August 31, 2016

The Wolf Road - Beth Lewis


Crown Publishing, July 5, 2016.



Five Stars



When Elka was only seven years old, she was rescued from a violent storm by a man named Trapper. Living in a near future world in which technology has disappeared after an event only referred to as the “Big Damn Stupid”, Elka would not have survived on her own without the help of Trapper, a solitary hunter who lives alone in a cabin in the woods. Theirs is a life of subsistence, as he teaches the young girl to hunt, fish and survive off the grid (although the grid is gone, too). Trapper gives Elka the freedom to grow in the wild – but in fact his training might have more sinister motives.


As Elka grows, she begins travelling into town on her own to gather supplies for the cabin. The world has reverted to a modern wild west, and Elka has a run in with the new sheriff, a woman named Magistrate Lyon, who points out a wanted poster with an eerily familiar face – the poster identifies a man named Kreagar Hallet, but he is the man Elka knows as Trapper. Without any other family, Elka has always considered Trapper as a father figure, but with this new information she begins to reanalyze certain situations that have occurred in their isolated lives. Elka remembers there was once a woman running in fear through their camp, and she realizes that Trapper may not have always just been hunting animals.


Because Elka followed Trapper unquestioningly, she feels complicit in his crimes. However, her immediate concern is for her own safety, and she flees into the wilderness to escape both Trapper and Magistrate Lyon. She encounters many dangers and makes a few friends – I did feel this was the weakest part of the novel, and it dragged on a bit, but it picked up again quickly. With her new friend Penelope and a strangely faithful wolf, Elka travels north to what was probably Alaska, in search of her parents who followed the gold rush. In this desolate landscape, Elka will have a final confrontation with Trapper, one she is not sure that her guilty conscience will permit her to survive.


The novel is written in the first person, and for the most part lives inside Elka’s head – it could be a limiting perspective, but it is actually engrossing. Elka is an unreliable narrator because she has blocked out many of her childhood memories, and we discover them at the same time as she does. She is shocked by her own past, and it is indeed gritty and disturbing. In spite of her complexities, Elka’s voice is tough, quirky, and darkly funny.


The language is also unique – it is a sort of frontier dialect, with some words that only become clear in context, but once you get into it, the sentences flow seamlessly. We are immersed in the dark depths of Elka’s conscience, and there are many issues to grapple with, but these aspects don’t slow down the plot at all – instead, they work together to propel the story.


There is an incredible sense of setting – a snow-covered, wild landscape in a world that has been reset by the destruction of technology. We aren’t told exactly what happened to cause the world to end up this way, but it has resulted in powerful extremes of nature, including the thunderhead storms that killed Elka’s last remaining family and destroyed her home. This is a post-apocalyptic setting, but it does not define the novel. Instead, it is more of a psychological thriller, but unlike any others in the genre. The tension is ratcheted up because the villain is off-stage throughout the story – and yet he is also too close for comfort, inside Elka’s mind. The Wolf Road is engaging right from the start, and it ends back where it begins, coming full circle into a completely satisfying ending. I look forward to more from debut author Beth Lewis.


I received this novel from Crown Publishing and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

August 28, 2016

Arrowood - Laura McHugh


Random House, August 9, 2016.

 

Three Stars


 

After the death of her father, twenty-something Arden inherits her ancestral home of Arrowood, an ornate historical house on the Mississippi River in Iowa. Located in the small town of Keokuk, Arden’s presence is instantly noticed by the community that knew her has a child – her family left town after the disappearance of Arden’s twin sisters. The girls, under two years old, vanished on a sunny, peaceful afternoon, making the crime all the more shocking. As the older sister, Arden still carries the guilt of losing the twin girls.

 

Arden inherits Arrowood at a time when she is floundering in her academic career due to a failed relationship with her professor. She escapes to her childhood home, but she is also faced with the obligation of exposing the family mystery – and with generations of untimely deaths in the house, it is filled with ghosts, real and imagined. An eerie, menacing atmosphere invades Arrowood with its damp, musty darkness, yet it could have been much darker with more build up to the reveal.

