Tag: Magic Realism

Posted in Sunday Spotlight

Sunday Spotlight: Going Down Under

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I’ve always been unconsciously drawn to books set in Australia and New Zealand, perhaps because I have family in both countries and want to familiarise myself with their lives. My mum lived there as a ten pound Pom in the 1960’s, leaving Liverpool behind and living in hostels meat Sydney. My grandad loved it out there and would tell us about nature, mostly horrific stories of people having spider’s nest in their ears or brains. My brother-in-law went out to New Zealand to work as a tree surgeon on a huge farm. He met the love of his life out there, Jenny, and although Jan died a few years after my husband I’m still in touch with Jenny and my two nephews. I was also hugely influenced by mum who was an enormous fan of The Thorn Birds – although hated Rachel award as Meggie in the TV mini-series. I’ve always thought that people down under are resilient, rather sweary and very straightforward. They say what they think – something I admire even where I don’t agree. I love the diversity of the cities and fascinated by Aboriginal and Māori. Some of my choices were read on my post-colonial literature course at university, a module that I found so inspiring and forced me to read writers I’d never have picked up as a casual reader. Here are just a few of the books and authors that can take you on a trip round both countries.

Classics

When her wealthy family prepares to host a lavish summer party, the young, hitherto sheltered Laura Sheridan suddenly feels a kinship with the staff and the helpers hired to set up the venue for the festivities. As she learns of the death of one of their working-class neighbours, this burgeoning sense of class consciousness is heightened by a realization of her own mortality. Published in 1922, at the height of literary modernism, ‘The Garden Party’ is now considered one of the key texts of that movement. This volume, which also includes all of Katherine Mansfield’s other published short stories, is an invaluable resource for anyone wishing to discover one of the early twentieth century’s finest writers. I first read this collection at university and I still have it today because it stands up against any short story collection from that period.

Integrating both Maori myth and New Zealand reality, The Bone People became the most successful novel in New Zealand publishing history when it appeared in 1984. Set on the South Island beaches of New Zealand, a harsh environment, the novel chronicles the complicated relationships between three emotional outcasts of mixed European and Maori heritage. Kerewin Holmes is a painter and a loner, convinced that “to care for anything is to invite disaster.” Her isolation is disrupted one day when a six-year-old mute boy, Simon, breaks into her house. The sole survivor of a mysterious shipwreck, Simon has been adopted by a widower Maori factory worker, Joe Gillayley, who is both tender and horribly brutal toward the boy. Through shifting points of view, the novel reveals each character’s thoughts and feelings as they struggle with the desire to connect and the fear of attachment.

Compared to the works of James Joyce in its use of indigenous language and portrayal of consciousness, The Bone People captures the soul of New Zealand. After twenty years, it continues to astonish and enrich readers around the world.

Mythology and contemporary Māori life are woven together seamlessly in this spectacular collection by Aotearoa’s foremost short story writer.

The titular story ‘Bird Child’ plunges you deep into Te Kore, an ancient time before time. In another, the formidable goddess Mahuika, Keeper of Fire, becomes a doting mother and friend. Later, Grace’s own childhood vividly shapes the world of the young character Mereana; and a widower’s hilariously human struggle to parent his seven daughters is told with trademark wit and crackling dialogue.

Moving artfully across decades, landscapes, time and space, with tenderness and charm, Bird Child and Other Stories shows an author as adept and stimulating as ever. This isn’t an easy read but fascinating and the comparison between Māori and other creation myths from around the world was fascinating.

Contemporary Fiction

Cassy smiled, blew them a kiss.

‘See you in September,’ she said.

It was a throwaway line. Just words uttered casually by a young woman in a hurry. And then she’d gone. 

It was supposed to be a short trip – a break in New Zealand before her best friend’s wedding. But when Cassy waved goodbye to her parents, they never dreamed that it would be years before they’d see her again. 
Having broken up with her boyfriend, Cassy accepts an invitation to stay in an idyllic farming collective. Overcome by the peace and beauty of the valley and swept up in the charisma of Justin, the community’s leader, Cassy becomes convinced that she has to stay.

As Cassy becomes more and more entrenched in the group’s rituals and beliefs, her frantic parents fight to bring her home – before Justin’s prophesied Last Day can come to pass. I love Charity Norman’s writing because she gets to the heart of family relationships and shows how families can fracture when placed under stress. I’d recommend any of her books but this one is set in New Zealand. I highly recommend Remember Me and Home Truths.

At a suburban barbecue one afternoon, a man slaps an unruly boy. 

The boy is not his son. 

It is a single act of violence, but the slap reverberates through the lives of everyone who witnesses it happen.

Christos Tsiolkas presents the impact of this apparently minor domestic incident through the eyes of eight of those who witness it. It’s honestly hard to find someone to like here, but it is a fascinating look at contemporary Aussie relationships. It’s an unflinching interrogation of the life of the modern family, a deeply thought-provoking novel about boundaries and their limits…

The Lambert sisters have secrets…

When 15-year-old Cathy Lambert runs away from her Dublin home, she is scared and pregnant. Settled in New Zealand with her new son Conor she believes the secret she carries will never be revealed…

Rebecca Lambert was eighteen when her parents died and she took responsibility for her younger sisters. Years later, she is haunted by fears she hoped she’d conquered.

Freed from family duties, mother of three Julie Chambers is determined to recapture the dreams of her youth.

Married to a possessive older man, Lauren Moran embarks on a frantic love affair that threatens to destabilise her fragile world.

Anxious to make peace with her three sisters, Cathy invites them to her wedding.

But as the women journey together through New Zealand towards their reunion, they are forced to confront the past as the secret shared histories of the Lambert sisters are revealed. I couldn’t put this book down as it’s a great mix of emotions, adventure, secrets and a lot of humour.

EVERY ENDING IS A NEW BEGINNING…

Ruth is ignoring the news. Like most people, she has relationship problems, job stress, friends and family who need her. Ruth has a life.

But the news is about to catch up with Ruth, and her problems are going to be swept away…along with the rest of the world. While on a plane to New Zealand, something starts to happen to the world. Arriving, Ruth makes her way to her coastal destination but never expected to be sharing the inside of a dead whale with a stranger as a world ending event happens. It takes this to change Ruth’s outlook completely. Only when the comforts and complications of her old existence are gone, does she finally realise how she might be able to live to the fullest. This was a mesmerising debut from Kate and I still recommend it constantly. It made me think about something drastic like this happening in my lifetime, but also question why we fall in love with the people we do and how commitments to others are nurtured and lad

Romantic Fiction

Love isn’t an exact science – but no one told Don Tillman.

A thirty-nine-year-old geneticist, Don’s never had a second date. So he devises the Wife Project, a scientific test to find the perfect partner. Don has a regimented life of work

Enter Rosie – ‘the world’s most incompatible woman’ – throwing Don’s safe, ordered life into chaos.

But what is this unsettling, alien emotion he’s feeling? . . .

This is a deeply funny, but emotional and fascinating in terms of Don’s neuro-divergence. He eats the same meal on the same night every week as part of his rotation of menus. His life felt like a never-ending to-do lust and I knew that he would drive me up the wall. Rosie is a woman of great patience! However, I also knew that my lack of systems and routine would have an equally detrimental effect on his mental health. Watching how these two people try, fail and try again to communicate their needs and feelings within the relationship is a lesson for every couple. It’s also brilliantly funny. There is a trilogy now so treat yourself to all of them.

In the rugged Australian Outback, three generations of Clearys live through joy and sadness, bitter defeat and magnificent triumph, driven by their dreams, sustained by remarkable strength of character… and torn by dark passions, violence and a scandalous family legacy of forbidden love.

The Thorn Birds is a poignant love story, a powerful epic of struggle and sacrifice, a celebration of individuality and spirit. Most of all, it is the story of the Clearys’ only daughter, Meggie, who can never possess Ralph de Bricassart, the man she so desperately adores. Ralph will rise from parish priest to the inner circles of the Vatican… but his passion for Meggie will follow him all the days of his life.

What a saga this is and I have to say the book is ten times better than the series, mainly because we get more of the family dynamic and get to know Meggie as a little girl. Her story of slowly growing up with such a harsh mother really builds and we understand more her bond to the young priest who befriends her, noticing that in a family of many sons she is largely ignored. He is her knight in shining armour and the only one, after her eldest brother is gone, who will hug and comfort this lonely girl. Catholic readers will recognise how powerful the religion is for Irish families and the schooling that nuns provide. The book is an epic and covers Father Ralph’s lifetime, but it has an incredible sense of place and time and really is worth a read for that alone.

n 1929, Beattie Blaxland had dreams. Big dreams. She dreamed of a life of fashion and fabrics. One thing she never dreamed was that she would find herself pregnant to her married lover, just before her nineteenth birthday. 

