The Silence of Ghosts

The Silence of Ghosts

by Jonathan Aycliffe

(Edited) Blurb:

Those who live in silence hear them best...

After Dominic is severely wounded in service during WWII, his family sends him away from London and the Blitz, to the relative safety of their country home.  His instructions are to look after his partially deaf sister, Octavia, while he comes to terms with his new reality.  The crumbling family estate on the shores of Ullswater is old, neglected, and doesn’t seem a promising place for happiness or recovery.

However, despite his reservations, Dominic's life soon seems to be taking a turn for the better.  He has an attractive and kind new nurse named Rose, and there's hope that Octavia's asthma and hearing might be improving.  But even as Dominic catches his first glimpses of a happy future, there's an eerie darkness creeping at the edges of his consciousness.  Slowly, he realizes that there's something deeply wrong with this house...  Octavia is hearing the voices of children-- voices that no-one else can hear-- and there is worse to come.  Can Dominic solve the mystery of these phantom voices before it's too late?

My Reaction:

I enjoyed a few of the author's earlier works, but unfortunately, this one really didn't work for me.  The biggest problem is that it's a ghost story that inspires very little fear.  Apart from one or two creepy moments, it falls flat.  Most of the efforts at horror are repetitive (the dancing!!!) and not particularly scary, in my opinion.  (I think it's rare that I'll be creeped out by a detailed description of a ghost's old-fashioned clothing, and an author needs to be very clever indeed to make me shiver in fear when a ghost "plain-talks" as much as Sir William's ghost does.)

I found this novel poorly written in other respects, as well, I'm sorry to say.  I realize it was set during WWII, so a mention or two of ration-related difficulties would be fine, but the author got carried away.  The frequent references to rationing and the specifics of what everyone was eating/drinking, morning, noon, and night-- no, thank you!  It's a ghost story, not a cozy mystery or a cookbook!  Similarly, there were just too many references to Hitler and the war for a book that isn't "about" WWII.  

Dominic's parents are such absolute caricatures of Evil Rich People that I laughed out loud.  They were so completely over-the-top!  Also, I wasn't expecting so much romance, and I ended up just skimming those parts of the book. (Well, to be honest, I skimmed a lot of the second half of this novel.  I wouldn't have finished if I hadn't.)  I like a good romance as much as the next person, but this one wasn't for me.  I was cringing over the lovesick, lust-fueled conversations. 

I hate to be so negative when I've enjoyed some of this author's other books, but this one was a big disappointment.  Maybe I was expecting too much, because I enjoyed the other books.  Oh well!  I still haven't read The Talisman, and that one sounds promising.

Antigua: The Land of Fairies, Wizards and Heroes

Antigua: The Land of Fairies, Wizards and Heroes

by Denise Brown Ellis and Larry Ellis

My Blurb:

Take hunks, chunks, and nuggets of ideas from some of the best-selling and most beloved fantasy novels and movies of the past hundred years.  Chop them up and reassemble them haphazardly.  Throw in some cuckoo ideas of your own to counterbalance the clichés and tropes.  Apply a liberal dose of exclamation marks-- and voilà!  You have this book!  

My Reaction:

(This was another reading assignment for the 372 Pages We'll Never Get Back book club podcast.  As such, it was a shared read-aloud with Donald.)  

Well.  What is there to say?  Where can you even begin?  Taken as a serious effort, this is not good.  It borrows too heavily from better works, characters are cardboard cutouts, it's repetitive and poorly-paced, and there are errors, plot holes (in the thinnest plot imaginable), and way too many exclamation marks.  

However, this is one of those books you simply can't judge against the same standard as a normal book, especially when you go into it knowing it's not a good book (by any stretch of the imagination).  It was a lot of fun to read and dissect, even without taking the podcast into account.  As much as it "borrows" blatantly steals from fantasy classics, it also occasionally throws a curve ball that you would never see coming, even if you were to spend hours guessing.  And ultimately, it has plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, which is more than I can say about many objectively better-written books I've read!

Stormswift

Stormswift

by Madeleine Brent

(Heavily-Edited) Blurb:

The year is 1897. Deep in the mountain wilderness of the Hindu Kush, a 17-year-old English girl is brought to the primitive tribal kingdom of Shul, where she lives the life of a slave.  After two long years, she has the chance to escape back to her home in England, where she believes she will step back into her life as Jemimah Lawley and finally inherit her parents' wealth and luxurious home.  The hazardous journey takes her across Afghanistan with a man who hates her.  Little does she know that even more difficulties await her in England.  Is she truly Jemimah Lawley, or is she suffering from a delusion caused by her degrading ordeal as Lalla of Shul? Soon she is plunged into a new world, where she finds there are others who, like herself, are perhaps not what they seem to be. Life in England brings her strange adventures and a touching friendship, but also the heartbreak of love without hope. 

