, she also grieved for Sonia, for the fact that no one had mourned her loss. Fiona’s tendency to not just want to whiz by, but to want to stop and truly see, also appealed to me.

I liked the description of Malcolm: Malcolm Sheridan had never done small talk — he was the kind of man who looked you in the eye on first meeting and said, Do you enjoy what you do? Do you find it fulfilling?  If you had the courage to answer, he’d listen like it was the most fascinating thing he’d ever heard.

Apart from these characters, I also found the four girls to be very strong and well drawn out. Jamie, on the other hand, I didn’t much care for, even though the author went on and on about his muscular arms. His character arc didn’t grow as well as Fiona’s had.

In contrast, even Lionel Charters, who plays a bit role, came out stronger.

The younger man-older woman pairing, 29 to 37, was bold. But the romance, in the initial chapters, was utterly lackluster. It was also a little unreal that Fiona felt absolutely no insecurity about the age gap. But then again, maybe it was because she had freethinking, hippie parents.

Once again this relationship also benefited from the improvement in the writing.

The book gently mocks old-time phrases, like being born on the wrong side of the blanket, as well as the girls' textbook, Latin Grammar for Girls. As Jamie says, “The good old days when apparently Latin was different if you were a girl.” And using the term ‘iron deficiency’ for having one’s period. 

The author makes fun of the outdated notions in a gentle but firm manner. It was not assumed that the housewives of the future needed to know much about science.

But there were some errors and some awkwardness that slipped past that should have been caught.

Early on, Fiona tells Jamie, “It pays to have a nosy journalist on your side,” and that’s funny. Fiona is far from nosy.

The name and surname, Charlotte Kankle, were repeated five times and Cindy Benshaw twice. Surely the author could have called her just Charlotte the second time onwards. On the other hand, we don’t get to know Roberta’s surname until 2014, as part of Fiona’s research. But these were minor errors in the larger scheme of things. 

The cover was beautiful. The intimidating image of Idlewild, as seen through a cracked window pane. 

The book was beautiful, and the women characters and their stories certainly deserve your attention.

(I received an ARC from First to Read).

Book Review: ASYLUM - 13 TALES OF TERROR

Title: Asylum - 13 Tales of Terror
Author: Matt Drabble
Publisher: Eden Publications
Pages: 292
My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Martin Parcell, an out-of-work journalist on account of an accident-induced disability, takes up a job as a janitor in a private mental care hospital. It is the only job to be found in bleak times. Blackwater Heights is a Gothic building on the outskirts of the city. The building is surprisingly modern and utilitarian on the inside.

James, the older janitor, who shows him around on his first day of work, tells him the dramatic story of Horace Whisker, the original owner of Blackwater Heights. Martin is consumed by his imagination.

Sensing that Martin is an aspiring novelist, James offers to tell him the bizarre but true histories of the thirteen inmates at the asylum, on condition that he write and publish a book on the stories and share the proceeds with him. Unwilling to live his entire life as a janitor, Martin sees this as his ticket to a better life and agrees. But he soon realizes that he is getting much more than be bargained for.

Each of the inmates has his/her own unique story. Some are criminals, some have just found themselves at the wrong place, at the wrong time.

The stories are all well written, each evoking the right amount of atmosphere, enabling a movie to play out in our imaginations. Most of the plot lines are interesting.

In Picking Up Strangers, where a guy who lives his life according to schedules, and finds his life rudely disrupted when he stops his car to pick up a woman in distress.

In The Voice, a guy is plagued by a devilish voice inside his head.

In Two Blind Mice, a doctor preys on the visually impaired.

Is Anybody Out There? sees a woman making good money by pretending to be able to talk to the dead.

In Lonely Hearts, a grieving detective inspector, who has allowed himself to sink into grief-induced alcohol addiction after the death of his wife, gets a chance to redeem himself by solving a cold case.

No Strings Attached sees a young friendless land make one friend who is not quite what he appears to be.

