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patchworkbunny's Reviews (2.12k)
Toby didn’t know her liege Sylvester had a niece, but she is sent to check up on her after she stops answering her phone. Jan is not your average fae; she’s a geek and running a technology company bringing the fae community into the 21st Century. However her county, Tamed Lightning, sits between Shadowed Hills and Dreamer's Glass, a political hotspot and Sylvester can’t risk upsetting the neighbouring duchy by visiting himself. When Toby and Quentin arrive, they find that missed calls are the least of their problems.
With A Local Habitation we see a glimmer of the writer behind the Newsflesh series (Seanan McGuire also writes under the pen name of Mira Grant). With the fae being hundreds of years old and reliant on magic, they’re not very tech savvy. Jan creates telephone systems that run between knowes among other useful things and I liked the mix of technology and fantasy. As someone with a career that doesn’t get much fictional coverage outside of Douglas Coupland novels, I kind of loved the idea of a Kitsune software tester. It’s just a shame they killed her off before the story started. I doubt there’s a market other than me who would jump on a spin-off series…
The knowe itself is almost Matrix like, with it adapting all the time. Instead of the info-dump of Rosemary and Rue, the world-building is a lot more organic and I felt I got a better idea of the politics and workings of a knowe, even if it was a slightly unconventional one! April was a fantastic character; a virtual druid, connecting into a server tree and having very little knowledge of social conventions. She is completely naïve in some ways and acts accordingly. There are some great characters and a real sense of humour creeping in.
It’s a lot more structured that the first book and there’s a real whodunit element. You get a chance to work it all out just the right amount of time before Toby does. There are a few red herrings thrown in and it’s a race against time to stop the murders. Quentin becomes a more rounded character, stepping away from his courtly duties and becoming a fledgling assistant to Toby. There’s just enough of Tybalt to whet your appetite (and notice how Toby is still wearing his coat). He certainly won’t let the “here kitty kitty” go!
With A Local Habitation we see a glimmer of the writer behind the Newsflesh series (Seanan McGuire also writes under the pen name of Mira Grant). With the fae being hundreds of years old and reliant on magic, they’re not very tech savvy. Jan creates telephone systems that run between knowes among other useful things and I liked the mix of technology and fantasy. As someone with a career that doesn’t get much fictional coverage outside of Douglas Coupland novels, I kind of loved the idea of a Kitsune software tester. It’s just a shame they killed her off before the story started. I doubt there’s a market other than me who would jump on a spin-off series…
The knowe itself is almost Matrix like, with it adapting all the time. Instead of the info-dump of Rosemary and Rue, the world-building is a lot more organic and I felt I got a better idea of the politics and workings of a knowe, even if it was a slightly unconventional one! April was a fantastic character; a virtual druid, connecting into a server tree and having very little knowledge of social conventions. She is completely naïve in some ways and acts accordingly. There are some great characters and a real sense of humour creeping in.
It’s a lot more structured that the first book and there’s a real whodunit element. You get a chance to work it all out just the right amount of time before Toby does. There are a few red herrings thrown in and it’s a race against time to stop the murders. Quentin becomes a more rounded character, stepping away from his courtly duties and becoming a fledgling assistant to Toby. There’s just enough of Tybalt to whet your appetite (and notice how Toby is still wearing his coat). He certainly won’t let the “here kitty kitty” go!
Fuse is the sequel to Pure and therefore this review may contain spoilers for the previous book.
A wretch has been captured by the dome and returned Pure. She comes with a message; return our son. Willux wants Partridge to return to the dome. With his enhancements catching up to him, does he want one last moment with his son? Is this a sign that Partridge could take over the dome as a legitimate leader? Meanwhile, Pressia and Bradwell are studying the black boxes retrieved from the farmhouse; one of which is holding secrets just outside their reach. Can they work out the puzzle and could there really be a cure?
Overall, Fuse is a much slower story than Pure but one I found myself loving (more so than the first book). Where I took a while to get my head round the world before, this time I could dive right in and feel at home. There were several “there all about to die!” moments, usually at a point I had to stop reading, which meant it was still gripping.
