The Talisman

The Talisman

by Jonathan Aycliffe

Blurb:

A statue, unearthed in ancient Babylon during the course of an archaeological dig, is transported to London. Once there, it quickly exerts an evil influence over those with whom it comes into contact; an influence which threatens to spread throughout London and beyond, and which pits the living against the dead in a battle for all mankind.

My Reaction:

This was a three-star read for me.  I've enjoyed some of this author's horror in the past, but it doesn't always land.  This one was right in the middle—effective in spots, but not quite there.  

There are elements of classic horror here, such as Rosemary's Baby, which is a good thing (in my opinion, at least), but ultimately it's just too flat and meandering.  It's like a less interesting and less compelling version of those old classics.  For much of the story, we're getting the second- or third-hand version of events, and while epistolatory writing can be very effective for spooky or creepy tales, somehow it just doesn't work as well here, for me.  

Perhaps part of the problem is that an element of horror will be introduced, but then it just doesn't ever quite "climax".  It's just... lingering there.  In the background.  Which is becoming progressively more cluttered with "horror stuff".  The story is being pulled in too many different directions, and it doesn't know where it wants to go!  

I also found that this book lacked the proper sense of urgency, especially toward the end.  Something dramatic will happen—something shocking will be hinted at or even discovered—and then in the next scene, the characters act like they've forgotten all about it or can't be bothered to get a hustle on and do something about any of it.  The fate of the world is hanging in the balance (not to mention their own loved ones, friends, and allies), and they decide to have a leisurely (boring) conversation.  Frustrating and unrealistic behavior.  

It wasn't all bad, though, and I actually thought the epilogue was okay.  

(I listened to an audio version of this book, by the way.  Entertainment while piecing a quilt!)

Daisy Darker

Daisy Darker

by Alice Feeney

(Edited) Blurb:

After years of avoiding each other, Daisy Darker’s entire family is assembling for Nana’s 80th birthday party in Nana’s crumbling gothic house on a tiny tidal island. Finally back together one last time, when the tide comes in, they will be cut off from the rest of the world for eight hours.  

Trapped on an island where someone is killing them one by one, the Darkers must reckon with their present mystery as well as their past secrets, before the tide comes in and all is revealed.

My Reaction:

I listened to the audiobook version of this novel while quilting, and found it entertaining... Until I didn't.  

—I loved the setting and the quirky details of the house.  Islands cut off by the tide are always a favorite!

—I loved the fact that it was obviously inspired by And Then There Were None.  

—I was intrigued by the mystery, and unlike some, I didn't mind alternating between the "then" and "now" timelines.  (Though to be honest, I've seen so much of that lately!  Maybe it's time for authors of thrillers to try something different, if only to set themselves apart from the rest.)

So yes, I was enjoying it, to begin with, but gradually a few things diminished that enjoyment.  

First:  
These characters!  Almost everyone is awful.  I know, I know!  You need conflict, and awful characters provide that.  The quality of a book isn't dependent on the likeability of the characters, etc., etc.  Yes, but the fact remains that if too many of your characters are just horrid, reading the book becomes an unpleasant experience.  And yes, I did say that I was happy that it was inspired by And Then There Were None, which is also full of awful characters... Look, I don't know what to say, except that while listening to this, I eventually had had enough of ALL of these people!

Second: 

The writing style was quaint and entertaining, in the beginning, but at some point I started to feel slightly annoyed by the "clever sayings" and "deep thoughts" generously sprinkled throughout the novel, both in dialogue and interior monologue.  Some of them are interesting or thought-provoking, but after a while they felt repetitive and irritating.

Third:

Predictable twists that kind of annoyed me.  I saw some of the twists coming, and I didn't love them.  The main twist in particular is just... Eh.  Maybe it didn't help that there was a similar(ish) twist in the last audiobook I listened to.  Maybe I didn't like it simply because it's so sad. 

Fourth:

Some of the motivations didn't make much sense to me.  To be fair, people's motivations in real life don't always make sense, either, so maybe it's not exactly unrealistic!  Still, it dragged down the end of the story, for me.  I spent too much time thinking, "Really?  Well, okay then!"

However—over all, yes, I liked it.  Despite my misgivings about certain aspects of this one, I think I'll round it up to four stars.  

A few SPOILERY final thoughts:

S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S

I do have a question, though, about what happened to all those bodies at the end of the book!  What's going to happen when someone starts looking for one of these people?  Some of them were employed and would have people expecting them back at work within a few days!