In 2009, Emma Blaxland-Hunter was living her dream. A prima ballerina with the London Ballet, she had everything… Until the moment she lost it all. 

Separated by decades, both women must find the strength to rebuild their lives. A legacy from one to the other will lead to Wildflower Hill, a place where a woman can learn to stand alone long enough to realise what she really wants.

I’d never read this author before so it came as a complete surprise when I enjoyed it so much. It is historical fiction too, but I loved that this was a ballsy woman who was determined to succeed at Wildflower Hill and her love story with an aboriginal worker would have been so transgressive at the time. It’s an unashamedly romantic story and if you enjoy love with a side order of feminism, family secrets and a dual-timeline this is for you.

Historical Fiction

A faded photograph. An abandoned house. A wartime mystery. . .

1939: On the eve of war, young English heiress Grace Grey travels from London to the wilderness of Tasmania. Coaxed out of her shell by the attentions of her Irish neighbour, Daniel – Grace finally learns to live. But when Australian forces are called to the frontline, and Daniel with them, he leaves behind a devastating secret which will forever bind them together.

1975: Artist Willow Hawkins, and her new husband, Ben, can’t believe their luck when an anonymous benefactor leaves them a house on the remote Tasmanian coast. Confused and delighted, they set out to unmask Towerhurst’s previous owner – unwittingly altering the course of their lives.

2004: Libby Andrews has always been sheltered from the truth behind her father Ben’s death. When she travels to London and discovers a faded photograph, a long-buried memory is unlocked, and she begins to follow an investigation that Ben could never complete. But will she realise that some secrets are best left buried . . .?

This gorgeous story that spans the twentieth century was one of my books of the year last year. The mystery of how all these timelines added up, the beautiful setting of Tasmania and the historical context around WW2 drew me in. The love story is simply gorgeous and potentially heart-breaking. I know this is a story I’ll want to read again.

1896, Bannin Bay, Australia. When British pearl-boat captain Charles Brightwell goes missing out at sea, rumours of mutiny and murder swell within the bay’s dens and back alleys. Only his headstrong daughter, Eliza, refuses to believe her father is dead, and sets out on a dangerous journey to uncover the truth.

But in a town teeming with corruption, prejudice, and blackmail, Eliza soon learns that the answers she seeks might cost more than pearls. How much is she willing to sacrifice to find them?

This incredible debut is richly atmospheric from the get go, throwing us straight into the strangeness of 19th Century Western Australia as if it is an alien landscape. In fact that’s exactly what it is for the Brightwell family, particularly Eliza whose childhood eyes we see it through for the the first time. The adult Eliza has to negotiate her way through the community’s corruption, violence, blackmail and the criminal elements of the pearling business. All the while reading her father’s diary for clues and guiding us to some fascinating characters, some of which are based on historical figures. You’ll love Eliza’s early feminist stance and sense of adventure. The twists and turns her journey takes are gripping and pull you deep into the story. It’s a fantastic debut, full of life and death, just like it’s setting.

Crime Fiction

A killer targeting pregnant women.

A detective expecting her first baby…

The shocking murder of a heavily pregnant woman throws the New Zealand city of Dunedin into a tailspin, and the devastating crime feels uncomfortably close to home for Detective Sam Shephard as she counts down the days to her own maternity leave.

Confined to a desk job in the department, Sam must find the missing link between this brutal crime and a string of cases involving mothers and children in the past. As the pieces start to come together and the realisation dawns that the killer’s actions are escalating, drastic measures must be taken to prevent more tragedy.

For Sam, the case becomes personal, when it becomes increasingly clear that no one is safe, and the clock is ticking…

There’s something about Aussie and NZ crime fiction. It’s gritty and immediate. This is the fifth in Vanda’s Sam Shepherd series and I can honestly say they’re all brilliant but this one …. I was on the edge of my seat! It feels like Sam has just let her guard down and accepted what’s next in her life, when everything could be ripped away from her. Even though she’s the one who most understood the killer’s motivations, will she still be shocked by their identity? Sam’s vulnerability is terrifying and I was praying that she would be okay, as if she’s a living and breathing human being. That’s the power of Vanda Symon’s writing and how much of that magic she’s poured into this brilliant character.

Lou O’Dowd travels across the world from Australia to Edinburgh for a job with the organisation SASOL. Her new life will be living with her cousin and working shifts at a halfway house for high risk offenders including two killers, a celebrity paedophile, and a paranoid coke dealer. After orientation, Lou will be on shift alone dealing with these offenders with little more than her own instinct to guide her. What could possibly go wrong?

Lou is a controversial character, living off a sugar daddy for a while she’s had no need to work, but when the relationship ends disastrously she has no choice but to leave. On her first day in Edinburgh she meets a man at a play who has a similar attitude to risk, enjoying mainly outdoor sex. He comes from a rich family, so maybe he could be more than a fling? I loved how the mundane domesticity of the job was mixed with genuine fear and horror of what could happen if residents flare up. There’s an evening ritual of cocoa for each resident, but it has to be to perfectly timed in order to interrupt one resident’s suicide ritual. These are the extremes a job like this entails, but it’s only the beginning….

A few more suggestions:

Posted in Random Things Tours

Black Woods Blue Sky by Eowyn Ivey

Posted on by thelotusreaders

“Now are the woods all black, but still the sky is blue. May you always see a blue sky overhead.”  Proust. 

I was utterly mesmerised by this unusual grown-up fairy tale. Having read the author’s work before I was expecting a certain strangeness and this story definitely delivered. It’s hard to write about without revealing anything and you need to go into this book without spoilers. The story is told through the eyes of Birdie and her little girl Emmaleen. Birdie is a young, single mum. She’s living in a cabin out behind the bar where she works for Della. Birdie is just getting by. She has a wild spirit and although she loves Emmaleen, she’s not the most consistent parent. We meet her on a beautiful morning where she has woken up from the night before relatively unscathed. Yes, she’s a bit hungover and she knows Della is going to have words for her when she goes into work. For now though, the woods and creek are calling her, so she takes her fishing rod and leaving Emmaleen asleep and alone she walks through the trees and down to the water. She rationalises that she won’t be long and Emmaleen will sleep for a while yet. She catches a rainbow trout, guts and cleans it in the creek, before setting off back to the cabin. When she gets there, Emmaleen is gone. Birdie goes into panic mode, desperate to find her daughter but terrified to admit to Della that she’s left her alone. It’s a man called Arthur who eventually emerges from the woods with Birdie’s daughter on his shoulders and she’s never been more relieved. She knows Della will have something to say about this, but for now she’s just happy that Emmaleen is safe. When Della moves her onto the day shift, it’s a comment on her partying and parenting lifestyle. She has to bring Emmaleen into the lodge with her, but she sits colouring and doesn’t pester while she’s trying to work. 

Arthur comes in most mornings, he sits through the bar side of the lodge alone and orders toast. She’s fascinated by this strange, wild man. He has scarring and only the remains of an ear one side of his face. Birdie thinks he smells of wild places, never artificial scent. He smells mossy and like earth. From time to time she brushes his shoulder and if Della is out getting supplies, she might take a moment and sit with him. He’s so natural and gentle with Emmaleen too. He’s quiet and when he does say something it’s strangely, always in the present. She asks him why and he tells her that for him the world is like that. He’s always in the here and now. He understands the wildness in Birdie and her yearning to be out in the mountains. His parents have had a cabin in the woods since before he was born and it’s become his more or less. For several months of the year he takes himself up into the mountains and lives off the land and whatever supplies his dad flies in. It’s total isolation, off grid and without comforts. When he asks Birdie if she and Emmaleen would like to make a home out there in the mountains, there is only one answer. Yes.

“That’s how it was with Arthur. Getting close to him, feeling his eyes on her – like touching something dark and wild, then watching it dart away.’