 

While Arden is a strong, convincing character, many of the minor characters were unbelievable. The overall pacing of the story is inconsistent, with a slow loss of focus in the middle and an ending that felt too rushed. The setting of Keokuk, Iowa is strong – especially McHugh’s descriptions of a once proud and beautiful town falling into the depression of a failing economy. The focus on historical architecture and haunted old homes is well done and steeped in nostalgia.

 

Although this is yet another novel about missing girls, I wouldn’t call it a thriller. It is somewhat psychological, but the pace is slow and almost meditative. It is more of a literary mystery – a character study of Arden’s own psychological issues, as seen through the lens of the childhood tragedy of her sisters. It is a novel about the stories we tell ourselves, about ourselves, and the ways in which memories are manipulated. The fate of the missing girls isn’t completely shocking – following heavy foreshadowing – but it is still an entertaining story.

 

I received this novel from Random House and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

August 25, 2016

I Am No One - Patrick Flanery


Tim Duggan Books, July 5, 2016.



Three Stars


Professor Jeremy O’Keefe has just returned to New York after living and teaching in England for the last decade. He has been hired to work at NYU and is currently rekindling a relationship with his adult daughter and her husband. However, he lives a solitary life with few connections to the city of New York. He left for England shortly after 9/11 and in a way he feels like he abandoned his city when he should have stayed to express solidarity.


Questions of identity are tangled with ideas about homeland and patriotism for Jeremy, and the lengthy tangents that deal with these issues are full of triggers for our current world, such as terrorism and the surveillance state. Jeremy thinks he is beginning to forget things, such as emails he doesn’t remember sending, and it becomes such a problem that he even has medical tests done. There are no conclusive answers – until a mysterious box is delivered on his doorstep. The box contains endless pages of printouts, covering all of his online activity. Jeremy is being monitored, and he doesn’t know why – although the answer could lie in some questionable decisions he made while in England.


Jeremy has a fear of government surveillance, yet he had no trouble reporting on another man whom he feared – mostly because the other man was a Muslim. His decisions come back to haunt him in unexpected ways. The moral aspects of the novel start out subtle but soon become very obvious. Even though he has made some poor choices in the past, he doesn’t see them as transgressions because he is blinded by his own sense of entitlement. Jeremy thinks he is “no one” because he is not important enough to be watched, or so he thinks.


The voice of the narrator is very academic, white upper-class American – and we have come so far in the literary world that this voice almost feels fresh and original again. It is not a voice we are used to hearing in contemporary literature, but it still made Jeremy extremely unlikeable and unsympathetic for me. Because of his gender, race and class, he cannot imagine himself as a threat and he believes these characteristics protect him from the government. His entitled world view is frustrating to read.


This novel does pose intriguing and important questions about the current surveillance state, and in the end Jeremy does advocate privacy over the supposed safety that the government offers. In a world of intrusive government surveillance, this novel questions what it means to be free – does constant monitoring make us more safe or less so? As an academic exploration, I Am No One is an interesting read, but I just couldn’t get past the pompous, privileged narrative voice.


I received this novel from Tim Duggan Books and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

August 22, 2016

The Gilded Life of Matilda Duplaine - Alex Brunkhorst


Mira, April 26, 2016.



Three Stars



This novel is being called a “modern day Gatsby tale,” and I can see how it has been inspired by Fitzgerald, mostly in tone. The story has old-fashioned sensibilities, reminiscent of Gatsby’s extravagant parties and lavish home, although the setting here is present day Bel Air. It also features a main character who enters into a wealthy world and falls in love with a woman well above his social status – and ends in heartbreak (this isn’t a spoiler, we are told from the start that the love affair doesn’t end well).


Thomas is a New York journalist who has been given a second chance in L.A. One of his first assignments is to write an obituary of a legendary film producer Joel Goldman, and he meets with Joel’s daughter Lily to get a quote for the newspaper. Lily takes an instant shine to Thomas, and introduces him to her lifestyle of the rich and famous. As he becomes close to her tight-knit group of celebrity friends, Thomas finds himself the recipient of all the best entertainment stories, rapidly advancing his career.


In awe of Lily’s exclusive world of elite socialites, Thomas feels that he has finally redeemed himself for the mistakes he made in New York. Everything is going well for him, until the evening he confuses the address of a party and ends up at the Bel Air home of producer David Duplaine. The rest of the group is at the beach house party, but there is one person at home on the estate: David’s daughter, Matilda. The twenty-year-old girl has lived a secluded life – she has had every need and desire provided for, although she has never left her father’s gated estate. Upon meeting Thomas, Matilda realizes the true price of wealth and privilege – she has missed out on the experiences of real life.


