The Wife and the Widow

The Wife and the Widow

by Christian White

Blurb:

Set against the backdrop of an eerie island town in the dead of winter, The Wife and The Widow is an unsettling thriller told from two perspectives: Kate, a widow whose grief is compounded by what she learns about her dead husband’s secret life; and Abby, an island local whose world is turned upside when she’s forced to confront the evidence of her husband’s guilt. But nothing on this island is quite as it seems, and only when these women come together can they discover the whole story about the men in their lives. Brilliant and beguiling, The Wife and The Widow takes you to a cliff edge and asks the question: how well do we really know the people we love?

My Reaction:

I chose this novel after reading that it had an amazing, unusual twist.  Well, who doesn't love a good twist?!  (...pointedly ignoring people who claim not to love twists...)

To give credit where it's due, there is a surprising twist.  Unlike the person who recommended this book, I don't know that I'd go so far as to say that I've never seen that type of twist before, but it was still unexpected.  

The problem is that I didn't enjoy most of the book.  It was difficult to care much about most of these bland characters, and while I understood their motivations, I found those motivations irritating and unsympathetic, and the whole thing left me cold.  Slightly annoyed, mostly cold.  


SPOILER-Filled Tidbits:

--  The scene between the two teens in the old ferry terminal... Sorry, not what I want to read.  Not by a long shot.

--  John is an idiot.  Why go back and speak to Abby and Eddie about his decision to come forward?  He says he's already decided what he's going to do, with or without them.  He had to know that there was some risk involved.  Abby practically threatened him, even back when he was a teenager.  Did he really think it was a good idea to tell her his intentions and then meet the two of them (as he thought he was doing) in an isolated spot?  What real difference would it have made, talking to them first?  If he'd made up his mind to go to the police, he should've just done it!  But you know what?  Who cares?!  Does any reader honestly care that John was killed?   

--  Never heard of a "she-oak" before this.  Sounds kind of funny, like a folksy way of saying a female oak, if some oaks were male and others female (which apparently they aren't).  "Observe the maternal instinct at work as this she-oak provides a sheltering canopy to protect her precious saplings..."

--  Abby and Ray's discussion just prior to his "confession"... First, she tells him why she can't believe he killed someone, and her reasons include such gems as "because I once saw you weep without shame during an airline ad" and "I've seen you add lavender oil to your bathwater".  Oh, and the dude has been known to laugh insanely at Funniest Home Videos.  (Well, he's human, isn't he?!)  So someone who enjoys the scent of lavender can't possibly be a killer, I guess.  (Again, doesn't almost everyone like lavender?)  To tell the truth, if I see someone weeping without shame during an airline ad, that might be enough to make me doubt their emotional stability!  I'm not saying it's a red flag for murdering tendencies, but it certainly would raise an eyebrow.  

--  During the same conversation as above, Ray admits that he's been worrying that he's unable to provide enough for his family, feels that he's barely keeping his head above water, and sometimes fantasizes about escaping to a different life.  Relatable enough.  Abby asks why he hasn't ever talked to her about those feelings, and he replies, "Come on, Abby, I'm not one of your girlfriends. ... Men aren't like that."  UGH.  (eyeroll, etc., etc.)  Good grief.  I'm really struggling to reconcile Manly-Man Ray who can't talk to his own wife and Touchy-Feeling Ray who enjoys a lavender bath and weeps at sappy commercials.  

--  I'm not a parent, and some people insist that anyone who isn't a parent is incapable of using imagination or the powers of observation to get even the faintest grasp of what it is to be a parent, but working with just the feeble understanding I do possess (another eyeroll for you, here), I can't agree with Ray and Abby's decision to protect their creepy son Eddie from the repercussions of his actions.  Eddie was young.  He was scared.  There was a witness (John) who would have testified to the fact that that man had come in and basically threatened them.  The victim wasn't entirely innocent, and as a minor, Eddie could have been okay.  It's not as though he went on to live a rich, fulfilling life with the knowledge of his guilt hanging over his head, anyway.  Imagine knowing that your parent took the fall for you, at the cost of decades of freedom... It would be crushing.  How could you live with that guilt, even aside from the guilt of the crime you committed?

(Interesting that both this book and the one I last read involved an adult character taking the fall for a crime committed by a younger relative...)  