Between the pages of this book I was totally lost in the wildness of Alaska. The author’s descriptions are vividly beautiful and I found myself wondering about a place I’d imagined as being full of snow. All of my senses were engaged and I became entranced by Emmaleen’s discovery of nature as Arthur shows her the forest floor with it’s springy moss and tiny wildflowers. There’s a strangeness and even a danger to being so far away from civilisation. Arthur’s cabin has been needing a woman’s touch for a long time. The floor is covered with leaves and dirt from the forest and mosquitoes are squeezing through the gaps round the windows. Birdie sets about cleaning the cabin and Emmaleen gets used to her environment, playing with her gnome friends and tasting bluebell flowers. The days are harsh, but Birdie’s enjoying the challenge of cooking and laundry out here without heating or electricity. She likes not knowing what time it is and working to her own body clock. She feels like part of the place. Yet underneath these drowsy and idyllic warm days, there’s a sneaky sense of unease. Arthur’s father Warren seems reluctant to leave the woman and her daughter alone in such a secluded place with Arthur. He’s never seen his son  be so tender as he is with this little girl. He even flies over 48 hours later and sees all three of them hiking up one of the mountains and they wave to him. Maybe he’s worrying about nothing. Yet Arthur does disappear and reappear without warning and sleeps on the floor. He seems curiously unsure when it comes to sex. There’s a mound near the cabin where Arthur yells at Emmaleen, telling her not to play there.
There’s a hidden animal pelt under the earth and caribou bones under the bed. How long before Birdie and Emaleen learn the terrifying truth about Arthur? 

This incredible story fits it’s unusual background perfectly. I loved how accepting Birdie was, despite the fact that she’s making risky decisions she doesn’t doubt Arthur for a moment. She accepts his unusual and seemingly inexperienced caresses without question. I didn’t know what to expect from the sections where we’re in Emmaleen’s world, but they are really strong, with bags of imagination and inventiveness. She’s so innocent and precious. I’ve lived in rural Lincolnshire as a child, mainly on farms so her wanderings and imaginary games reminded me of being small. I used to draw flowers and bark patterns or lie in a willow tree that hung over the water and read all day while my brother fished. I was fascinated with wild flowers so the details of plants and berries, which to eat and which were poisonous are so familiar. I also grew a strong stomach, having sat and watched my Dad gut rabbits and pheasants. I loved that Birdie could do these things, she has basic survival skills but that’s for expected dangers. I had a feeling that the potential threat would be out of the ordinary. Even though she makes mistakes I had a real maternal fondness for this young woman and her acceptance of this taciturn young man. Love comes in so many different forms and even though I could feel something looming on the horizon for this new little family I was hoping against hope for the transformative power of love. 

Out Now from Tinder Press

Meet the Author

Eowyn Ivey’s debut novel, THE SNOW CHILD, was published in twenty-six languages, and became an international bestseller. It was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize 2013, and Eowyn won the International Author of the Year category at the 2012 National Book Awards. A former bookseller, Eowyn lives in Palmer, Alaska, with her family.

Posted in Squad Pod Collective, Sunday Spotlight

Spotlight On The Dallergut Department Store Series by Miye Lee. 

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Dallergut Dream Department Store.

I’m a little late and probably too old for the sudden popularity of Korean culture. I’m aware of BTS and Squid Game, but have never listened to or watched either of them. Despite that, I’m aware from my step-daughters, nieces and nephews that Korean music and film-making are innovative and unique, two words I’d apply to these novels. I loved the premise, that there is a department store that supplies people with dreams. Our heroine Penny gets a job at the Dallergut Dream Department Store, somewhere she’s dreamed of working. There’s something hypnotic about the world this author has created, because it’s fantastical and unlike anything I’ve read since childhood. As Penny finds her feet we start to see the way the store works: the communication between the menagerie of unusual creatures who run each department and the actual dream makers who craft their dreams to the individual. These are the upper echelon of the organisation, craftsmen who have to weave a narrative that answers life’s questions, builds hope of love in the air and solves problems. When the dreamer comes in they are served by one of the staff in the store. As soon as I realised this, my mind drifted to the hope they were wearing pyjamas. Some don’t and have to be given something to put on, which maybe explains the strange clothes I’m often wearing I’m my dreams. After a spell of flying dreams I always wear pyjamas!

I really loved the quirkiness of how the store and the system worked. Each sleeper then discusses their needs or can be given hints by those who work in the store – sort of like an Apple Genius, but with dreams. We’re also shown how their dreams pan out with in the real world and whether they help the dreamer make a decision or help them unravel a sticky situation. The dreamer does have to pay for their nighttime adventure and they pay with emotions, which are then recycled by the dream-makers into even more detailed and elaborate dreamscapes. I’m such a sucker for whimsical stories and characters that are complex and quirky. The author delivers on both fronts here.

Return to Dallergut Dream Department Store

If you wish to delve deeper into the Dallergut Dream Department Store this is the second instalment. It takes the reader back to Penny and her colleagues drafting dreams. Penny has finished her first year at the store which means she is now officially part of the dreams industry. She can now go behind the scenes to the Company District, on a special express train of course, where the raw materials for dreams are stored. She’s hoping to have some of her questions answered by this peek behind the scenes. She wants to understand more about customers, especially those that buy a dream but don’t return to the store. It would be great if she could find a way to improve repeat custom. As always though, when we delve deeper behind the scenes of any industry, we see it’s darker side. There is a complaints process for customers and they end up at the Civil Complaints Centre where Penny starts to find answers about those non-returning customers. Their concerns were very relatable and it was interesting to see how customers with disabilities were being accommodated. They are striving to be inclusive and I loved that, having had many discussion with friends who have disabilities about whether they have a disability in their dreams (sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t). Alongside the emotional and slightly darker elements was the usual whimsical and quirky world of the first book, alongside the tiniest hint of romance. Ultimately, this is a warm-hearted fantasy that’s like a hug in a book.

 

Posted in Publisher Proof

My Hummingbird Father by Pascale Petit

Posted on by thelotusreaders

This extraordinary novel weaves a mystical and hypnotic spell around the reader, using the flora and fauna of our heroine’s home in Venezuela and slowly unravelling the truth about her childhood. Dominique is an artist who receives a vision of her father in her dream, so powerful she is able to recreate it on canvas. She hasn’t seen him since her early childhood, so it’s a surprise when he gets in touch and asks her to come to Paris. He is dying and wishes to reconcile with his daughter. Longing for paternal love Dominique travels to Paris, on a physical and spiritual journey to recover that part of her early childhood she spent in Paris with both her parents. There she uncovers repressed memories that reveal the truth of her parent’s marriage and her own birth. She also visits the Venezuelan Amazon where she meets Juan, a mystic and shaman who guides her journey. A gentle and tender love story emerges between them as Dominique tries to heal from what she has uncovered. 

I would have known this writer was a poet and an artist from the very beginning because she writes lyrically and creates such striking visual imagery. At first it’s an assault on the senses, a maelstrom of imagery from the Amazonian jungle filled with colour and fantastical animals. A beautiful example of magic realism, the author’s vivid imagery tells of jaguars, birds of paradise and in one case a very disturbing anteater I expected to see in my nightmares. It’s almost hypnotic and I was so overwhelmed and beguiled by the beauty of her words that I didn’t realise the pain and devastation underneath. It’s through her artwork, which is almost shamanistic at times, that she processes her trauma. Her childhood was tainted by her father leaving, seemingly without explanation when she was six years old. She then experienced abuse and resentment from her mother. The process of recovery from trauma is a major theme in the book and we can see how Dominique’s reintroduction to her father triggers the emotions that she hasn’t resolved. In fact his presence triggers nightmares and the re-emergence of events she’s kept locked away in her subconscious. She wants answers to the mystery of her father’s disappearance, but I feared she would be re-traumatised by the truth.These are dark, harrowing memories in parts but it’s clear that the beauty of nature really does have a healing effect on her. 

Her descriptions of Venezuela and the incredible Angel Falls made me want to see it for myself! Here things become more mystical as we see Dominique’s beautiful connection to this place and a man she meets from the Pemon community, indigenous to Venezuela. Juan helps her to go deeper inside herself and face whatever unresolved feelings lurk there. He is a shaman to the community and can ward off malevolent spirits, including the type of dark and disturbing emotions that can haunt people who’ve experienced abuse. This is an incredibly personal journey and her time in Venezuela, the rediscovery of her childhood home in Paris as well as reading her father’s correspondence all contribute to her recovery. I found her story deeply moving and challenging to read at times. However, I recognised the catharsis in Dominique’s artistic expression and the importance of documenting traumatic experiences. She needs others to bear witness to the truth of her childhood, because only then can she achieve acceptance and healing. This is a beautifully written novel, that’s lyrical and treads a line between poetry, visual art and prose. I was touched by it and by the deep connection Dominique has with the natural world. There she can be her true self, an imperfect human woven back together by animals who always accept us as we are.