There are lots of little threads but there are really two main storylines; Partridge’s return to the dome and Pressia’s search for the cure. The kindling relationships started in Pure are built apon a little, but I didn’t feel they overwhelmed the plot. Lyda’s experience with The Mothers is frightening but it pushes the story to extremes. In a warped way, their bitterness has logic. They were left to their fate by men the day of the attacks and their grief and anger has turned them to revenge. I adored Fignam. Yes he’s a black box, designed to hold information, but Julianna gives him the mannerisms of a dog and he has such character.
You know what I really loved about Fuse? El Capitan and Helmud. In Pure, they were characters introduced to us as the enemy and El Capitan continued to be easy to dislike. But then there was that bit at the end with Helmud and the garrotte. A little hint of something more going on in Helmud’s head as well as the push for El Capitan to reconsider their relationship. I love the interactions between them in Fuse. Helmud’s echo contains little deviations in inflection or he’ll pick out a specific word. There’s a huge desire in me as a reader for Helmud to become more of an individual. Cap starts to change in the presence of Pressia; having a purpose and friendship makes a huge difference to him and I just love this unorthodox pairing of characters.
My final thoughts were “what have you done?” and I cannot wait until Burn, the final instalment in the trilogy.
A wretch has been captured by the dome and returned Pure. She comes with a message; return our son. Willux wants Partridge to return to the dome. With his enhancements catching up to him, does he want one last moment with his son? Is this a sign that Partridge could take over the dome as a legitimate leader? Meanwhile, Pressia and Bradwell are studying the black boxes retrieved from the farmhouse; one of which is holding secrets just outside their reach. Can they work out the puzzle and could there really be a cure?
Overall, Fuse is a much slower story than Pure but one I found myself loving (more so than the first book). Where I took a while to get my head round the world before, this time I could dive right in and feel at home. There were several “there all about to die!” moments, usually at a point I had to stop reading, which meant it was still gripping.
There are lots of little threads but there are really two main storylines; Partridge’s return to the dome and Pressia’s search for the cure. The kindling relationships started in Pure are built apon a little, but I didn’t feel they overwhelmed the plot. Lyda’s experience with The Mothers is frightening but it pushes the story to extremes. In a warped way, their bitterness has logic. They were left to their fate by men the day of the attacks and their grief and anger has turned them to revenge. I adored Fignam. Yes he’s a black box, designed to hold information, but Julianna gives him the mannerisms of a dog and he has such character.
You know what I really loved about Fuse? El Capitan and Helmud. In Pure, they were characters introduced to us as the enemy and El Capitan continued to be easy to dislike. But then there was that bit at the end with Helmud and the garrotte. A little hint of something more going on in Helmud’s head as well as the push for El Capitan to reconsider their relationship. I love the interactions between them in Fuse. Helmud’s echo contains little deviations in inflection or he’ll pick out a specific word. There’s a huge desire in me as a reader for Helmud to become more of an individual. Cap starts to change in the presence of Pressia; having a purpose and friendship makes a huge difference to him and I just love this unorthodox pairing of characters.
My final thoughts were “what have you done?” and I cannot wait until Burn, the final instalment in the trilogy.
From guerrilla artists taking revenge on a corporate world to a tribal culture formed around rubber ducks. A love story told in few sentences; day one, week one, month one and year one. The simple, consideration of taking an old relative to a place of joy, if imaginary. A future where the food chain has been compromised and meat is a luxury few can afford. Mathematical murders. All these things are more are told through this collection of short stories from Jonathan Pinnock.
The travel guide was accurate, if a tad unhelpful. “For more information about Hell,” it said, “see below.”
These stories are alternating dots and dashes. The dots are only a few sentences at most, whilst the dashes are more consistent with an expected short story length. But those dots made me laugh! So did some of the dashes too. It is a little book that brought a smile to my face repeatedly and was a real joy to read.
At first glance, the stories are a bit weird. I like weird but Dot, Dash goes beyond weird for weird’s sake. Many have a twist and those twists will make you think. Whilst the tableaus may go beyond the believable, very human characteristics are explored, pushing some of the characters to re-evaluate what makes them who they are. Some of the stories could be considered scary; such as Convalescence which was one of my favourites. A man is recovering from a medical procedure and is attending his psyche evaluation. He is having some side-affects…which turn out to reveal a terrifying truth.
It’s one of the best short story collections I’ve read and one I think I will go back to repeatedly. I do find it hard to review short stories without giving too much away, so I’ll just encourage you to give this one a go.