The Turn of the Key

The Turn of the Key

by Ruth Ware

(Edited) Blurb:

When Rowan Caine applies for a dream position as a nanny, it seems too good to be true.  She's smitten with Heatherbrae House-- by the luxurious “smart” home fitted out with all modern conveniences, by the beautiful Scottish Highlands, and by this picture-perfect family.

What she doesn’t know is that she’s stepping into a nightmare-- one that will end with a child dead and herself in prison awaiting trial for murder.  How can she explain the eerie, sinister events that led to this tragedy when she doesn't understand them herself?  She has only herself to rely on as she attempts to untangle the mystery and prove that she is innocent of a terrible crime.

My Reaction:

This novel gets a split ranking from me.  Despite some nitpicks, I'd give the bulk of the book a solid 3.5 or 4 stars for enjoyment value.  The ending, unfortunately, is disappointingly vague and abrupt.  I guess an overall rating of 3 seems fair, but if you can't stand ambiguous endings, give this a pass! 

(Based on some information the author shared with fans after her book's publication, using the process of elimination, you can probably make a decent guess about the main character's fate, but I still found it a dissatisfying conclusion to read.)


Nitpicks (with many, many SPOILERS):
-- I couldn't believe the length of the section of Rowan figuring out how to operate the shower.  Her difficulties with the control panels in general are a little dull and repetitious, and her embarrassment over speaking instructions to "Happy" is slightly absurd.  Was Alexa really that new-fangled in 2017? ...Okay, I looked it up, and Alexa's general release was in mid-2015.  Yes, maybe it feels a little strange to speak to a computer the first few times, but I still think it's overplayed in this novel.  It's not that embarrassing to do, especially when there's no-one else around.  

--  Another example of the above: "Was I going insane, talking aloud to a household appliance?"  Yes, Rowan, your marbles are well and truly lost.  Hey, I talk to appliances and other inanimate objects all the time, and they aren't even "smart".  I'm a little quirky, but definitely not insane.  (I am, however, irritated by the boring trope of "Oh, gosh, you must be mad, talking to yourself!")

-- There's a silly scene where Rowan removes her blouse to clean off some oatmeal, and the handyman accidentally walks in on her and sees her topless.  As in completely topless.  But... Would any woman really attend an interview for a nannying position wearing a thin silk blouse and no bra?!  It's just a weird fashion choice.  It was totally unnecessary, too, because surely it would be embarrassing to have a stranger unexpectedly see you in just your bra.  Wouldn't that be enough?  

-- At some point, I forgot that all of this is supposed to be a letter Rowan is writing from prison to a lawyer she hopes to convince to represent her in her murder trial.  When she next addressed him by name, it was jarring.  I'm familiar with this type of framing device-- and a certain amount of this type of thing is only to be expected-- but it is rather awkward and ridiculous when a character somehow remembers entire conversations from weeks/months ago and includes tedious, irrelevant events in detail.  This doesn't feel like a letter.  (The long account of her attempt to have a shower becomes even more bizarre when you consider that she wrote all of that to the lawyer!)

-- It requires a powerful suspension of disbelief to accept that Sandra, the doting and tech-savvy mother, would not Google her prospective nanny and scope out her social media.  I guess she just trusted the background check and references, but it's odd.  Teenaged Rhiannon managed to suss out the truth easily enough, and it doesn't seem like it was that difficult to realize that something didn't add up.  Rowan/Rachel's take on the situation?  "But truthfully, it had never occurred to me that anyone would join the dots so assiduously."  Hm.  

-- Ugh, the sex scene as written by Rowan/Rachel to the lawyer... So, so embarrassing!  "--I can't write this to you.  I can't write this but I can't stop remembering it.  I don't know how to stop."  Ow, the cringing!  Just write, "One thing led to another, and yada yada yada, I got up and left after he fell asleep."  

--  I have to admit, I never saw the major twists coming.  Definitely didn't guess that Bill was Rowan/Rachel's father, and it never crossed my mind that she was lying about her identity, either.  I assumed that Maddie fell off the roof while on her way to the window to the attic, so I didn't get that quite right, either.  