Thomas and Matilda embark on a secret, forbidden affair – until David finds out. His past, and therefore Matilda’s whole life, have been filled with secrets, mistakes and regrets. As a journalist, Thomas is desperate to put together the pieces of Matilda’s history; but as her boyfriend, he is compelled to respect her privacy. The conflict between career and personal life prove to be his undoing.


The mysteries of the storyline held my interest throughout – the novel is an easy, light read, but it is necessary to suspend disbelief to really enjoy the plot. Filled with exotic locations, luxurious homes and rich, bored, entitled people, The Gilded Life of Matilda Duplaine reads like a fairytale with a twist. Matilda is a damsel in distress, but she doesn’t need rescuing – she needs to be set free to live her own life.


This is an unusual, almost nostalgic novel. At some points, I felt it would have been better had it actually been set in the 1920s, but the contrasts between Matilda and Thomas are more glaring in the present day. The tone of the novel, with its hint of mystery, is actually a really nice change from all the dark, psychological thrillers that are being published right now. Even though most of it is predictable, it is a nice, escapist read for the summer.


I received this novel from Mira and Goodreads First Reads in exchange for an honest review.

August 20, 2016

The Wolf in the Attic - Paul Kearney

Solaris Books, May 10, 2016.

Three Stars


In the 1920s, young Greek refugee Anna Francis lives in Oxford with her father. Fleeing the Turkish invaders during the war, they lost Anna’s mother and brother in the escape to England – and Anna’s father has never recovered from their loss. He neglects his daughter in favour of drinking and gambling, and twelve-year-old Anna is left to wander the streets alone.


Anna finds herself in all kinds of dangerous situations, witnessing a murder and running into a group of Romani transients. They deny being gypsies, but in fact they might be something much more ancient and terrifying. The group includes an older boy named Luca with whom Anna has an immediate connection – but she will lose everything she knows in exchange for Luca’s friendship.


Anna has a love of mythology, interpreted through a childlike imagination. She is only twelve, but seems more mature, and it’s unsettling to remember that she is actually so young to be in such adult situations. Anna’s internal voice is strong, but the various conversations in the novel are stilted and unnatural. Her obsession with Greek mythology is interesting, but it doesn’t really correlate with the legends explored by the Romani and the Roadmen in this novel. The competing transient groups are a mish-mash of world folklore, and I found it very confusing. I think the only way to really lose yourself in the novel is to forget everything you know about real-world mythology and let Anna’s version stand on its own.


As I started reading, I thought this novel was going to be pure historical literature, but it was much more fantastical than I expected. There are cameos by C.S. Lewis and Tolkien, but they don’t really add anything to the story, except to remind us that The Wolf in the Attic is inspired by these giants of the fantasy genre. As for the titular wolf, I thought he would be more of a metaphor – but in fact, there are many supernatural elements to the novel. My only problem was that these supernatural details seemed to appear rather suddenly in the second half of the novel. The story is slow to start, and then seems to turn into a completely different novel halfway through – the pacing is uneven, and hard to follow. I feel like this book is just build up for the rest of the series, and it was kind of disappointing to not see more plot and character development in this first book.


I received this novel from Solaris Books and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

August 16, 2016

The Chimes - Anna Smaill

Quercus Books, May 3, 2016.



Three Stars



In an alternate version of London, following a brutal civil war, the city is divided between the poor and the elite. Spiritual figures hide away for years, creating brilliant compositions to be played throughout the city – and their melodies are used to erase the memories of the citizens of this new world. With no ability to form new memories, and no written language, the people live day to day, unable to advance beyond the oppression of the elite.


Simon is not much more than a child when he travels to London, following the memory of a name given to him by his mother. He ends up joining a group of almost feral young people who spend their days searching the slums for valuable objects, and their nights using their own possessions to recall “objectmemories” – the wisps of former feelings tied up in an important object. They are able to function daily by using physical memory – the body’s ability to recall its repetitive actions of the day before. Simon’s days would have continued on like this forever, except he realizes that he, like his mother before him, has a special ability to hold onto memories.