My Reaction:

So far, nothing else of Madeleine Brent's has lived up to my memory of Moonraker's Bride!  Stormswift is a pretty good read, but it's not a favorite.  At first, I felt it was going to be very similar to the last MB book I read, Golden Urchin, but then the story veers... I prefer Golden Urchin, though that had flaws, too... I will say this-- for a book that is very predictable in many ways, it still surprised me a few times!  I didn't see some of it coming, perhaps because so much happens in this novel that it's impossible to predict everything.  Stormswift did a good job of holding my interest.  I was entertained more often than not, but some things about this book did annoy me.  If you're not afraid of spoilers, read on.  

Hey, did you catch that?  

SPOILERS to follow!  

(As well as spoilers for Golden Urchin... and Rebecca!)

Stop reading now to avoid 

BIG,

BAD,

INFURIATING

SPOILERS!

I had problems with the hero in Golden Urchin.  For much of the book, he gave the heroine the hot/cold treatment and was frequently brusque with her as a result of his self-disgust.  He was angry with himself for being attracted to her while his beloved wife was slowly wasting away.  It wasn't fun to read.  Not my taste for a romance, at all.  

So when this book came along with a strong-and-silent hero figure-- Casper, the man who is Jemimah's unwilling rescuer-- and he's surly to her, but no-one else-- and then we eventually learn he is already married-- I assumed we were in for more of the same.  Another Golden Urchin-style, rather disappointing romance.  

This seems even more likely when we are told how amazing his wife, Melanie, is-- just like the tragic first wife in Golden Urchin.  I'll admit, I was disgusted with Melanie long before we were supposed to be!  She's soooo beautiful that men can't drag their eyes off of her, but somehow (because she seems so pure-hearted?) none of the wives of those men are resentful (as they usually would be, so the author annoyingly informs us-- because women are so petty that way, you know-- not like men, who are perfectly happy when other, more handsome, wealthy, or witty men attract the breathless attention of every woman in the vicinity).  No, women love Melanie, too.  She's just so, so, SO good, no-one can help but love her.  She's just that special!  BLEURGH.  

...Anyway, at some point you start to think that maybe Melanie is based on "Rebecca" from... Rebecca.  And if you think that, you're right.  She is (complete with the hideaway).  She's not pure.  Well, unless I interrupted before you could finish saying "pure evil".  She's wicked and rotten to the core, and poor Casper is tethered to a monster he can't escape, despite his love for Jemimah. (You're shocked, right?)  

Now, I still don't like the idea of "second-hand goods" in a romance of this kind.  Something in the nebulous and/or distant past?  Okay, fine, but please don't make the heroine meet, know, and even love the first wife/girlfriend.  I just don't want to read about that in a romance.  (It's depressing.  It's too close to real life.  It's not remotely "romantic", in my opinion.  I just don't LIKE it, okay?  I'm a horrible person who doesn't find romantic escapism in the thought of the heroine selflessly picking up the pieces after a man's wife has died under tragic circumstances.  Shame on me, I guess.  Whatever. It's not romance-novel-y enough for me.)

...But.  When the first wife is a "bitch-goddess" (hey, just quoting the book), I don't mind it quite as much.  Still not thrilled with the situation, but at least it's not a case of, "Oh, his first wife was a beautiful saint on Earth; how can he ever stoop to marry humble little me after having loved someone like her?  But if he doesn't mind me too much,  I'll happily devote my whole life to making him comfortable!  Even the stale, musty crumbs of his love would be a veritable feast!"  !!YUCK!!  

At this point, I was just interested to see how the author would do away with Melanie so that Casper could be free to marry Jemimah.  It helped that Casper had finally started talking to Jemimah in complete sentences, so you could at least begin to form him as a character in your mind.  (Speaking of settling for crumbs!  "Thank you, kind author, for sparing the time to give us lowly readers a snippet of conversation between the apparent hero and heroine!  You are too, too good to us, O Genius of the Pen!") 

However, the author had something else in mind.  Jemimah won't end up with the attractive spy (who is also a brainy archaeologist!).  Oh, no.  Instead, she realizes she's in love with her rather goofy friend, the Punch and Judy man (who's actually a very wealthy member of the nobility who has already had more adventures than you can shake a stick at).  

~exasperated sigh~  

I mean, Lord Henry is okay, and under other circumstances I wouldn't have a problem with him as a romantic lead.  But when we first meet him, he's already happily shacking up with someone else!  In fact, his gypsy girlfriend is also a good friend of Jemimah's, until she's whisked out of the tale.  I was expecting her to return to the book, eventually.  I expected/wanted her to end up with Lord Henry.  

To make things worse, the author kills off poor Casper!  (You see it coming from a mile away, but it's still sad and infuriating when it actually happens.)  And then, just pages later-- though I believe months have passed, in the story-- Henry proposes to Jemimah, and we're supposed to get all misty-eyed about it.  I was just frustrated.  I didn't care what happened, at that point.  Might as well have just stopped reading, really.  Yeah, sure, just go off and have fun floating down the Mississippi, I guess, but it's not a happily ever after I can get all that excited about!  