Stormy Seas includes a ghostly visitation,

Method Acting introduces us to an arrogant rom-com star who attempts to earn respect for his craft by acting in a serious film.

In The Devil’s Music, a teenage boy gets more than he bargained for when he tries to invoke the devil.

Primetime Special sees a TV star, past his prime, attempting to boost his career by shooting an episode in a haunted house where he has already rigged some special effects.

In Yellow Streak, a soldier’s cowardice prevents him from attempting to save his fellow soldiers, when he has the chance to.

In Dish of the Day, a food critic who has destroyed the dreams of numerous small restaurant owners, is consumed by desire for a particular food that he can never have.

Night Class saw a group of adult students on the first day of class being systematically killed in a slash fest. This was the only story that I didn’t enjoy reading.

Each story ends with an unexpected development and in spite of himself, Martin finds himself intrigued by the inmates.

The only story that wasn’t a surprise was what happened to Martin himself.

But don't let that stop you from reading the stories. If you enjoy getting your imagination in a twist, this one's for you.

Book Review: THE SOUND OF FOOTSTEPS

Title: The Sound of Footsteps
Author: Diane Patterson
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services
Pages: 120
GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐









Described on the cover as a prequel to the Drusilla Thorne mysteries, this ghost story, not a paranormal tale by any means, reminded me of how twisted humans could get.

There isn’t much back story about Drusilla here. All we know is that she and her half sister, Stevie, are running away from something, forced to change identities and appearances and turn their backs on their old lives each time they are confronted by another life threatening situation.

They have done this very often before, but with this identity, that of Drusilla Thorne, whose first person account this is, the story suggests that it is the first of a series.

The sisters rent a small apartment in San Antonio, Texas. The rent is cheap because there is a ghost haunting the premises. The truth of the ghost is actually far more serious and scary and Drusilla gets to the bottom of it.  The mystery is resolved but the drama continues.

It is a short and quick read, but you don’t really get to know ether Drusilla or Stevie as characters, because Drusilla is so cagey. There is a hint of an interesting back story related to Stevie, but the whiff passes and the focus shifts again to the ghost.

The owner of the apartment is a woman, Hannah Burton, who lives with her 17-year-old daughter, Cissy, and 12-year-old son Dominic. Hannah is in the process of finalizing her divorce with Pete, a former army vet, a man with anger issues and a vicious temper who is not prepared to let go of his family.

Brandon Smith is the previous owner of the property who continues to visit the property by virtue of being the handyman and gardener. Brandon’s daughter, Patricia, had hanged herself in the very apartment which Drusilla and Stevie have rented, and it is her ghost that is supposed to be making noises and walking around.

Once the denouement starts, events get quickly out of hand, and before long, Drusilla and Stevie need to be on the run again, afraid of something, running away from the harm of the law, even when they have done nothing wrong.

I liked the character of Drusilla. She was frank and forthright and she drove the action onward. Unfortunately, you don’t get a good opportunity to get to know her. She gives us tantalizing hints of an exciting back story but the details don’t come out. All you know about her is that her actual name is Trudy and that Stevie is Svetlana but that is a detail that is mentioned in passing and never referred to again. We also learn that Drusilla is very protective of Stevie and that they’ve been on the run for ten years.

What does come out in this book is the Burton family dynamic, Pete’s insane jealousy, Hannah’s feelings of helplessness and Dominic’s insecurity.

I can’t say I was disappointed, but I wish this one had more going for it.

Book Review: DREAMS DON'T LIE

Title: Dreams Don't Lie
Author: Anusuya M
Publisher: Self-published
Pages: 252

Dreams don’t lie by Anusuya M, a novel of the paranormal thriller genre, is an unpolished debut novel that has a lot of potential.

Wasim Khan is a software engineer who lives in Bombay with his mother Rubina, and younger siblings Karim and Sarina. His father, Shakir, works in the Gulf. Wasim is plagued by the same recurring nightmare in which he sees a woman with a baby fleeing for her life, before being attacked and killed by a knife-wielding attacker. 