The world Smaill has created is filthy and oppressive – but it is also unique and beautiful. This reimagined London is filled with music, and musical descriptors, such as lento and presto, are sprinkled throughout its new language. It is a creative vocabulary, unusual yet easy to understand in the context of the story. Sensory and descriptive, Simon’s world is filled with a sense of wonder – unfortunately, the dialogue between characters wasn’t nearly as strong. It was the undeveloped conversations that most made me feel like this novel should be marketed as young adult.


The Chimes is an original and inventive dystopia. It is a world run by a mysterious group called The Order, but the power of the novel is in the chaos Smaill envisions for a people without the ability to communicate or even to remember what it was they wanted to fight against. The dystopian themes are ambitious in scale, but I did feel that the details of this alternate reality were lacking. There was just too much telling, and not enough showing us what life was like for Simon and his friends. I think this novel could have been developed much further, and perhaps spread out into a series, allowing Simon to truly grow as a character and understand his mysterious world.


I received this novel from Quercus Books and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

August 14, 2016

Finding Fraser - KC Dyer

Berkley Publishing, February 26, 2016.




Three Stars


Emma is twenty-nine and recently divorced. She is unfulfilled by her work, and she’s well on her way to an early mid-life crisis. Her solution is to quit her job (well, actually she got fired), sell all of her belongings, and travel to Scotland to find her own version of Jamie Fraser, the fictional hero of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander novels. He is her perfect man in every way, so she tries to be more like his love interest, Claire, beginning with an attempt to follow Claire’s journey through Scotland – the path Claire took when she first travelled back in time to meet Jamie.


Although Emma is supposedly almost thirty, she generally acts like a child. In fact, this reads like a millennial version of Eat, Pray, Love – Emma is silly and naïve, and it’s no surprise that she repeatedly finds herself in awkward and sometimes devastating situations when she chooses to trust the wrong people. Emma’s first several mishaps were funny and endearing, but it just never ended, and she didn’t seem to learn from her mistakes. This is definitely not a profound story of self-discovery – at best, it is a light beach read, not that there’s anything wrong with that, if it’s what you’re in the mood for.


Emma arrives in Scotland with no real plan, aside from the map found in the front of her well-used copy of Outlander. In her random search for her own Jamie Fraser, she seems to be only focused on his physical appearance, instead of the more important qualities that the fictional Jamie possesses. When she does find a man that she thinks might fit the mold, he ends up being manipulative and emotionally abusive – but it’s fine, as long as she has her Jamie. Emma is on a quest for love, but instead she should be trying to find herself, which would have been much more empowering.


The structure of the novel is gimmicky, as Emma writes blog posts about her travels, and various friends, family and fans respond in the “comments” section. What I did like was how she omitted lots of important details in her blog to make things sound more glamourous and fun than they actually were – then she described the true events afterwards. It shows how everything you read on the internet has been manipulated to show a certain side of things. I just wish Emma had used the real life events to develop more as a character – even though she announces that she has changed in the end, it doesn’t ring true.


This novel is clearly trying to capitalize on the success of Gabaldon’s books, especially with the recent popularity of the Outlander television series. I think it is definitely necessary to be an Outlander fan if you plan on reading Finding Fraser – I don’t think it would make any sense at all without the background of the original series. The author is attempting to imitate Gabaldon’s quirky humour, but it isn’t quite successful. What makes Jamie and Claire so special in the original is that they don’t fit the tropes of the historical romance genre – and when they do, it is with an ironic wink. In contrast, Emma and her story are the definition of chick lit, and I just didn’t find it interesting. This was a two-star read for me, but I’m bumping it up to three because I think many Outlander fans who want a light, easy read will enjoy this.

I received this novel from Berkley Publishing and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

August 11, 2016

Into the Light - Aleatha Romig

Thomas & Mercer, June 14, 2016.

Five Stars



As this novel begins, a woman named Sara wakes up with no memories and no vision – her only anchor to her former life is her husband Jacob, who tells her they live in a northern Alaskan compound, followers of a religion referred to as The Light. She remembers nothing about her marriage or their beliefs, but she feels safe with Jacob and they quickly reignite their relationship. However, there are some bumps along the way, especially as Sara is forced to fully submit to her husband and the other powerful men who run the community.