END

OF

SPOILERS

The House Across the Lake

The House Across the Lake

by Riley Sager

narrated by Bernadette Dunne

Blurb:

Casey Fletcher, a recently widowed actress trying to escape a streak of bad press, has retreated to the peace and quiet of her family’s lake house in Vermont. Armed with a pair of binoculars and several bottles of liquor, she passes the time watching Tom and Katherine Royce, the glamorous couple who live in the house across the lake. They make for good viewing—a tech innovator, Tom is rich; and a former model, Katherine is gorgeous.

One day on the lake, Casey saves Katherine from drowning, and the two strike up a budding friendship. But the more they get to know each other—and the longer Casey watches—it becomes clear that Katherine and Tom’s marriage is not as perfect and placid as it appears. When Katherine suddenly vanishes, Casey becomes consumed with finding out what happened to her. In the process, she uncovers eerie, darker truths that turn a tale of voyeurism and suspicion into a story of guilt, obsession and how looks can be very deceiving.

My Reaction:

I listened to this audiobook while doing some patchwork quilting.  This was perfect for that—interesting to listen to, but not too complicated to follow while cutting, sewing, and pressing.  

I suspect that the format (audiobook vs. text version) may affect how I rate a book.  It takes less of a commitment in time and effort to simply listen to a book while I'm doing something else, so I might tend to rate an audiobook less harshly.  Also, I'm swept along with the flow of the story and am less likely to stop, think, and poke holes in the plot.  Or become annoyed by something.  And even if I am annoyed, it's not easy to highlight that section and to remember for my review.  

Anyway!  I did enjoy the book, mostly.  I wasn't thrilled when it turned out that the main character is an actress (just... meh), but later on I suppose it turned out to be important to the plot... In any case, I was mildly amused by the fact that the main character and her mother were clearly inspired by Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, even more so because the narrator sounded a lot like Carrie Fisher.  

However, that posed a bit of a problem, as well, because the narrator, while very talented at narration and probably a big part of why I enjoyed the book, sounds much older than the character is supposed to be.  Even after learning that the character is in her 30s, it's hard to picture a woman that age when you're hearing her thoughts and words in the voice of an obviously older woman.  Just not a good fit in that way, unfortunately.  (After searching other reviews, I see that I wasn't the only one to make this observation.  Not just me—though, is it ever?)

As for the plot... I don't think there's much I can say without getting into spoiler territory.  It starts off as you'd expect, especially if you've read the blurb.  It's very Rear Window-ish, which is never a bad thing, as far as I'm concerned.  I see a lot of reviewers didn't like the main character's excessive drinking/alcoholism, and I agree.  It's been used too often in too many popular books over the past several years, and it wasn't particularly fun to read, even on the first time around.  However, I don't mind travelling over familiar ground in terms of the "spying on your neighbors and deciding there's a crime in the offing" trope.  That's pretty much what I expected and signed up for, with this book.  

What I didn't expect was a very odd twist that came in the final quarter (or so?) of the book.  Again, I can't tell you much without spoiling the whole book, so I guess I'll just say that it's extremely unexpected and strange, and it comes completely out of the blue.  To be honest, I didn't like that twist.  It's just too weird for me.  I would've preferred something else, but oh well!  

This is the kind of thing that would prevent me from recommending the book to many people, because it just feels too outlandish and out of place in a book of this kind (or a book of the kind that I mistakenly thought this was).  Some people will love it, but others will find it incredibly annoying and stupid.  I think it was pretty stupid, to tell the truth, but I just kept listening, and by the end... Eh, it's fine.  Because it still gave me something to think about while I worked on my quilt, so it did its job.  And a month from now, I'll have forgotten all about it!

Feathers in the Fire

Feathers in the Fire

by Catherine Cookson

Blurb:

Every once in a while, circumstance traps a group of people in a pattern of tragedy and violence from which they struggle vainly to fight free. Thus it was with the Master of Cock Shield Farm, Angus McBain, a man too easily tempted to sin, and those in and around his household.

My Reaction:

This was my first time reading anything by Catherine Cookson.  She clearly knew how to write a gripping historical tale.  I wouldn't say it's "literary quality", but it's perfectly good entertainment and has more depth than you might expect.  Though I didn't love the story, personally, I can't deny that it's extremely readable, with plenty of character development.  (Also a fair bit of scandal, if that's your thing!)  These aren't two-dimensional characters, and they are interesting to read about, but the drama and unending bad fortune became frustrating to read, especially when it felt avoidable with an ounce of common sense and a decisive action or two.

I wouldn't label this as primarily a romance, incidentally.  Though there are elements of romance, that's not how I'd describe it.  It's more of a drama and character study than a typical romance.  If you come looking for a straightforward romance, I'm afraid you may find it a slog!

I'd consider reading another of this author's novels, but not immediately.  I need a chance to recover from (or possibly forget) my issues with this one!