Meet the Author


Pascale Petit’s eighth poetry collection, Tiger Girl (Bloodaxe, 2020), was shortlisted for the Forward Prize and for Wales Book of the Year. A poem from the book, ‘Indian Paradise Flycatcher’, won the 2020 Keats-Shelley Poetry Prize. Her seventh collection, Mama Amazonica (Bloodaxe, 2017) won the inaugural Laurel Prize in 2020, the 2018 Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje prize, was shortlisted for the Roehampton Poetry Prize and was a Poetry Book Society Choice. Her sixth collection, Fauverie, was her fourth to be shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize and a portfolio of poems from it won the 2013 Manchester Poetry Prize. T. S. Eliot shortlisted What the Water Gave Me: Poems after Frida Kahlo (Seren, 2010), was also shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year. Salt published her debut novel, ‘My Hummingbird Father’, in 2024 and her ninth poetry collection, Beast, is forthcoming from Bloodaxe in 2025, and is awarded the Arthur Welton Prize.

Posted in Orenda

The Murmurs by Michael J. Malone

Posted on by thelotusreaders

I quickly became fascinated with this mix of historical fiction, psychological suspense and the paranormal. We meet Annie Jackson as she tentatively starts her new job in a nursing home in the West End of Glasgow, hoping to get her life back on track. Annie suffers with terrible nightmares where she’s stuck in a car underwater. She also has the sensation that someone is holding her head under water until her lungs feel ready to burst. She also has debilitating headaches and she can feel one threatening as her new manager introduces her to resident Steve. Then something very odd happens, as a blinding pain in Annie’s head is followed by Steve’s face starting to shake, then reform. A whispering sound begins in her head and she sees Steve as a skull, followed by a vision of him falling in his room and suffering a debilitating stroke. She desperately wants to tell him but how can she without seeming like a lunatic? He becomes agitated and upset, as Annie starts to describe the layout of Steve’s bathroom and he asks her to stop. As she’s sent home from another job she starts to think back to her childhood and the first manifestations of her debilitating problem. Annie survived the terrible car accident that wiped her childhood memories and killed her mother. This strange supernatural phenomenon is why Annie is alone and struggles to make friends. These are ‘the murmurs’. 

I felt so much compassion for Annie, as the story splits into two different timelines: we are part of Annie’s inner world as a child, but also in the present as fragments of memory slowly start to emerge. We also go back even further to the childhood of Annie’s mother Eleanor and her two sisters Bridget and Sheila. We experience their lives through other people’s stories and written correspondence, especially that of a nun who also works in a residential home. I enjoyed how this gave me lots of different perspectives and how the drip feed of information slowly made sense of what was happening in the present day. Different revelations have a huge effect on the adult Annie and because her memories have been buried for so long she experiences the shock and surprise at exactly the same time as we do. This brings an immediacy to the narrative and I felt like I was really there alongside her, in the moment. With my counselling brain I could see a psyche shattered by trauma, desperately looking for answers, she is piecing herself back together as she goes. 

Teenage Annie had a similar vision about a girl called Jenny Burn, who went missing never to return. The murmurs awakened when her mum’s sister Aunt Sheila came to visit them. She tried to openly discuss an Aunt Bridget who also had a ‘gift’ but has ended up in a home. Eleanor, Annie’s mother, asks Sheila to leave, but it’s too late because Annie has already seen that her aunt is dying of cancer. Annie evades her mum and makes her way to the hotel, the only place Sheila can be staying. Unfortunately, Jenny is working on reception. Annie can see her climbing into a red car and she desperately wants to warn her, but she knows she’ll come across as a crazy person. Eleanor is desperately looking for a way to deal with her daughter, she’s a person of importance in the church and she can’t be seen to have a daughter who has visions. Pastor Mosley has Eleanor exactly where he wants her. There’s a control and fanaticism in him that scared me much more than Annie’s murmurs. When Eleanor takes Annie to the pastor, he demonstrates his control by holding her head firmly under his head as he prays for her. When she almost faints, he’s convinced there’s a demon in her. Annie is scared of him, she gets a terrible feeling about him but doesn’t know why. Religion is portrayed as sinister and controlling, with fervent followers who never question, but live in the way they’ve been instructed is Christian? story takes an interesting turn when Annie’s brother Lewis, a financial advisor, becomes involved with the church once more and it’s new pastor Christopher Jenkins, the son of their childhood neighbour. He’s revolutionised the church and through the internet he’s turning it into a global concern. He’s not just interested in saving souls though, he’s also amassing money from his internet appeals. He also seems very interested in meeting Annie. 

As the book draws to a close the revelations come thick and fast as both past and future collide. The search for Aunts Bridget and Sheila seems to unearth more questions than answers. Annie finds out that Jenny wasn’t the only woman who went missing in Mossgaw all those years ago. As she starts to have suspicions about her childhood home, Chris seems very keen to draw her back there. Might he be planning a huge surprise? I was a bit confused at first with all these disparate elements, but as all the pieces started to slot together I was stunned by the truths that are unearthed. Then as Annie’s childhood memories were finally triggered I felt strangely terrified but also relieved for her all at once. I hoped that once she’d regained that past part of herself she would feel more confident and free, despite the strange gift she seemed to have inherited. Maybe by facing the past and leaning in to her relationship with her brother, she might feel more grounded and strong enough to cope with her ‘gift’. I thought the author brought that compassion he’s shown in previous novels but combined it with a spooky edge and some intriguing secrets. I really loved the way he showed mistakes of the past still bleeding into the present, as well as the elements of spiritual abuse that were most disturbing. This book lures you in and never lets go, so be prepared to be hooked.

Meet the Author

Michael J. Malone was born and brought up in the heart of Burns’ country, just a stone’s throw from the great man’s cottage in Ayr. Well, a stone thrown by a catapult, maybe.

He has published over 200 poems in literary magazines throughout the UK, including New Writing Scotland, Poetry Scotland and Markings.

BLOOD TEARS, his debut novel won the Pitlochry Prize (judge:Alex Gray) from the Scottish Association of Writers and when it was published he added a “J” to his name to differentiate it from the work of his talented U.S. namesake.

He can be found on twitter – @michaelJmalone1

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/themichaeljmalonepage

And here’s my newsletter – subscribe for lots of cool stuff! – https://michaeljmalone.substack.com

Posted in Squad Pod

Monstrum by Lottie Mills

Posted on by thelotusreaders

This is a very personal review, because when you have a disability it’s impossible to read a collection of stories about bodily difference and it not feel personal. I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 1995, but originally broke my back at 11 years old and after years of pain developed Myofascial Pain Syndrome and disc degeneration. Disability and difference have been part of my life for so long but yet I never feel fully part of that world. That’s because my disabilities are usually invisible and I don’t really belong in either world. I even read this while struggling with my health and finally catching COVID. I’m typing up my review while in bed after a radio frequency denervation, where a heated needle is guided towards the compressed nerves and burns them to disrupt the pain messages that refer nerve pain to my legs and lower abdomen. All this goes on behind closed doors because I’m simply unable to get up and out. Then when I can go out, I appear to have very little wrong with me unless I’m using my stick or a crutch. I’m doing what’s called ‘passing’ – able to look like everyone else while having disabilities. So it’s hard to put across how moved I was by this collection portraying ‘otherness’ and how able-bodied people respond to it. Using mythology, fairy tales and a touch of Shakespeare, Lottie Mills has managed to put across so much about life with a disability and what happens when it brushes up against an able-bodied society that’s considered the norm. However, in her world these disabilities become abilities, sometimes magical ones.

The first story in the collection introduces us to a magical island where Cal and his daughter have a beautiful life of warm sand, sea and a night sky glittering with stars. He tells her stories about bear people and she asks him if they are bear people? Yes they are he says, although her mother wasn’t. She was from a human world that’s about to clash disastrously with theirs. In the human world, there’s so much that Cal can’t do because it isn’t set up like their island. In the human world Cal becomes disabled. We then see what happens when human agencies come up against their little family with disastrous consequences. Instead of concentrating on what he can do, they look at him through the prism of their own abilities and only the things he can’t do. How can he possibly look after his daughter properly when he’s so disadvantaged? Mills takes disability theory here and applied it to her character’s lives, which judging by the name Cal (Caliban) come from the type of magical island Shakespeare describes in The Tempest. Caliban has been more recently portrayed in productions of the play as a black man, a slave, or an asylum seeker rather than a monster. Mills makes the point that Caliban is only a monster when we make him one. The original model of disability is a medical one that assumes there is one ideal healthy body and anything that differs from that is wrong and needs to be fixed. When used in a social context it tells you that the things you can’t do in the world are down to your difference from the norm. However, the social model tells us that it is the way the world is set up that creates the disability. For example if all buildings eradicated stairs, creating ramps and lifts within the normal building model, the environment becomes accessible to all. If Cal is viewed in his own environment, he is capable of looking after his daughter. I was desperate for them to be reunited and I also felt a personal yearning to be part of Cal’s world. This fairy tale explains that while agencies like social services and the NHS might think they are doing the right thing for someone, there is often a better solution. That solution champions individuality and concentrates on what the person can do, rather than what they can’t.