In alternating chapters, we also follow a journalist named Stella as she searches for her friend Molly – she disappeared while investigating a disturbing trend of missing women from the streets of Detroit. Stella is warned away from the path of her investigation by her police detective boyfriend, especially as her instincts lead her to a cult called The Light. The shadowy organization is run by the sinister Father Gabriel, and Stella risks her own life in an attempt to expose his connection to the missing women.


Meanwhile, Sara struggles to reconcile her independent personality with an oppressive community that preaches obedience to men, and reinforces it with corporal punishment. The cycle of abuse followed by affection that Jacob offers his wife is difficult to witness, especially in the increasingly tender moments between them. For Sara, her relationship with Jacob is brand new, and in spite of his controlling nature, she begins to fall in love with him. Their romance is very unsettling because it is steeped in abuse yet Jacob somehow becomes a sympathetic character. The author manages to manipulate the reader just as Jacob manipulates Sara.


We know almost from the start that no one can be trusted in The Light. Father Gabriel and the leaders of the community speak of acquiring and indoctrinating their subjects in a very methodical and psychologically scientific way. Since we know the members of The Light are unreliable, it increases our sympathy for Sara. The novel is filled with suspense but it is never overdone – in fact, it is eerily believable. There are no gratuitous twists – the whole story is clearly thought out and cleanly plotted.


Romig manages multiple points of view with ease, showing the full extent of brainwashing and extreme control used by The Light. I won’t say any more about the plot, as its best to jump in knowing very little about it – although it does end in a cliffhanger, with the sequel being published this autumn. Into the Light is so original in plot and character, and I really couldn’t stop reading until I got to the last shocking page. Although I guessed a few of the twists, it doesn’t make it less enjoyable because it is just so well written.


I received this novel from Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

August 09, 2016

A Cure for Madness - Jodi McIsaac


Thomas & Mercer, January 19, 2016.



Three Stars



Clare always had an unsettled relationship with her family, and she moved far away from them as soon as she was able to. When her parents are killed suddenly, she is forced to return home to Clarkeston, Maine and become guardian to her mentally ill brother Wes. Upon her return, something seems off in the sleepy little town. When she goes to pick up Wes at the psych ward, it is overflowing with patients and everyone is filled with unexplained violent emotions.


Before she has a chance to plan her parents’ funeral, the residents of Clarkeston start to go crazy. A contagious mutation, nicknamed “Gaspereau” after the lab where it was discovered, is on the loose. Spreading through cold-like symptoms, Gaspereau causes people to display symptoms of schizophrenia – the illness that Wes happens to be afflicted with. While the infection is not fatal on its own, it causes hallucinations, paranoia, and violent behaviour, leading to many fatalities – and it is spreading rapidly. In fact, Clare’s parents were likely two of Gaspereau’s first victims, as they were randomly attacked by a man with whom they attended church for many years.


Clare feels unequipped to deal with her brother’s symptoms, not to mention an entire town exhibiting schizophrenic-like behaviour – but before she can leave town, Clarkeston is quarantined. An unknown government agency uses the lockdown to capture Wes, as they believe he could be part of the cure for madness. Clare manages to help him make a daring escape from the hospital, but then the two are on a run for their lives. As Wes’ guardian, Clare must decide whether she is able – or indeed if she has a moral obligation – to sacrifice her brother in order to save millions of other people.


A Cure for Madness makes reference to other apocalyptic literature, including The Passage, Fahrenheit 451 and The Walking Dead. Usually, when the end of the world strikes in a novel, it happens outside the literary canon of other such novels – in this case, Clare’s awareness of this literature acts as foreshadowing and increases her fear level. The disease itself is believable, and the author’s explanations of the science behind it are short and sweet – just enough information to make it seem plausible, without getting bogged down in details.


Some of the timing of events was too convenient, as things didn’t seem to happen organically – many scenes were written only to justify the next situation, and it doesn’t flow naturally. It was also extremely coincidental that Clare’s best friend is a TSA agent and her newly reunited ex-boyfriend is a doctor on the front lines of the outbreak – so between the two of them, Clare has all the access she needs to information about Gaspereau and about the agency that is hunting her brother Wes. I also found that some of Clare’s backstory was unnecessarily manipulative, and it didn’t really add to the plot.