The travel guide was accurate, if a tad unhelpful. “For more information about Hell,” it said, “see below.”
These stories are alternating dots and dashes. The dots are only a few sentences at most, whilst the dashes are more consistent with an expected short story length. But those dots made me laugh! So did some of the dashes too. It is a little book that brought a smile to my face repeatedly and was a real joy to read.
At first glance, the stories are a bit weird. I like weird but Dot, Dash goes beyond weird for weird’s sake. Many have a twist and those twists will make you think. Whilst the tableaus may go beyond the believable, very human characteristics are explored, pushing some of the characters to re-evaluate what makes them who they are. Some of the stories could be considered scary; such as Convalescence which was one of my favourites. A man is recovering from a medical procedure and is attending his psyche evaluation. He is having some side-affects…which turn out to reveal a terrifying truth.
It’s one of the best short story collections I’ve read and one I think I will go back to repeatedly. I do find it hard to review short stories without giving too much away, so I’ll just encourage you to give this one a go.
The year is 1866 and Mrs Pemberton is on trial for the murder of Mr Scales. Seven years earlier, Gwen Carrick meets Edward Scales on a Cornish beach. They soon start up a flirtatious acquaintance; Gwen introducing Edward to her love of the natural world and Edward hanging on her every word. But Edward’s life is full of secrets and Gwen struggles to live with her spiritualist sister who despises Darwin’s theories. From Cornwall to the rainforests of Brazil, the web of deception becomes ever more tangled.
Gwen is a wonderfully modern woman in a society where her outspokenness makes her inconvenient in polite society, never mind her support of Darwinism. If it were just Gwen’s story of succeeding in a man’s world, I think I could have loved her story but the plot is all over the place. Effie’s spiritualism could have been the perfect opposite to Gwen’s scientific nature, although both passions pushing them outside of what is socially acceptable. Yet Effie is suddenly painted as mentally unstable, with no indicators running up to the event, she does something shocking even by today’s standards. Considering the Victorian propensity for packing loved ones off to asylums, it’s odd that she’s just left alone.
Edward is completely inconsistent. There are so many elements to his life that I don’t know where to start. At first he seems charming, if a bit simple but certainly enamoured with Gwen. Then there’s this whole subterfuge thing in the summerhouse; leading me up to be very confused for a while until I realised what had happened. There’s a rough diamond that keeps cropping up but its relevance is never revealed. When they go to Brazil, he suddenly wants to be the man in charge and starts patronising Gwen, at odds to the relationship in England. There’s the wife and the woman with hypertrichosis, deaths, disease, marriages and births. Secret books and spying servants. Not to mention a very weird section at the end regarding sexual dysfunction. And is the thing in the cellar what I think it is? I got to the end thinking I must have missed the point of the book. Is there some thread connecting all the elements?
I can understand Gwen falling for Edward in the first place. Here is a man who is actually interested in what she has to say about the natural world and emerging theories. I can even understand her running off with him as an unmarried women; she is ahead of her times remember and I’m sure she doesn’t believe a woman must be married to get a long in life. Even when she finds herself in above her head, she still made sense to me, under the circumstances. It’s just everyone else around her didn’t.
I found the sections about the murder trial a bit awkward to read. They were set in newspaper style columns and in a very formal language, mimicking what would have been reported at the time. In contrast, I enjoyed Martha’s more natural prose; I think she has the potential to write beautifully once the plotting elements are ironed out. By the end, I had started to enjoy the silliness of it all, although I’m not sure that was her aim. The ingredients are there for a fantastic book, Darwinism, Victorian scandal, murder, exploration and betrayal, but something went wrong in the baking.
Gwen is a wonderfully modern woman in a society where her outspokenness makes her inconvenient in polite society, never mind her support of Darwinism. If it were just Gwen’s story of succeeding in a man’s world, I think I could have loved her story but the plot is all over the place. Effie’s spiritualism could have been the perfect opposite to Gwen’s scientific nature, although both passions pushing them outside of what is socially acceptable. Yet Effie is suddenly painted as mentally unstable, with no indicators running up to the event, she does something shocking even by today’s standards. Considering the Victorian propensity for packing loved ones off to asylums, it’s odd that she’s just left alone.