Despite enjoying his job, he feels restless and longs for adventure. He joins a gang, managed by a man called Kranti. The gang undertakes dangerous adventures for the purpose of doing good.

While on an assignment for this group, he witnesses the death of his father, and becomes aware that his father is not his father. He also learns the truth about his own identity, that he is actually Shiv Dayanand, the scion of an extremely wealthy family from Shanpur and heir to a huge fortune. He also learns that his parents were murdered, betrayed by a family member. Determined to avenge his parents’ deaths, he visits Shanpur. 

But nothing is as it appears. Wasim/Shiv will need every ounce of his courage, besides some help from beyond the grave, if he is to solve the mystery.

Very soon, you find yourself drawn into the world that Anusuya creates. Steadily but relentlessly, she piles up one devastating realization upon another, as we, and Wasim, slowly come to terms with the kind of person that Aditya, his father, was. The author packs it thick with all the revelations, and just when you think that you could not take any more, the paranormal element kicks in.

I liked the character of the girl, Neha, Wasim’s colleague, who is infatuated with him. She is feisty and vivacious and has the confidence to go after what she wants.

Anusuya does an equally good job with the other characters too. Even though we are not given descriptions to most of them, the characters grow on us through their interactions, which come across as believable.

Bonus points to her for pulling off the challenge of the pace so effectively. Shuffling her chapters between Wasim’s love life to his secret life in Kranti’s group to his home life, she ends each chapter well, leaving you wanting to know more.

I liked the way that Anusuya unraveled the truth about Aditya, bit by bit, through his father’s journals and his own investigations. I also liked the way in which she led Wasim down through various investigations and then brought him to a dead-end. It heightened the excitement of the plot.


If only she had managed to get the technicalities of the writing under control. At many points through the novel, it was distracting when the point of view shifted between paragraphs in the same chapter.

The story of Ankita, Neha’s roommate emerges as a subplot that did not fit in very well with Wasim’s story.

The novel is riddled with grammatical errors. It badly needed a good editor to comb through it. At various points, there are pronouns missing, as seen in four consecutive sentences in the Prologue that began with the words, The guest house.

The Prologue began with the first person account of a woman, presumably Anjali, who speaks of her husband, Aditya. Midway through the account, without warning, it changes to the third person perspective. The shift is most disconcerting.

There were times when the tense changed from one sentence to another in the same paragraph. All these errors exist in the Prologue. All in all, it contained the worst writing in the book. Thereafter the writing began to get better as if the author were beginning to ease into her craft and enjoy it to the fullest.

The rest of the novel suffers from questionable punctuation, particularly when the author employs direct speech. There are spelling errors too, for instance, leceherous instead of lecherous, and burgers who steal instead of burglars. I had to make a conscious effort to put these issues out of my mind, and concentrate on the plot which, to her credit, Anusuya pulls off superbly.

There are some continuity issues too, Wasim tells Kranti about Sharath Bejwa, but some pages later when mention of him crops up again, Kranti asks Wasim who the man is, and Wasim explains all over again, forgetting that he has already explained once.

In another instance, Aditya writes in his journal that Anjali’s mother died during her birth. But when he visits her home, there are pictures of the parents with her as a baby.

Despite having an attacker sneak up on him to kill him, Wasim still does not lock his room.

Certain conventions are flouted with impunity. When the scorpion tattoo is spoken of, Wasim remembers having seen it before. Even though we’ve trailed him for most of the book, we don’t know anything about this tattoo. According to the conventions of the genre, if a thing is critical, it must be introduced to the reader beforehand.

The dialogue too could have done with a little more work.

If Anusuya takes care to avoid all these issues, I think we can expect even better from her in her next book, which is most certainly on its way. Dreams don’t lie ends with the carrot of an impending sequel, an excerpt of which is included at the end of the book as a teaser.

(I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for a fair review.)