The ending was rushed, and I wished for more character development – this could have either been a longer novel, or it could have been followed with a sequel. Regardless, I couldn’t help but be swept away in the adventures of Clare and Wes, and it was definitely a fun read. The ending was easy to guess, but it was still a great ride getting there. Most of all, Clare realized that nobody’s perfect, and she learned to be a hero in her own way, without submitting to any of the romantic tropes that would usually define the female hero in an apocalyptic novel. A fun, surface-level summer read that still makes you think.


I received this novel from Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

August 06, 2016

Security - Gina Wohlsdorf

Algonquin Books, June 7, 2016.

Three Stars



The Manderley Resort is an opulent, glamorous new hotel on the coast of California. The décor of the hotel has the best of everything, with huge crystal chandeliers, luxurious modern ballrooms and wall-to-wall white carpet as far as the eye can see. The Manderley has the best security in the world, seemingly excessive to the staff – but a necessity for the wealthy owner, whose father was killed in a hotel when room service delivered him a homemade bomb. The over-the-top security is justified when we learn that there is a killer on the loose inside the hotel.


Security is a shocking thriller combined with an unusual love story. The name of the hotel is an obvious nod to Daphne DuMaurier, and the author borrows from other well-known horror stories, using obscure hedge mazes, secret passageways and an eerily slow glass elevator, all the better to witness the grisly murders that begin to take place in the seemingly spotless hotel. As they prepare for opening night, the staff of the hotel are easy targets for the killer.


In the age of surveillance, everyone is constantly being watched – it can make you feel safe, or it can put your life in danger. In this case, the hotel staff is monitored by their security team as they walk into the killer’s various traps. The novel is narrated by the unnamed head of security, although we do not know that at first – he is an omniscient voice who interjects himself into the story with a dry sense of humour and lack of self-preservation. He seems to be sitting back and watching the crimes committed – is he complicit, or is there more to the story? The novel is a genre-hybrid with gory splashes of blood ripped from the movie ”Scream” that lead to unexpected moments of romantic drama. It is unsettling, yet very entertaining.


I didn’t know going into this novel that it leans heavily on the classic slasher style – it is creepy, gross horror, but somehow really fun. Especially the chef’s cherry coulis spilled around the hotel, not to be mistaken for blood. The novel follows the tropes of a strong lead woman with her charming male sidekick, surprisingly able to survive as the minor characters around them are killed off one by one – and we are the voyeurs forced to watch. There is an ominously slow reveal of clues as the security cameras pan out and we are allowed to see the bigger picture. In some parts, Security reads like an amateur screenplay, but in fact I think it would make an awful movie – it is the author’s cheeky, clever narrative style that really enhances this novel and makes it so much fun to read.


I received this novel from Algonquin Books and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

August 02, 2016

The House Between Tides - Sarah Maine


Atria Books, August 2, 2016.

 

Four Stars




The House Between Tides is an atmospheric debut novel that is already being compared to Kate Morton’s novels of multigenerational mystery, and the comparison is apt. Both Morton’s and Maine’s novels use dual timelines to gradually expose family secrets, in this case moving from the murky past of 1910 to one hundred years later in the present day of 2010. The movements back and forth through time are anchored by a gothic ancestral home filled with shocking secrets.

 

On a small island in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides, the ancient house of Muirlan is isolated from the rest of the community during high tides. In 1910, Muirlan is inhabited by Theo Blake, a prolific painter of the natural world surrounding his home. As his fame increases in the art world, he finds a young wife named Beatrice and brings her home with him to Muirlan, thinking that time away from Edinburgh will bring them closer together. However, the isolation of the island creates a rift in their relationship – Beatrice finds herself sympathizing with Theo’s struggling tenants, and she is increasingly repelled by his thoughtlessly aristocratic way of life.

 

When Beatrice suddenly vanishes from the island, Theo withdraws from society. His paintings turn dark with emotion, and he rarely leaves the isolation of Muirlan until his death. In 2010, a young woman named Hetty inherits the crumbling, uninhabited house when her last living relative dies. She has no knowledge of her Blake ancestors, until human remains are found in the ruins of Muirlan, and she begins to unravel the secrets of the past.