Edward is completely inconsistent. There are so many elements to his life that I don’t know where to start. At first he seems charming, if a bit simple but certainly enamoured with Gwen. Then there’s this whole subterfuge thing in the summerhouse; leading me up to be very confused for a while until I realised what had happened. There’s a rough diamond that keeps cropping up but its relevance is never revealed. When they go to Brazil, he suddenly wants to be the man in charge and starts patronising Gwen, at odds to the relationship in England. There’s the wife and the woman with hypertrichosis, deaths, disease, marriages and births. Secret books and spying servants. Not to mention a very weird section at the end regarding sexual dysfunction. And is the thing in the cellar what I think it is? I got to the end thinking I must have missed the point of the book. Is there some thread connecting all the elements?
I can understand Gwen falling for Edward in the first place. Here is a man who is actually interested in what she has to say about the natural world and emerging theories. I can even understand her running off with him as an unmarried women; she is ahead of her times remember and I’m sure she doesn’t believe a woman must be married to get a long in life. Even when she finds herself in above her head, she still made sense to me, under the circumstances. It’s just everyone else around her didn’t.
I found the sections about the murder trial a bit awkward to read. They were set in newspaper style columns and in a very formal language, mimicking what would have been reported at the time. In contrast, I enjoyed Martha’s more natural prose; I think she has the potential to write beautifully once the plotting elements are ironed out. By the end, I had started to enjoy the silliness of it all, although I’m not sure that was her aim. The ingredients are there for a fantastic book, Darwinism, Victorian scandal, murder, exploration and betrayal, but something went wrong in the baking.
Children are going missing, and it’s not just the fae. When Stacy’s youngest are snatched from their home and her teenage daughter left in a sleep so sleep she cannot be awakened, she immediately calls Toby into help. She must once again go to the Luidaeg for help, starting her on a journey beyond the mortal realm. There are only three paths which will take her where she needs to go and back again, but she can take each only once. Meanwhile, a harbinger of Toby’s own death has turned up on her doorstep. Will this be her last job?
An Artificial Night is where this series really kicks off. It’s dark and otherworldly and our heroine is put in all kinds of mortal peril. Toby has always used nursery rhymes for her spellcasting so it is appropriate that one shapes the plot here. “How many miles to Babylon” is used to devise a way into and out of Blind Michael’s realm. And he’s a proper evil, child-snatching fae who does horrible irreversible things. There are childhood fears that come to light and the never-ending night is something to be afraid of. You really do fear for Toby’s life and those of the children. The whole other realm has an unreal and unsettling feeling to it too.
The idea of a fetch is genius. May Daye (a bit of death humour there) is an identical replica of Toby, sent to escort her to her death when the time comes. Her arrival is an omen of her imminent death and she starts to follow Toby around. Only she’s not quite exactly like Toby at all and starts to become a character in her own right. Knowing that she is about to die, Toby can throw herself into deadly situations and it highlights her desire to stop existing in her less than fulfilling life.
My favourite characters are of course those that show promise of redemption, rather than being a goody-two-shoes from the start. Read that as I love Tybalt and the Luidaeg and don’t like the obviousness of Connor. Spike the rose goblin is especially adorable, even if I imagine him as a sort of pink echidna rather than the thorny cat he is described as. I just love his quirks and his loyal presence, not to mention his love of riding in the car. There are plenty of events in this instalment that pave the way for future developments…
An Artificial Night is where this series really kicks off. It’s dark and otherworldly and our heroine is put in all kinds of mortal peril. Toby has always used nursery rhymes for her spellcasting so it is appropriate that one shapes the plot here. “How many miles to Babylon” is used to devise a way into and out of Blind Michael’s realm. And he’s a proper evil, child-snatching fae who does horrible irreversible things. There are childhood fears that come to light and the never-ending night is something to be afraid of. You really do fear for Toby’s life and those of the children. The whole other realm has an unreal and unsettling feeling to it too.
How many miles to Babylon?
Three score miles and ten.
Can I get there by candle-light?
Yes, and back again.
If your heels are nimble and light,
You may get there by candle-light.
The idea of a fetch is genius. May Daye (a bit of death humour there) is an identical replica of Toby, sent to escort her to her death when the time comes. Her arrival is an omen of her imminent death and she starts to follow Toby around. Only she’s not quite exactly like Toby at all and starts to become a character in her own right. Knowing that she is about to die, Toby can throw herself into deadly situations and it highlights her desire to stop existing in her less than fulfilling life.