I don't know... I didn't love the idea of Casper, but then just when I was coming around to it, MB snatched him away and gave us this other, even less attractive option, after I'd already decided he was merely Friend Material.  (And at least Casper never called Jemimah "Mim", which always makes me think of "Mad Madam Mim" from The Sword in the Stone!)

I guess I like my romances to be even more predictable than this one was!  I need to know which way to look and what to expect.  Give me time to form an attachment to the characters as a couple.  Dialogue and other interactions between the characters do wonders, but in this case, the interaction between Henry and Jemimah was just friendly talk.  It didn't make me want to see them together as a couple.  And apparently I really dislike this trope of "partner-swapping" in romances.  

Also, "Stormswift" is a poor name for this novel.  I get why MB chose it; it sounds very romantic and atmospheric and cool, but it/she really isn't important enough in the story to deserve to be the title, in my view.  It's a choice that prioritizes style over substance.

A Town Like Alice

A Town Like Alice

by Nevil Shute

Blurb:

Nevil Shute's most beloved novel, a tale of love and war, follows its enterprising heroine from the Malayan jungle during World War II to the rugged Australian outback.

Jean Paget, a young Englishwoman living in Malaya, is captured by the invading Japanese and forced on a brutal seven-month death march with dozens of other women and children. A few years after the war, Jean is back in England, the nightmare behind her. However, an unexpected inheritance inspires her to return to Malaya to give something back to the villagers who saved her life. Jean's travels leads her to a desolate Australian outpost called Willstown, where she finds a challenge that will draw on all the resourcefulness and spirit that carried her through her war-time ordeals. 

My Reaction:

I went into this book knowing little about it.  I knew it was famous and thought it had something to do about digging a well in Australia, with maybe some romance thrown in.  It turned out to be quite a ride, and on the whole, I enjoyed it-- but with a few caveats.  

Positives:

-- The main characters are all admirable, though toward the end I did find Jean almost annoyingly perfect.

-- The part of the book dealing with Jean's wartime experiences were gripping.  (However, at a certain point the repetition of the march became tedious, and I was ready for something different!)

-- The romance was sweet for a very brief while.  And then... Well, see the "Not Positives" list below. 

-- I actually found the story of the building of "a town like Alice" rather interesting, for a time.  I'm not sure it would be quite as easy as the book seems to suggest, but... Still interesting.  I like reading about people doing things, accomplishing things, building things.  

-- I enjoyed learning a little about the Australian outback, during this time period. 

Not Positives:

-- The format... It does lend the tale a sense of authenticity, but at the same time, it loses immediacy when one character's direct experience is filtered through another person's mind and voice.  Particularly as regards the romantic aspects of the book, this format was an odd choice. Did the author do this because he was better at writing in a more dry, factual tone than with the emotion that you might expect to find if it all came directly from Jean's perspective?  (Not that she seems very emotionally expressive, if it comes to that!)  

I don't know... I just didn't love Noel's contribution to the tale, if I'm honest.  It didn't appeal to me, at all, and I found it very odd and uncomfortable that he was writing about Jean's first romantic encounter with Joe.  What are we supposed to think?  Surely she didn't tell him all about that in such personal detail, so where did he get his information?  What are we meant to think?  Is he supposed to have just fantasized about it?  Gross!

-- I think it's probably a reflection of the times, with no ill will intended, but once Jean is in Australia, some of the references to the Aborigines are awkward, from a modern perspective.  

One instance that stands out in my mind is her reaction to a "sensitive, intelligent" white man who was married to a young Aboriginal woman who was "inarticulate" (which I took to mean that she stayed mostly silent in public) and always brought along a kitten or puppy on their visits to "town".  Does it not occur to Jean that this woman might behave differently in the privacy of her home?  Maybe she isn't comfortable speaking in this place where she may feel under the microscope.  And why bring up the pets at all?  Is it meant to indicate that she's very young/immature-- or that she's somehow mentally deficient or inferior, because she needs what we might today call an emotional support animal?  It left a bad taste in my mouth, honestly.  This woman hasn't done anything wrong, and Jean seems to be pitying the poor "sensitive, intelligent" man for having been driven by desperation to marry what Jean deems his inferior.  It's unpleasant.  

-- The bruises incident.  Yuck.  I don't get it.  Joe seems like a very nice man who wouldn't leave bruises on a woman.  And Jean, she's perfectly healthy, in her prime; she shouldn't bruise so easily.  How in the heck did she end up with so many bruises after a passionate make-out session?  What was Joe doing?  I don't believe that kind of bruising from a little "romance" is normal.  Even more disgusting is Jean's repeated flirtatious references to her bruises.  It reminded me of some stupid teenager bragging about a hickey and showing it off to her friends.  Gross, gross, gross!

-- The level of detail might lend a feeling of realism, but it can be overdone, and I think it was, in this case.  I don't actually need this much (boring, inconsequential) detail.  It made the book longer than it needed to be.  

Well, as I said, on the whole, I liked the book.  It won't be one I'll want to read again, most likely, but I might try to see a TV/movie adaptation, sometime.