 

A century after Theo and Beatrice’s arrival on the island, the mystery of their marriage is still affecting the residents of the island. Coming from the city, Hetty plans to turn Muirlan into a luxury resort, but as she gets to know the residents and their history, she begins to envision a different, more sustainable future for the island. Maine’s descriptions of the island setting are dark and beautiful, captivating in their complexity. The attention to detail shows a clear love of the land and its wildlife. Passages describing the salty air and crashing waves make you feel like you’re really there on Muirlan’s intriguing island.

 

With the help of a cantankerous yet attractive groundskeeper, Hetty searches for clues to understand her family’s past. For the most part, Hetty and the other characters are believable – they are imperfect and interesting. As is usually the case in dual timeline novels, one time period tends to be stronger than the other. In this novel, the characters in the early 1900s are more fleshed out and realistic – it is easier to understand their motivations and feel complicit in their decisions.

 

Hetty’s storyline is a bit weaker, and her romance is frustratingly predictable – she trades one man for another, and never seems able to stand on her own. Hetty is steamrolled by everyone around her, and characters such as her former boyfriend become tedious clichés. While the novel is slow at times, it is still a fun, intriguing story, with a surprising mystery that keeps you reading rapidly to the end.

  

I received this novel from Atria Books/Simon & Schuster in exchange for an honest review.

In the Shadow of the Mosquito Constellation - Jennifer Ellis


Moonbird Press, May 18, 2014.



Four Stars



The world in this novel is very similar to our own, and the devastation it faces is something that we could easily see in the near future. There has been a worldwide economic collapse due to the advent of peak oil consumption, and as a result, all of our basic human systems – government, trade, transportation – have shut down. Natalie and her husband Richard were living in Vancouver at the time, but when things started to go downhill, they invested in some farmland outside the city. Richard, then the mayor of Vancouver, was against the move, but now, after “the peak”, the farm is the only enclave of survival that they are currently aware of.


Natalie, Richard and their two teenage sons moved to the farm shortly after gas stations closed down and transit stopped running. They were joined by their immediate families and a few close friends. As time passed, they took in more people, transients less fortunate than themselves. Everyone contributes to the farm, but it has still reached capacity of production, leading to the Farm Council’s decision not to allow any more “refugees” to join the farm. The Council, begun to keep order on the farm, is now weighed down by bureaucracy which is often manipulated to justify immoral actions. Difficult choices are made because the farm is surrounded by death, and their survival depends on a willingness to work together.


Communal living is difficult at the best of times, and Natalie also must struggle with her troubled marriage. Richard is manipulative and narcissistic – he controls the Farm Council and doesn’t believe that he needs to do the manual labour that makes the farm run. He makes impulsive decisions without consulting Natalie, and when she confronts him, he makes it seem as though she is the abuser. Even if she wanted to, Natalie cannot leave him because there is nowhere else to go – it’s reminiscent of the past when divorce rates were low because women were not permitted to survive on their own.


Natalie is pragmatic, able to sacrifice her former expansive, acquisitive life for one of subsistence on the farm. Others are not so willing to give up the power they had in the past – Richard especially wishes to return to Vancouver and try to restart the government there. Natalie will trade almost anything for the safety of her sons, but she still wishes for reciprocal, caring love – and she may have found it, with Richard’s twin brother Daniel. However, there is no possible life for them on the farm. When they travel together to search for antibiotics to stave off a virulent strain of the flu that has surrounded the farm, they realize there is a larger world out there, with possibilities for change.


None of the characters are particularly likeable, but they are all very real and flawed. I enjoyed the use of the farm enclosure as a device for distilling human behaviour – with all kinds of people trapped and forced to work together, some unsavoury beliefs and actions come quickly to the surface. Feelings are expressed that would usually be hidden in the “civilized” world, such as racism, sexism and classism. It is really a microcosm of current world politics, especially the unwillingness to let in refugees – but with their isolation policy, the farm members must confront the fact that they need new blood to repopulate the world and carry on. This novel asks the question of how humankind would move forward if we had to start over – and do we need to? Should we? Or perhaps there is another way to live in this world.


I received this novel from Moonbird Press and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.