--  Call me callous, but it didn't make sense for Rowan/Rachel to keep Ellie's secret.  Ellie is a child.  She wouldn't be punished, as such.  Instead, she'd get some much-needed help and therapy.  Her life wouldn't be ruined any more than it already will be.  She knows what she did-- there's no escaping that-- and when she's old enough, she'll realize that it was also her fault that Rowan/Rachel went to prison and could have been convicted of a crime she didn't commit.  

--  Would it really be possible for Ellie's letter to reach Rowan/Rachel sealed and unread?  Don't they screen prisoners' mail?  Argh!  If that's the case, this ending makes no sense!  (And that's basically how I feel about the ending, in a nutshell.  It makes no sense.  Oh well!)

One by One

One by One
by Ruth Ware

Blurb:

Getting snowed in at a beautiful, rustic mountain chalet doesn’t sound like the worst problem in the world, especially when there’s a breathtaking vista, a cozy fire, and company to keep you warm. But what happens when that company is eight of your coworkers…and you can’t trust any of them?

When an off-site company retreat meant to promote mindfulness and collaboration goes utterly wrong when an avalanche hits, the corporate food chain becomes irrelevant and survival trumps togetherness. Come Monday morning, how many members short will the team be?

My Reaction:

Three stars out of five, from me.    

The title and something I read promoting this novel made me think it would be more along the lines of Christie's And Then There Were None, but it's not as compelling, dark, and terrifying as that.  Unlike some people, I didn't feel immediately certain of the murderer's identity, so that's a positive-- but unfortunately it was a little of a disappointment when it was revealed.  Not how I was hoping it would go.

On the whole, it was okay.  I didn't like most of the characters, and not just the ones you're supposed to hold in disdain.  I didn't particularly care for most of the ones that you are meant to like, so... ~shrug~  Meh.  

I could've done without a few political/"woke" references toward the end.  We were doing so well for most of the book, but then at the end, I guess the author just couldn't help herself.  It wasn't necessary.  Didn't add anything to the story.  Another disappointment.  

This last bit's a spoiler, so consider yourself warned...
S
P
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I didn't like the way that we're obviously supposed to applaud Erin's excessive sensitivity when it comes to the dead characters, when to me she's just being ridiculous.  She's in a life-or-death situation where accessing a phone is of the utmost importance, and yet she makes a huge deal about how awful she feels about using (the dead) Elliot's thumb in order to unlock his phone.  ...When he was alive, Elliot seemed pretty practical.  I really don't think he'd mind Erin touching his hand after his death.  It's not as though she were defiling his body!  

(Strange, though, how she had to work so hard to get the thumbprint to work, but Liz seems to have no such difficulty.  Speaking of Liz, the fact that she doesn't think twice about using Elliot's thumb is clearly supposed to be a meaningful moment of contrast between psychopath Liz and caring healer Erin.  Ugh.)

There's a similar moment later in the book, when Erin has to quickly and quietly cobble together a skiing outfit from whatever's available in the locker room.  She looks down and realizes she's wearing clothes belonging to another dead character.  "The thought that I'm literally stepping into a dead girl's clothes makes my stomach lurch with guilt."  Oh, good grief!  You're borrowing her clothes in a desperate attempt to save your life.  I'm sure she'd have told you to take them with her blessing.  It's not as though you're idly searching through her suitcase and stealing whatever clothes take your fancy.  Such a stupid thing to waste time thinking about.  (And such a stupid thing to include in the novel.)  

There are other quibbles (how many sleeping pills does it really take to kill someone, for instance, how did Liz know which jacket Eva would wearing, considering that she's wealthy enough that she might have more than one, and so on)... But that's enough. 



END
SPOILERS

It was entertaining in parts, and a nice enough way to pass some time, if you enjoy the genre.  

The Quilters Push Back

The Quilters Push Back
(Miranda Hathaway Adventures #7)

by Mary Devlin Lynch, Debbie Devlin Zook, and Beth Devlin-Keune

Blurb:

Not even Cutler Pennsylvania is immune from the serious drug epidemic spreading across the nation. When local kids started dying, Cutler Quilt Guild Number One jumped into action. Using every skill they have from sewing to surveillance, they are determined to find the drug dealers and push them out. It might be time for Harriet to dust off her taser!

My Reaction:

(This was another 372-Pages podcast/book club selection.  Shared read-aloud with Donald!)