My favourite characters are of course those that show promise of redemption, rather than being a goody-two-shoes from the start. Read that as I love Tybalt and the Luidaeg and don’t like the obviousness of Connor. Spike the rose goblin is especially adorable, even if I imagine him as a sort of pink echidna rather than the thorny cat he is described as. I just love his quirks and his loyal presence, not to mention his love of riding in the car. There are plenty of events in this instalment that pave the way for future developments…
A mother and her two teenage children are preparing a feast of mussels, their customary meal for celebrations. The daughter doesn’t much care for mussels, nor does the mother, but this is what they do. They must act like a proper family. But the father doesn’t come home when expected and the truths of their proper family come out.
The Mussel Feast is narrated by the daughter and starts off with the actions of preparing and cooking the mussels. There is a fantastic passage where the mussels start to scream and she contemplates them being cooked alive. When the father doesn’t return, her thoughts start to wander and the novella is a slow reveal of their lives. A normal family on the outside but living under a controlling father; one obsessed with being proper. When alone the family can act how they like but as soon as he is present, they put on their masks.
The Mussel Feast is one of the most studied texts in Germany. Written just before the fall of the Berlin Wall, it shows a family that have escaped the East, trading one form of control for another. Birgit Vanderbeke wrote it to explore how revolutions start, how one thought can snowball into realisation and defiance. There are quite a lot of run-on sentences and paragraphs that run into pages, which reflects the daughter’s train of thought. It’s a short yet completely absorbing read.
The Mussel Feast is narrated by the daughter and starts off with the actions of preparing and cooking the mussels. There is a fantastic passage where the mussels start to scream and she contemplates them being cooked alive. When the father doesn’t return, her thoughts start to wander and the novella is a slow reveal of their lives. A normal family on the outside but living under a controlling father; one obsessed with being proper. When alone the family can act how they like but as soon as he is present, they put on their masks.
The Mussel Feast is one of the most studied texts in Germany. Written just before the fall of the Berlin Wall, it shows a family that have escaped the East, trading one form of control for another. Birgit Vanderbeke wrote it to explore how revolutions start, how one thought can snowball into realisation and defiance. There are quite a lot of run-on sentences and paragraphs that run into pages, which reflects the daughter’s train of thought. It’s a short yet completely absorbing read.
New York is flooded and the city is ruled by the upper classes. Below, the mystics live in the depths, in buildings threatening to crumble into the sea. But mystics must have their powers drained for they are dangerous and a menace to society left free to do as they please. Aria is engaged to Thomas; a union that will build a bridge between two rival families. The only problem is, Aria can’t remember falling in love with him, or much about him at all. Her memory ruined by an overdose, she meets a boy in the depths; a mystic. Is he the key to unlocking her memories and will she fall in love with Thomas all over again?
What if Romeo and Juliet were a lie? Set against a backdrop of a flooded New York, it held so much promise but just fell short. Mystic City is one of those books where I really should have taken heed from all those blog reviews. I had managed to pre-order and forget all about it, so by the time it turned up I was a bit meh about it. It fell into so many of the traps of dystopian YA, the world built for the sake of it being a "dystopian setting", rather than having something political to say using the dystopian society. You may know by now this is one of my pet peeves...
I liked the idea of a future New York that has been flooded and its resemblance to Venice (gondoliers replace taxis) but the world didn’t make a whole lot of sense. It becomes clear that it is only partially flooded as there is one place where they still have grass and trees. This means that just a little bit further in land, everything is peachy (not that it’s mentioned, we are to assume New York is the entire universe of Mystic City). So why do all these rich bigwigs stay in the city? Why wouldn’t they resettle elsewhere? Confining themselves to the penthouses instead of starting afresh seems just a little bit odd.
The story does touch a little on the oppression of a group deemed lesser by those in charge. The mystics are segregated and drained. What makes them, them, is taken away. I liked the idea of the Romeo and Juliet story being used as a sort of propaganda between the warring families. They will unite the righteous against the rebels. It’s just that the surrounding story was a little bland and predictable. It’s easy to read but nothing to write home about.