In another story we meet a young disabled woman who craves the perfect pain- free body, something I could definitely identify with right now. However, when her wish is granted she finds it difficult to let go of her disabled identity. This was a fascinating exploration of how disability affects the person psychologically. If a disability is innate then it’s the only body that person has ever known. They know the world’s expectations of that body, their own perception of what they might achieve within that body and how able-bodied people perceive them. If the disability is acquired it can be a long and painful process to come to an acceptance of your new body. You must grieve the body you have lost, as well as all the things you expected to do with that body. I have heard many friends tell me that while they’d happily give up chronic pain or a particular aspect of their disability, they wouldn’t want to go through a reverse change and be able-bodied again. There is even a fear of becoming able-bodied again, with all the expectations that places on a person. This story perfectly encapsulates that fight within the self and how far our disabilities are assimilated into our idea of who we are. I loved Lottie’s use of horror and settings where disability has often found a home such as the circus or fairground. Freak shows were popular in the 19th Century, in both the UK and USA, with different bodies placed on show for entertainment and wonder. In fact Coney Island in New York was a hugely successful venue for such shows, where businessmen and entertainers like Barnum were making money from the display of people with differences and disabilities. It certainly wasn’t the wonderful musical extravaganza portrayed in The Greatest Showman. However, it was a place where someone with a disability could make their own money, live in a community where difference was appreciated and accommodated and achieve a level of fame. She lets us know that these issues are complex and look very different from person to person.

There is a beauty in this world of ‘otherness’ and it’s a world made up of an incredible mix of ingredients. Every person with a disability is different so the variety of experience is endless and hybrid bodies, unusual pairings/families and queer love thrives here. Lottie has found a way of balancing how the world sees us and how we see ourselves. She has used magic realism and alternative communities to show the strength there is in accepting disability and making a life with it, rather than constantly fighting to change yourself and remain in the able-bodied world. What was the most interesting thing to me was her understanding of how these issues affect the world of writing and how there are accepted narrative tropes around disability. I studied for a PhD, sadly never completed, where I was looking at how disability is portrayed in autobiography and memoir and whether this was driven by an author’s internalisation of society’s expectations or whether the publishing industry is biased towards narratives that are acceptable to able-bodied readers and they know will sell widely. The public like people who battle against their disability and illness, preferring words like ‘fight’, ‘overcome’ and ‘survive’. The accepted narrative trope is that of a journey from the dark days of diagnosis towards the rehabilitation and a triumphant ending of cure or a successful life, despite the disability. Often people with disabilities read these narratives and feel inadequate for struggling, for not achieving a similar level of ability and success. Mainly they don’t feel represented. Here Lottie shows us these stereotypes and gives us something different – individuality, community and love. Her narratives don’t follow the accepted tropes, instead focusing on acceptance, owning a disability and living with it in a way that works for the character rather than an able-bodied reader. Lottie’s writing manages to latch onto the reader and not let go, but for me it was her refusal to conform and instead confront people’s perceptions of disability. I’m hopeful for much more from this talented writer and that publishers are starting to see the value of individual and adventurous disability narratives that truly represent such a vibrant and varied community.

Published by Oneworld Publications May 2024.

Meet the Author

Lottie Mills was born in Hampshire and grew up in West Sussex, Hertfordshire, and Essex. She studied English at Newnham College, Cambridge, and contributed to Varsity and The Mays during her time there. In 2020, she won the BBC Young Writers’ Award for her short story ‘The Changeling’, having been previously shortlisted in 2018. Her work has been broadcast on BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 4, and she has appeared on programmes including Look East, Life Hacks, and Woman’s Hour to discuss her writing. Monstrum is her debut book.

Posted in Netgalley, Personal Purchase

The Star and the Strange Moon by Constance Sayers.

Posted on by thelotusreaders

Constance Sayer’s latest book has a lot of her literary trademarks: time slip narratives; a mystery to solve; magic realism and romance. She places her story in the world of Hollywood and film-making, with two main characters – the actress Gemma Turner and young film-maker Chris Kent. In 1968 Gemma is staying in London with her rock star lover Charlie Hicks when she is offered an unexpected film opportunity. Until now Gemma has been making a series of surfing films based in California, but she’s been longing to make something that has more critical acclaim. French director Thierry Valden is part of the nouvelle vague or new wave movement and has offered her the lead role in his next film L’Etrange Lune a vampire film set in 19th Century France. He seems open to changes and often works with improvisation so her long held skills as a writer might be needed too. However, when she gets to Thierry’s chateau the mood seems to have changed. She is greeted by Manon Valden, who warns Gemma off her husband immediately which isn’t very welcoming. Thierry doesn’t seem like the man she met before and when she reads the up to date script it still has the same stilted dialogue, despite the potential changes she had sent him. When she finally speaks to Thierry alone, he makes it clear that something has changed. He had envisioned more of a collaboration both on the script and possibly in the bedroom, but L’Etrange Lune will be his final film and he can’t afford to take risks. Gemma will have other opportunities for scriptwriting but he won’t. The next day as they’re filming in the nearby town of Amboise, Gemma has a scene where she runs down a darkened and cobbled alleyway, seconds after calling action the camera has suddenly lost her. Has she fallen on the cobbles? Are the dark shadows concealing her? Maybe she’s walked off in a huff. Yet it seems Gemma is genuinely gone and as they look back over the scene on film, frame by frame, she’s simply disappeared in front of their eyes.

Christopher Kent has had a strange fascination with the actress Gemma Turner since he was a child. Now at film school in 2007, his attachment to the actress stands out because she was never one of the greats – students aren’t usually hung up on obscure actresses from a handful of surf films. He remembers the day he first saw her, in a hotel where vintage black and white photos of actors were hung next to every door. In a very chaotic and traumatic childhood, this was one of those moments where he and his mum were without a roof over their heads. Chris could sense his mum was edgy and on the verge of a mood change, but as they approached their room and she saw the photo by the door she flew into a rage. She pulled the picture of Gemma Turner off the wall and smashed it, shouting personal insults and expletives. What was her link to the actress? Knowing Chris’s fascination with Gemma, his girlfriend and fellow student Ivy comes to him with a strange proposition. Every ten years Gemma’s final film, L’Etrange Lune, is shown to a select group of 65 guests at a randomly chosen cinema. Ivy’s father is one of the 65, but for this viewing he has offered Ivy his two place. They must wear a mask and cloak, but most importantly of all they must never approach or try to identify other members, nor can they talk about what they’ve seen. Chris doesn’t know what to make of the film. It seems to be a rather formulaic vampire movie, but there’s something odd about Gemma’s performance, almost haunting in fact. While in some places it’s fairly average, in other scenes there’s an incredible intensity to her acting. It’s almost as if she’s genuinely terrified.

I found the book a little slow at first, but once we reached Gemma’s disappearance I was hooked by this strange story. As we reach Gemma’s timeline in France and Chris starts investigating her disappearance several decades later, the pace of both timelines really picks up. There are suddenly enough strange and impossible happenings for the reader to start wondering what’s coming next. To be honest it felt like anything might happen! I loved the sense of evil created by the film – the strange melancholy that falls over those who see it, something that worsens if you keep going back every ten years. The rumours that the film changes in that decade are intriguing and suggest someone is still behind the lens. Could one of the 65 be playing tricks on the rest? Perhaps not letting on they have extra scenes that Thierry discarded, or that they have found an actress who is the double of Gemma Turner. Is something magical at work here? Despite all the warnings, I did understand Chris’s need to investigate, even when those he interviews start to feel the consequences of talking. This is such a clever concept and the author creates a real sense of mystery with wonderful period detail, especially in the 19th Century when there’s much discussion on the restriction and discomfort of women’s fashion especially in the summer. I also enjoyed 1960’s London where Gemma’s lover Charlie is part of a Fleetwood Mac-esque band where partners are swapped as readily as song lyrics. There’s even a very unexpected romance woven within this magical and unexpected series of times and worlds. What I wanted to see more than anything was for Chris to overcome the trauma of his childhood and fulfil his potential, wherever and whenever that might be.

Out in paperback from Piatkus 28th March 2024

Meet the Author

Constance Sayers is the author of A Witch in Time, The Ladies of the Secret Circus, and The Star and the Strange Moon from Hachette Book Group.