I was excited that the podcast hosts chose a quilting-themed series for their first "cozy mystery", because, well, I'm a quilter!  Actually, I still feel a little strange calling myself a quilter, but I have a closet full of fabric, I own a mid-arm quilting machine, and I guess I've been doing it long enough now that it's not a lie, even though it still feels weird, like some craft-world version of "stolen valor"! I'm fine saying "I quilt", but calling myself "a quilter" seems more formal-- and contestable.  "You can't really call yourself a quilter until you've completed 50 quilts, mastered the scant quarter-inch seam, and publicly chastized someone for calling a quilt a 'blanket'!"

I've read a few cozy mysteries in the past, before getting bored because I didn't really enjoy them.  Those were about crochet and other niche interests; this was my first time reading a quilting-themed novel.  To call it "quilt-themed" is quite a stretch, to be honest.  There is very little quilting in the story.  (Spoiler alert!  We went back and read the first book and half of the series, too, while we waited between podcast episodes, and those also had precious little quilting or quilting talk in them-- but at least there was more of an effort, in the first one.) 

I realize that even quilters might not enjoy reading a book with too much actual quilting as the focus of the story, but there was so little quilting here that it felt pointless to make it part of a quiltilng series.  The group could easily have been focused on nearly any other hobby.  All you'd have to do would be to change the name of the group (or guild, in this instance) and have them make something other than pillows for their fundraiser-- jewelry, crochet potholders, knitted hats, baked goods, jam, BBQ ribs, etc.   (Come to think of it, those pillows were more about embroidery than quilting, anyway!  And they did an almost identical fundraiser in the first book of the series!!)  

Anyway... This wasn't particularly well-written (for a variety of reasons), but it was unintentionally hilarious at times.  Donald loved all the times that "everyone" in a group simultaneously performed various actions (laughing, smiling, cheering, nodding-- lots of nodding).  Oh, and this: "Gabe snapped pictures as quietly as he could with the window rolled down."  The mental image of someone trying to take photos "quietly"!  Photography isn't typically all that noisy-- especially these days, with digital cameras and phone cameras-- and there's not much you can do to make it even quieter.  Then there's the way "bad girls" are described (their hair, clothes, and make-up), the utter lack of undertstanding of how the legal system works, and a general air of naiveté.  

This hasn't inspired me to seek out more cozy mysteries.  Maybe there are some genuinely good, interesting, well-written series out there, but I'm not in any hurry to start searching for them, right now.

Incarnate

Incarnate

by Ramsey Campbell

Blurb:

Five people are brought from London to participate in a controlled experiment studying prophetic dreaming. But the results are so ominous that the program is cut short.

Now a monstrous presence is in the subjects' lives, a creature created by their group dream eleven years ago, drawing them inexorably into its awful vortex.

My Reaction:

I'm disappointed!  This could have been so much better.  The basic idea of the book has potential, but it's far too long, lacks focus, and fails to deliver. 

So much of the book crawls at a snail's pace, and much of it is inconsequential or repetitious.  There's a powerful sensation of waiting for something, anything to happen.  Everything feels nebulous in this novel, soft-focus and hazy.  I thought that perhaps this was intentional and specific to this novel, given that it is about dreams.  Perhaps the author was trying to evoke a dreamlike atmosphere, because there are definitely times when he makes the reader question what is and isn't actually happening.  However, I've since read a review or two that indicates that this is simply the author's typical writing style.  (Apparently he's a master of the short story, but I'm not sure I've ever read anything of his before this.  I'd look for a short story before I'd venture to try another of his novels.)

I kept hoping that things would come together, but when the book draws to a close, it's more of a headscratcher than a satisfying conclusion.  I want things spelled out in a bit more detail than that.  A little too facile, and a little less impressive than I'd hoped.  Very disappointing!  



SPOILERS FOLLOW!

So much of the book was frustrating to read!  I can only take so much of hating Eve (and Helen/Nell, to be honest).  I grew weary of watching the blob-thing tormenting poor Geoffrey.  (Incidentally, the man must've been a saint to put up with the infuriating Joyce for so many years!)  And don't even get me started on Danny Swain.  (Yuck!)  In the end, it felt like a whole lot of frustration for nothing, because the ending was so unrewarding.  Blah.  

I'm also annoyed that two of the characters I actually liked (Susan and Geoffrey) died/were lost in the dream.  One more layer of disappointment!

At least it's done.  I can't wait to read something different, after that long slog!