What if Romeo and Juliet were a lie? Set against a backdrop of a flooded New York, it held so much promise but just fell short. Mystic City is one of those books where I really should have taken heed from all those blog reviews. I had managed to pre-order and forget all about it, so by the time it turned up I was a bit meh about it. It fell into so many of the traps of dystopian YA, the world built for the sake of it being a "dystopian setting", rather than having something political to say using the dystopian society. You may know by now this is one of my pet peeves...
I liked the idea of a future New York that has been flooded and its resemblance to Venice (gondoliers replace taxis) but the world didn’t make a whole lot of sense. It becomes clear that it is only partially flooded as there is one place where they still have grass and trees. This means that just a little bit further in land, everything is peachy (not that it’s mentioned, we are to assume New York is the entire universe of Mystic City). So why do all these rich bigwigs stay in the city? Why wouldn’t they resettle elsewhere? Confining themselves to the penthouses instead of starting afresh seems just a little bit odd.
The story does touch a little on the oppression of a group deemed lesser by those in charge. The mystics are segregated and drained. What makes them, them, is taken away. I liked the idea of the Romeo and Juliet story being used as a sort of propaganda between the warring families. They will unite the righteous against the rebels. It’s just that the surrounding story was a little bland and predictable. It’s easy to read but nothing to write home about.
The Solander docks in London laden with botanical specimens gathered for Tahiti. Sponsored by Sir Joseph Banks, the voyage was a successful endeavour to bring back the island’s hidden treasures to Kew and the Royal Society. When Charles Horton of the Thames river police stumbles upon a murder scene, he is soon to discover the connection between it, and the ship his magistrate, John Harriott, welcomed home just the day before; for the victim is a member of the crew and his death appears more than a simple robbery. When more of the crew are found dead, their expressions grinning horribly, Horton must find the truths of the voyage and once again avoid stepping on the toes of the city police.
Although The Poisoned Island follows on from The English Monster, the book works perfectly as a standalone novel. In fact, not knowing the twist of the first book might even be a benefit as I got an idea of what was going early on. I didn’t get it spot on though so there are still surprises and the mystery is only a small part of what is an excellent read with wonderfully evocative descriptions.
The streets of the London of 1812 are brought alive and one thing I love about these books are how the places are so familiar even if they have changed somewhat. There is one chapter set in the Cheshire Cheese pub on Fleet Street, which has always been my mental blueprint for urban inns in historical fiction. For those that don’t know, this pub is still in operation today and has not been modernised much (although much cleaner than in those days). Of course, the maritime history of Britain is at the forefront, from the crew to the ship to the implications of exploration and its exploitation.
It also puts into context the collections at Kew; now a pleasant break from city life but before was a huge exercise in collecting, cataloguing and keeping alive plants from around the world. We probably imagine botany to be fairly harmless but the British Empire wreaked havoc in its pursuits. The story is littered with mentions of the disease Europeans spread throughout the world. The story starts with a rape of an island woman and goes on to highlight how many were taken advantage of.
In contrast, Abigail Horton, who plays a minor role, is a fantastic modern woman for the time. She comes across more intelligent than her husband and is fascinated with the emerging science. She is quietly supportive of his efforts to adopt a different way of policing and she breathes a little bit of compassion into what otherwise could be an incredibly dark tale. It has previously been established that she is unable to have children which allows her to not be the dutiful housewife so many women of her standing would have been.
Although The Poisoned Island follows on from The English Monster, the book works perfectly as a standalone novel. In fact, not knowing the twist of the first book might even be a benefit as I got an idea of what was going early on. I didn’t get it spot on though so there are still surprises and the mystery is only a small part of what is an excellent read with wonderfully evocative descriptions.
The streets of the London of 1812 are brought alive and one thing I love about these books are how the places are so familiar even if they have changed somewhat. There is one chapter set in the Cheshire Cheese pub on Fleet Street, which has always been my mental blueprint for urban inns in historical fiction. For those that don’t know, this pub is still in operation today and has not been modernised much (although much cleaner than in those days). Of course, the maritime history of Britain is at the forefront, from the crew to the ship to the implications of exploration and its exploitation.