A finalist for Alternating Current’s Luminaire Award for Best Prose, her short fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.

She received her master of arts in English from George Mason University and graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor of arts in writing from the University of Pittsburgh. She attended The Bread Loaf Writers Conference where she studied with Charles Baxter and Lauren Groff. A media executive, she’s twice been named one of the “Top 100 Media People in America” by Folio and included in their list of “Top Women in Media.”

She splits her time between Alexandria, Virginia and West Palm Beach, Florida.

Posted in Sunday Spotlight

Book Scenes That Gave Me Nightmares

Posted on by thelotusreaders
A Halloween surprise

It by Stephen King. There are a lot of problems with this book, mostly the fact that his villain, Pennywise the Clown, is way more terrifying than the ‘It’ eventually encountered by the gang underground. I don’t think reading It started my clown phobia, but reading it as an impressionable teen certainly didn’t help. Now I’m terrified of anything that doesn’t show it’s real face, so masks, hoods, and make up always send a shiver up my spine. The scariest scene has to be when little Georgie Denborough, in his yellow Macintosh and hat, goes outside in the rain to play with his paper boat. The boat slips into the gutter and is washed into the storm drain. As Georgie approaches the drain he can see red tufted hair and floating balloons. They float, says Pennywise the clown. This clown has teeth and as Georgie reaches into the drain for a balloon he loses his arm. They all float down here.

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. This is a distinctly odd book, with no real answers or clarity about what is happening at Bly. Are there real ghosts at the house with malicious intent? Is it the children, Flora and Miles, who are possessed by demons or just evil and manipulative towards their governess? Is the governess mad, hallucinating the ghosts of Bly’s former employees and terrifying the children? I definitely err on the side of the children being the problem, they are far too knowing and precocious for their years. It may be that the children have been affected by their time with previous employees Peter Quint and the last governess. Whichever it is the two children make me shiver and the final scene where Peter Quint appears at the window to the governess is doubly scary because we don’t know if they can both see him, or just the governess. As Miles falls down dead I wondered whether their aim to send the governess mad has worked and backfired spectacularly. Henry James plays with the Victorian ideal of childhood innocence and that’s what makes it so creepy, the thought that we might be in danger from those we consider vulnerable and incapable of evil is incredibly subversive.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. Wuthering Heights is a story narrated by the family servant Nelly Dean, as told to a visitor to the farm, one of Heathcliff’s new tenants called Mr Lockwood. The weather worsens dramatically during his visit and as night falls it is clear that it’s unsafe to travel on horseback and he must stay. Heathcliff begrudgingly gives Lockwood a bed for the night, an old oak bed set under a window that overlooks the Moors. He wakes in the night, disoriented and disturbed by a tapping at the window. It is merely a branch and he concludes that he has been dreaming, influenced by Nelly’s tragic story of Catherine Earnshaw. He cannot unfasten the window, then resorts to breaking the glass to grasp the branch. The moment he reaches out to grab the branch but instead grabs an ‘ice-cold hand’ never fails to lift the hairs on the back of your neck. As he sees her white little face through the window he tries to pull his hand away but she won’t let go, begging him to let her in as she has lost her way on the moor. His solution is to grind the child’s wrist across the broken glass of the window until blood runs onto the bedclothes. This scene ensured that for my whole childhood I closed the curtains of any room I was in as soon as it was dark.

The Watchers by A.M. Shine. There’s so much to love in A.M.Shine’s debut novel, but one scene stands out for me, leaving me unsettled and unable to sleep. Set in rural Ireland, our heroine Mina is stranded in the middle of nowhere after her car breaks down as she does a strange favour for a friend. As sets off on a walk towards civilisation, she takes a wrong turn and ends up in the woods. The trees seem never ending and as afternoon starts to move towards dusk she has a strange sense of being watched. An unusual screeching noise unnerves her as she reaches a clearing and sees a woman shouting, urging Mina to run to a concrete bunker. As the door slams behind her, the building is besieged by screams. Mina finds herself in a room with a wall of glass, and an electric light that activates at nightfall, when the Watchers come above ground. These creatures emerge to observe their captive humans and terrible things will happen to anyone who doesn’t reach the bunker in time. This opening scene is so tense that when she reaches safety there’s a moment of relief, but only a moment. As the light comes on we realise that the glass window is full of creatures, staring in at their prey. I think the fact we never fully see a watcher makes it scarier as our imagination fills in the blanks. There is a twist to the ending that I can’t reveal, but I assure you it’s just as terrifying.

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. I loved this brilliant horror novel that explores colonialism, feminism and eugenics as well as being downright scary. Noemi is a guest at High Place, wanting to spend time with her friend Catalina who has married into the wealthy Doyle family. Yet all is not well in the Doyle household. Noemi finds her time with her friend is very tightly controlled because Catalina has succumbed to a mystery illness. The family patriarch spouts his vile views on race and eugenics at the dinner table and what is going on with the mushroom wallpaper? It was Noemi’s strange dreams that I found most terrifying: she wanders the house covered with spores, has deeply sexual encounters with her friend’s husband and is haunted by a woman with a golden glow for a face who tries to communicate despite not having a mouth. However, nothing is more terrifying than coming face to face with the reality of the patriarch’s existence. Just as Noemi dreamed of the house becoming a mass of sores, his body is rotting to the touch. We are faced with blood, pus, bile and many other grotesque images, but even worse for Noemi there’s a threat of sexual violence culminating in the sort of kiss she really didn’t want. This made me physically retch! Oh, and you’ll be put off mushrooms for a little while.

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier. I would argue that Daphne Du Maurier’s classic thriller is a ghost story, in fact in some ways both the women married to Maxim De Winter are haunting his home Manderley. Rebecca is dead, killed in a sailing accident, but her presence is still very much alive in the mansion: the west wing upstairs is off limits, still set up as her bedroom complete with her nightclothes laid out on the bed; her correspondence and address book is still out on her desk in the morning room with a huge ‘R’ on the cover; she even inhabits the cottage on the beach that her dog Jasper escapes whenever he can. The new Mrs De Winter is lost in this grand stately home and simply wanders to whichever room the servants direct her, servants who are still following the Rebecca’s routine. She doesn’t even have a name. However, the scariest part of Manderley is Rebecca’s servant Mrs Danvers installed as housekeeper after the to move to Maxim’s Cornish home. Described as wearing a long black dress, with gaunt features and deep set eyes that made her look like a skull she seems to slip between room silently, always seeing precisely the moments that the young Mrs De Winter would rather she didn’t. She encourages her new mistress to hold a costume ball like the old days and as an extra favour she suggests that she copies a costume from an ancestral painting on the stairs, not mentioning that Rebecca wore the same costume at the last ball. When Maxim first glimpses his wife on the stairs he thinks for a dreadful moment it is his dead wife and he is unnecessarily harsh. As she flees to the banned West Wing, Mrs Danvers torments her with Rebecca’s flimsy nightwear and the details of their routine. Her voice is hypnotic as she urges her new mistress to open the window to lean out for some air. The suspense as she tells her to jump, that she’s no use, she’s not loved and Maxim will always love Rebecca. A well timed shout and flare from a ship in distress are the only things that save her. This is the moment we know what this terrifyingly obsessed woman is capable of. Is Rebecca working through her, was she in love with her mistress, or was she simple unable to accept her death? Either way she is deadly dangerous and very creepy indeed.

Shining by Stephen King. We’re back to King now, the ultimate horror writer and one of my favourite novels in his back catalogue. Everything about this book is creepy, from the wasp’s nest to the twins in the corridor, but there’s one scene that puts the fear into me and that’s the woman in room 217. Jack Torrance has been slowly sinking into his alcoholism ever since his family arrived at The Overlook Hotel and his son Danny has been exploring the place, often unchecked since they’re so isolated they know there’s no one else around. The problem is that Danny has the ability to see things his parents can’t and while they’re sure no people are around, they can’t say the same about dead people. In a scene that’s written so well I can feel Danny’s terror, he makes his way into room 217 and notices the curtain drawn around the bathtub. As he pulls the curtain back, hoping his parents have left a surprise for him, he is horrified to see the grey, lifeless flesh of a woman. Except she’s not so lifeless. As Danny desperately tries to exit the room he hears the sound of her body slipping and sucking over the side of the bath. Her squelching footsteps as she chases him. Obviously King writes so much better than me, so when I first read this scene my heart was hammering in my chest so hard! I felt sick. Ever since, if I enter a bathroom and the shower curtain is pulled across my mind immediately goes back to this scene and I do feel a little unnerved.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley ‘It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.’ The various film adaptations of Frankenstein rarely do justice to the true horror of Mary Shelley’s words. I must admit that the 1990’s Kenneth Branagh version made me vomit, quite literally, into my popcorn bucket! Not a great look for a date, but there we are. That was about the way the creature slipped out of the bath of fluid he’d been kept it. It’s hard to describe but I have a horrible revulsion towards snotty egg whites and this was like a bath full of them and a naked Robert de Niro was sliding about in them like Bambi on a frozen pond. The sound was enough to induce retching and I’ve never been able to watch it without that reaction. The original words though strike fear into me, the sheer horror of what he’s created and the realisation that he’s concentrated all his efforts into achieving life, without once thinking what would happen next. The dull yellow eye feels reptilian to me and that fear of what exactly this creature is swirls around the mind.