(The version I've linked here in my blog has a different title.  The alternate title, Her Secret Son, and description are a bit odd, in fact.  I'm not sure what they were thinking when they came up with this.  There is no "secret son" in this novel!  But at least it's available.  Some of this author's books apparently have been difficult to access after going out of print.)

Last Days

Last Days

by Adam Nevill

Blurb:

When guerrilla documentary maker, Kyle Freeman, is asked to shoot a film on the notorious cult known as the Temple of the Last Days, it appears his prayers have been answered. The cult became a worldwide phenomenon in 1975 when there was a massacre including the death of its infamous leader, Sister Katherine. Kyle's brief is to explore the paranormal myths surrounding an organization that became a testament to paranoia, murderous rage, and occult rituals. The shoot's locations take him to the cult's first temple in London, an abandoned farm in France, and a derelict copper mine in the Arizonan desert where The Temple of the Last Days met its bloody end. But when he interviews those involved in the case, those who haven't broken silence in decades, a series of uncanny events plague the shoots. Troubling out-of-body experiences, nocturnal visitations, the sudden demise of their interviewees and the discovery of ghastly artifacts in their room make Kyle question what exactly it is the cult managed to awaken – and what is its interest in him?

My Reaction:

I listened to the audiobook version of this novel while piecing quilts.  At the start, it made a nice alternative to talk radio and podcasts, but at some point my interest began to wane... 

Early in the book, the story was pleasantly creepy, and I was interested in seeing where it was going.  (I even had a little theory, early on, about how the story would develop, which I'll return to in a moment.)  

Unfortunately, aspects of the novel began to feel repetitive, and after Kyle returns from the USA, it felt like it landed in a quagmire and just sort of stalled out.  Then we get the loooooong info-dump / exposition / history lesson with one character, followed by another history lesson from a different character...  This type of writing just doesn't hold my interest.  It starts to feel bloated and in need of the editor's pen.  

A few nitpicks:

—I didn't like the way the American characters' dialect was written.  Maybe it was worse to listen to than it would've been to read on the page, because of the nasal interpretation of the American accent.  However, the persistently poor grammar also annoyed me, as an American who doesn't use "ain't" in every other sentence.  It's especially jarring when the character with the over-the-top dialect refers to a flashlight as a "torch".  Somehow, I begin to wonder if the author has ever known or met an actual American person...  

—I felt like we never really get to understand Sister Katherine at all, beyond the summary of "evil cult-leader".  Maybe that's intentional, to maintain an air of mystery, but it felt disappointing.  

—This book does that annoying thing where a character who has encountered paranormal entities still can't bring himself to accept that another, different paranormal occurrence could be possible.  (Something like, "Yeah, okay, so vampires are real.  I acknowledge that.  But werewolves?!  C'mon, man!  Do I look crazy to you?")  That might be how people would tend to react in reality—simply unable to absorb any more blows to their concept of how the world works, in such a short space of time—but it always irritates me!

—It also does that other annoying thing where a totally new character is just dumped on you in the last quarter or less of the book, with no satisfactory explanation for why you're just hearing about him when another character has clearly been working with him for months, if not longer.  The new guy is an irritating, painfully clichéd character, too, which makes the whole situation even worse.  At this point in the book, we're just waiting to see how it all wraps up, though, so... whatever.

—If you dislike open endings, you might be disappointed here.  I'm choosing to just believe that it ended the way I want it to have ended, but I would have appreciated a little more indication of what happens next.  

As for my theory, it involves spoilers, so... 

SPOILER

WARNING

Ok, if you're still reading now, prepare to be spoiled!

I wondered if one of the children who survived (and then specifically the "Clean Child", once he was mentioned) would turn out to be Kyle.  I thought perhaps Max knew or had discovered Kyle's origin, while Kyle himself had no memory of this early trauma.  That would have explained why Max insisted on involving Kyle, because he was already involved in the cult's history—and was perhaps crucial to its future, in one way or another, either for its destruction or revival.  The documentary would've been just a ruse to get Kyle on-board to visit the locations and slowly remember or realize his connection to the case.  

Of course, as it turns out, none of that was true!  Instead, it's basically a more convoluted version of the move titled The Skeleton Key.  (I liked my idea better!)

END

OF

SPOILERS

On the whole, it was fine.  I didn't lose any sleep from the creep factor, but it was entertaining, apart from the times when too much exposition slowed the pace.  I was glad for it to be over when it was, though, which is a bit sad.  The beginning was much stronger than the end, and the supposedly scary stuff gets less and less frightening, the more it's described.  

This was my first experience with this author, incidentally, and I'm not sure whether to go back for more... What was good was good, but it didn't land quite right for me.