It also puts into context the collections at Kew; now a pleasant break from city life but before was a huge exercise in collecting, cataloguing and keeping alive plants from around the world. We probably imagine botany to be fairly harmless but the British Empire wreaked havoc in its pursuits. The story is littered with mentions of the disease Europeans spread throughout the world. The story starts with a rape of an island woman and goes on to highlight how many were taken advantage of.
In contrast, Abigail Horton, who plays a minor role, is a fantastic modern woman for the time. She comes across more intelligent than her husband and is fascinated with the emerging science. She is quietly supportive of his efforts to adopt a different way of policing and she breathes a little bit of compassion into what otherwise could be an incredibly dark tale. It has previously been established that she is unable to have children which allows her to not be the dutiful housewife so many women of her standing would have been.
Angie is thirteen years old when she goes missing. Next thing she knows, she’s standing outside her family home with scars on her ankles and wrists. Three whole years have passed but to Angie, she’s only been gone a few hours at most. She must get to grips with the lost time and adjust to her life as a sixteen year old but if she wants to discover what happened to her, she must confront the secrets locked in her mind.
There was a great idea in here somewhere but overall I felt a little disappointed. I’ve had a good run of novels dealing with memory loss so maybe I was holding it to a very high standard. From the moment of her return, it’s quite obvious what has happened to her; the repressed memories and scars pretty much sum it up. That she doesn’t work it out herself is a little unbelievable even if she does think she is only thirteen. Each time something new was introduced, it was so obvious what it was going to lead to.
It’s mostly told in third person but the basic writing style would have suited the first person voice of a child; even when Angie appears to grow up mentally, the style doesn’t grow with her. This did mean it was a quick and easy read but it was lacking in emotional engagement. Even if she had no memories, wouldn’t the fact that she had lost three years be distressing? That she had horrific scars and the face looking back in the mirror was older than she expected? Instead she seems rather blasé about the whole thing.
This next bit might be a bit of a spoiler, but I feel it explains what is interesting beyond the missing girl story. Angie’s memory loss is explained away by dissociative identity disorder, or what has been more popularly called multiple personality disorder, triggered by the trauma. Her other identities came out to protect her throughout her ordeal and slowly begin to reveal themselves through therapy. Exploring these characters and allowing them to reveal different aspects of her story is a fantastic idea. The changes in narrative voice were well done (again, why I thought first person throughout would have worked better) and also explains why the book starts out in second person.
The things that our minds can do are fascinating and astounding. I’d really like to read more on the subject of DID, either in well researched fiction or non-fiction. I wanted a little bit more psychology around it and I did think the doctor’s treatment sounded a bit made up. If it wasn’t, it really needed a bit more substance to back it up. I’m not sure if it is aimed at younger readers or not, which might explain the lack of more in-depth science.
There was a great idea in here somewhere but overall I felt a little disappointed. I’ve had a good run of novels dealing with memory loss so maybe I was holding it to a very high standard. From the moment of her return, it’s quite obvious what has happened to her; the repressed memories and scars pretty much sum it up. That she doesn’t work it out herself is a little unbelievable even if she does think she is only thirteen. Each time something new was introduced, it was so obvious what it was going to lead to.
It’s mostly told in third person but the basic writing style would have suited the first person voice of a child; even when Angie appears to grow up mentally, the style doesn’t grow with her. This did mean it was a quick and easy read but it was lacking in emotional engagement. Even if she had no memories, wouldn’t the fact that she had lost three years be distressing? That she had horrific scars and the face looking back in the mirror was older than she expected? Instead she seems rather blasé about the whole thing.
This next bit might be a bit of a spoiler, but I feel it explains what is interesting beyond the missing girl story. Angie’s memory loss is explained away by dissociative identity disorder, or what has been more popularly called multiple personality disorder, triggered by the trauma. Her other identities came out to protect her throughout her ordeal and slowly begin to reveal themselves through therapy. Exploring these characters and allowing them to reveal different aspects of her story is a fantastic idea. The changes in narrative voice were well done (again, why I thought first person throughout would have worked better) and also explains why the book starts out in second person.
The things that our minds can do are fascinating and astounding. I’d really like to read more on the subject of DID, either in well researched fiction or non-fiction. I wanted a little bit more psychology around it and I did think the doctor’s treatment sounded a bit made up. If it wasn’t, it really needed a bit more substance to back it up. I’m not sure if it is aimed at younger readers or not, which might explain the lack of more in-depth science.