Changeling by Matt Wesolowski. This book really did get under my skin, possibly not helped by reading it in an unfamiliar and remote house where we were on holiday, not a million miles away from the forest in question. This starts as a missing child case, when Sorrel Marsden stops his car in a lay-by on the Wentshire Forest Pass on the Welsh Borders. As he investigates under the bonnet, hoping to find the cause of a strange knocking noise he has heard in the engine, he leaves son Alfie in his car seat. Minutes later, when he closes the bonnet, he glances up to see Alfie and finds him gone. He is never found. Scott King fronts a true crime podcast, a new one explored in each book of Wesolowski’s Six Stories series. Usually, the cases that Scott explores have a supernatural element and that’s definitely he case here, with the forest seemingly a hot spot for unusual unexplained noises, glitches in machinery and possible fairy sightings. However, room is also left for a more human explanation and it was the human aspects that really chilled here. A trainee teacher and her journals and reports form part of his investigation and her research into Child A takes on a sinister significance. She records a time when she was supervising the child alone and his lack of communication is a little unnerving. Then she starts to hear noises, strange knockings that she assumes are Child A banging under the desk. However, he isn’t moving. Then she hears muttering, as if he is talking under his breath to someone or taking instructions. Yet he is utterly still, eyes completely blank as if he has tuned out or is tuned in to something else. This scene did make me shiver. I didn’t know what scared me more: a child possessed or used as a conduit for something supernatural or a child that’s rather too knowing, deliberately setting out to unnerve their teacher.

The Ghost Woods by C.J. Cooke. We’re back in the gothic territory of monstrous births in this novel from C.J. Cooke and I loved the strange mix of the horrors of nature with the supernatural. In a room where he keeps his favourite specimens, Mr Whitlock has a wasp that’s been taken over by a fungus. The life cycle starts when the creature breathes in the spores, but then they slowly grow inside the insect until it bursts out of their body. It feels like there may be parallels here, especially for resident Mabel who is expecting a ghost baby. When our heroine Pearl arrives, this mini example of a parasitic fungus is overshadowed by the incredible fungal takeover in the west wing. Despite being closed off, she finds spores growing and multiplying on the outer stairs. Will it eventually take over the whole of Lichen Hall? There is a creeping sense of dread about the girl’s pregnancies because they do seem monstrous in their movements as seeing a tiny feet stretch out the skin of their abdomens. Mabel’s boy is beautiful, but its not long before she notices the strange lights appearing from under his skin. What do they signify? Is this the legacy of the ghosts? The atmosphere feels isolated and wild, but weirdly suffocating and claustrophobic at the same time. Everything builds slowly, keeping you on edge, but for sheer heart stopping terror it’s when walking outside in the woods that a shadowy figure awaits. I realised I was holding my breath when one of the girls fell trying to escape this creature and it grabbed her leg. In the seconds before she kicked it away she felt it’s purpose very clearly, a terrible intention to get ‘inside’ her skin.

New Spooky Recommendations

New releases to check out are Alix E. Harrow’s new novel Starling House from Tor Books out on November 1st and The Haunting in the Arctic by C.J.Cooke which is out now from Harper Collins.

Posted in Personal Purchase

Starling House by Alix E. Harrow

Posted on by thelotusreaders

“When the house was complete, in February of 1870, Eleanor Starling took up residence and stayed there until her death in 1886. There is substantial evidence that she devoted the remaining years of her life to the study of the place she later called “Underland.” She believed, according to the notes and journals found by her successors, that there was another world beneath, or maybe beside, our own—a terrible, vicious world, populated by monstrous beings. She believed that there were cracks between that world and our own, places where things might leak through, and that one of these rifts lay underneath Eden, Kentucky.”

Starling House sits on Starling land and can’t be fully seen from the roadside, except for a pair of iron gates that are so intricate and sinuous it wouldn’t be a surprise if they started to move and become a living, writhing being. Opal passes the house daily as she takes a short cut from one of her jobs to another and she’s intrigued by the house, especially the one amber lit window, high up in the attic room. There she imagines Eleanor Starling, living the solitary life of an author trying to follow up their first extraordinary book. Opal loved Eleanor’s children’s book Underland described as a much darker Alice in Wonderland where a girl called Nell is under the ground with a weird array of beasts (all of which look like a member of the animal kingdom, but at the same time not at all). Opal’s life is a gruelling slog from the motel room she shares with brother Jasper, to her cleaning jobs then back to supervise homework and share their measly evening meal. It only takes one small difference in their routine to shake everything up and bring huge change to their lives. Opal pauses her route home and stops at the iron gates of Starling House. She holds on to the iron, but immediately finds her hand is slick with blood. More disturbingly, she feels the gates give, almost as if her blood is the key. She looks up to see that a tall, thin and rather bedraggled man has appeared in front of her. He looks her in the eye and says one word. Run!

[The town] “liked the Starlings even less. They’re considered eccentrics and misanthropes, a family of dubious origin that has refused for generations to participate in the most basic elements of Eden’s civil society (church, public school, bake sales for the volunteer fire department), choosing instead to stay holed up in that grand house. […] It’s generally hoped that both they and their house will fall into a sinkhole and rot at the bottom, neither mourned nor remembered, and—perhaps—release the town from its century-long curse.”

Arthur, the bedraggled man, is the current Starling living in the house and it isn’t long before Opal is drawn back into his presence. Arthur seems to be torn. He’s drawn to Opal, but so is the house. It seems unfair to strike up a friendship with her knowing that the house wants her and what that will mean for her life. Yet he asks her if she will clean for him and offers enough money that Opal can’t refuse. He is concerned about this flame haired waif that is now in his midst and he can’t help but offer her a winter coat, then his old truck. Are these genuine gifts, or is Arthur trying to assuage his guilt for doing the house’s bidding? The house almost seems to sigh and settle as Opal cares for it, like a cat stretching with pleasure when stroked. She does wonder about the crude symbols scratched into the wooden doors, that match Arthur’s tattoos. Every conceivable symbol to ward off evil is either scratched, painted or hung around the house. How do you ward off something that strikes from within? Opal is then approached by a woman in a suit, who seems to know a lot about Opal and the Starling House. She wants Opal to take photographs and pass on information from the inside of the house. Firstly she seems like any old local official, but becomes more sinister when Opal is reluctant to help, finally making threats against Jasper. Now she has no choice, but she’s surprised by her own emotions; it’s harder to betray Arthur Starling than she expected. Is it really the house she’s drawn to, or is it Arthur?

“Eleanor Starling left no record of why she built such a vast and strange house, but the oldest and best-loved book in her collection was a copy of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. It has been suggested by subsequent Starlings that she was not building a house but a labyrinth, for much the same reason the King of Crete once did: to protect the world from the thing that lived inside it.”

Opal isn’t easily afraid and I knew, just from that opening, she wasn’t done with Starling House. More to the point, the house isn’t done with her. I admired this plucky girl who is only just getting by in life and does everything for her brother Jasper. She desperately wants him to get away from Eden, Kentucky, because he has so much talent but also because nobody with any sense stays in Eden. She is saving for the fees of a private school she has seen, somewhere that would give him prospects and he would meet the right sort of people. She’s so set on this plan, she hasn’t bothered to ask what Jasper wants. Her heart is in the right place though. She doesn’t love many things, but when she does Opal loves like she does everything else – fiercely. Her existence is all work, striving just to survive but Opal is so intelligent, in fact one of the only places in town she visits religiously is the library. The librarian Charlotte is perhaps the closest thing to a friend she has. The truth is that Opal feels enormous guilt over the terrible car accident that killed their mother and what she sees as the decision she made to survive:

“ I’m fifteen and cold water is pouring through the windshield. The glove box is open, spewing pill bottles and plastic utensils. Mom is beside me, her limbs drifting gently, her hair tangling with the tacky dream catcher she pinned to the car roof. I’m reaching for her hand and her fingers are slick and limp as minnows and I might be screaming—Mom, come on, Mom—but the words can’t make it past the river? Then it goes very quiet and very dark. I don’t remember letting go of her hand, but I must have done it. I must have crossed her name off the list in my head and swum for the surface, abandoning her to the river bottom.”

I loved the psychological aspects of the story. The house has an identity and it knows who has the right stuff to live there and keep up the fight. I wondered whether the monsters were real or a manifestation of the occupant’s mental state. The thought of the monsters in our heads being able to run free in the world is definitely a terrifying one. The author builds the two worlds within the novel with contrasting techniques: short, blunt descriptions create Eden with it’s power plant and functional buildings, whereas Starling House and it’s labyrinthine tunnels are given long, descriptive passages that bring it to life. If something in Opal or Eleanor’s world is inexplicable she allows it to be unfinished or confused. Some of the monsters are beautifully described as ‘like a cat, but not quite’ or other strange combination that leaves gaps in the image for the reader to fill with their own imagination. This is an author that knows, the things we can’t see or comprehend are the most frightening.

When we finally get to Eleanor’s life story it is disturbing and sad, showing how unresolved trauma can project outwards into something monstrous. There’s a feminist thread here too in the truth about Eleanor’s life with the Gravely men and Opal recognition that her mother was shunned by the town, not just for liking sex but for not being sorry about it. In a reversal of the usual damsel in distress story, Opal is the architect of her own life and is determined to rid Starling House of it’s monsters and save Arthur. I was biting my nails in the final chapters, desperately wanting her to succeed! I’ve never doubted Alix E. Harrow’s talent or imagination. I’ve been a fan since her first novel, but this is her best yet. I’ve been reading that it’s a reimagining of Beauty and the Beast, and I can see that. However, Underland felt like the very darkest Alice in Wonderland to me. In both cases, all the ‘Disney-fied’ prettiness has been swept away. In it’s place are monsters that defy all description and a love story that’s more swords and thorns than hearts and flowers. It’s an absolute feast for the imagination and the perfect dark fantasy read for October.

Posted in Personal Purchase

The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman

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After a few years building on the Practical Magic series, I was looking forward to seeing what Alice Hoffman would come up with next. She has based her story around the writer Nathaniel Hawthorne and his classic novel The Scarlet Letter and introduces us to two young women facing difficulties. Ivy is from a rich Boston family and when she finds herself pregnant at 16, she truly expects support. The father of her baby retreats into his wealthy family and the elite university he’s due to attend, taking no responsibility for the predicament they’re both in. Facing her pregnancy alone she talks to her parents who also wash their hands of her, not wanting the stigma or embarrassment. Ivy decides to leave home and climbs out of the bedroom window, setting out to see a friend who she knows will have an idea. She suggests they leave together and make their way out to a religious community she’s heard of in Blackwood, Massachusetts, with a charismatic leader called Joel Davies. When her father decides to look for her several months later he finds the worst, Ivy has a little girl called Mia and has become the leader’s wife. Mia grows up in Joel’s community and he decides who is in favour and what is a transgression. Everyone is punished, but the women particularly so – they might have their hair cut off or even be branded with a letter. Women are not allowed reproductive rights, but nor do they get to keep their children. Children belong to everyone and after a few days with their mother, sleep in dormitories. Books are not allowed and as she grows up books are Mia’s particular downfall. She finds her way to the public library and starts to read American classics like Little Women and Huckleberry Finn. Then she finds a copy of The Scarlet Letter, beautifully bound and very old. On the fly leaf is a dedication:

To Mia. You were mine and mine alone.

Is it perhaps her mother, who does show her special attention despite the rules. She tucks the book into her dress and keeps it. Reading in the barn, where she has loosened a board to keep her treasures behind. She has a small landscape painting of the view from the community’s buildings. Land that was left to Joel by his first wife Carrie. Carrie was also a rich girl, but one who had assets to bring to this Puritan community. Carrie was a great painter, but was often punished lest she become too vain about it. On the back of this painting is an inscription about the lands she owns and a promise that Joel will get to keep it ‘as far as the eye can see’.

One day during the apple harvest, a terrible accident happens and Ivy is killed. Mia is distraught, but as her mothers body is carried away she grabs the red boots that Joel uncharacteristically bought for her mother to have as a keepsake. She knows that now it’s either run or stay forever. Grabbing The Scarlet Letter and the painting she takes a leap, out of the bedroom window and across the fields to the library. The librarian had noticed Mia lurking in there, reading in the warmth. She had a feeling the girl was in trouble so she gave her a key and invited her to let herself in if she is ever in danger. She understands that to keep Mia safe they must move quickly, so she packs up the car and takes her somewhere he won’t know, because nobody knows. She has a long-term partner, a woman she doesn’t live with but trusts implicitly. She knows that with them, Mia should be able to thrive without the community breathing down her neck, to go to school and read to her heart’s content and have the life she has dreamed up for herself.

She also sensed that Joel was a man who wouldn’t give up Mia without a fight.

Of course it wouldn’t be an Alice Hoffman without something magical happening and here Mia experiences a time slip and finds herself in the same time and place as her hero Nathaniel Hawthorne. He hasn’t yet written The Scarlet Letter, in fact he’s on the verge of giving up writing altogether. When he meets Mia their connection is instant despite the centuries between them. They start a love affair, but what will the consequences of that be? Anything they do will change the future. Could her presence in his world mean that the very book that brought her here, no longer exists? In fact the consequences of their love could be even more life changing for both of them. Can she stay in his world? Is there any way he could come into hers? Mia is becoming aware that Nathaniel may have to sacrifice his writing for them to be together and she’s not sure she can let him do that. All the while, her father Joel is still watching and waiting.

I loved the play on The Scarlet Letter here because it shows us how powerless women have been across the centuries. I loved how Alice Hoffman creates this magical setting. The landscape, particular the woods and river, feel like something out of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It would be easy to dismiss her work as whimsical and romantic, but underneath is a fierce feminist manifesto and an equally fierce defence of the written word. I was aware as I read the novel that it could go the same way as other books that have supported women’s reproductive rights and end up banned. The way the religious community prevent women from controlling their own fertility is a representation of what’s happening in some states of America. Abortion has always been a controversial topic in the US and the rights of women in some areas have reverted back to the early 20th Century. Jodi Picoult often cites Alice Hoffman as her favourite writer and a huge influence on her own work. In some states of America Jodi Picoult’s work is banned from libraries and schools because it concerns issues like abortion, teenage pregnancy, fertility treatment and same sex marriage. Here Hoffman is hugely critical of a community that doesn’t value women’s education, burns books and leaves them with no rights over their own bodies. There’s a part of her magical landscape where desperate women have taken matters into their own hands. They’ve taken herbs or potions to end their pregnancies and have created a burial place for the children they’ve lost and those they can’t bear to have.

Mia’s surrogate parents are the antithesis of Joel’s community. They are intelligent and progressive women who actively encourage questioning and reading. They remind Mia that no matter how moral and righteous a community might seem, if it restricts education, burns books and controls women, believing them to be inferior to men, then it is on the way to being fascistic. It’s so sad that Joel won’t let women read but then uses letters to punish them and control their behaviour, by literally branding them into the skin in a ceremony. Instead of wearing a scarlet letter, an adulteress would be branded on the upper arm with a letter ‘A’. Words and books are the source of our knowledge and that scares men like Joel. This is a brave book and will probably be underestimated, but women have been speaking their truth in ways that fly under the radar for centuries; films or books dismissed as ‘chick lit’ or ‘rom coms’; jingly, bright pop music with dark or subversive lyrics; pretty pink fashion branding the wearer as stupid, like Elle in Legally Blonde. I think there are people who will see the beautiful landscape, the time travel and magical feeling of this nook and underestimate it. I’m hoping readers look for the deeper themes here and see what Alice Hoffman was doing when choosing to use The Scarlet Letter. It’s a much beloved classic that she clearly loves, but it’s also a perfect basis for a story about these women. The ending is perfect for the autumn in that it’s bittersweet. We love the beautiful fall colours, particularly in the part of the USA where the book’s set. Those brightly coloured leaves bring us joy, but they’re also signalling an ending. The beauty of loss. 🍂

Published on 17th August by Scribner

Meet the Author

Alice Hoffman is the author of thirty works of fiction, including Practical Magic, The Dovekeepers, Magic Lessons, and, most recently, The Book of Magic. She lives in Boston. Her new novel, The Invisible Hour, is forthcoming in August 2023. Visit her website: http://www.alicehoffman.com