strange and random happenstance

Death at Morning House by Maureen Johnson
Published by: Harperteen
Publication Date: August 6th, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 384 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
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The Ralston family were the picture of American exceptionalism. Dr. Philip Ralston and his family summered on a private paradise renamed after the eminent physician in the Thousand Islands region of New York. Morning House was designed to foster good health and creativity for his six children, born within six months of each other, whom he adopted while working in England during the war. When he finally married a stage actress his young song Max increased his brood to seven. At Morning House the children lived in a playhouse worthy of the Brothers Grimm and followed a regimen of nutrition and exercise. But their perfect lives were shattered forever on July 27th, 1932. Four year old Max was found drowned in the waters of the St. Lawrence River. Later that night, overcome by grief, his eldest sibling, Clara, jumped off the roof of Morning House, ending her life at only sixteen. From that point on death stalked the family and Morning House was shuttered. Only one child, Benjamin, survived, returning just the once in 2002 to that ill-fated island. Marlowe Wexler is about to learn all about Morning House. At first, her summer seemed to be looking up. She got a job at the local ice cream parlor, Guffy's, with the girl of her dreams as her coworker and then everything went to hell because of petrichor. She was trying to impress Akilah and got a scented candle. There was a fire. The fallout wasn't good. She needed to put the town in her rear view mirror for the summer and her history teacher, Ms. Gibson, came to the rescue. A friend of hers is a professor of history at Syracuse and is working on a history of Morning House. Abandoned by the Ralstons in the 1930s and empty ever since it's about to be redeveloped and is open to tourists for the summer with a group of local teenagers that live and work there acting as guides and she's down one teen. Marlowe is one teen. But maybe she should have asked what happened to the teen she's replacing? The group at the house have known each other forever and have history. She's walked right into a fairy tale land that looks like it should be fictional and she has no idea what dynamics she's disrupting. Because she's there to replace a dead person. Sure, they say it was an accident, but could this house be cursed? Or is there something more at play? At least she has a clean slate if no one finds out about the fire... Or as long as there isn't another one...

I know some people complained when this book was announced because it is a standalone and not the sixth Truly Devious mystery. I would counter this complaint with the fact that this is the most Maureen Johnson book Maureen has ever Johnsoned. Mysteries in two time periods, check. Teen relationship angst, check. Cute LGBTQIA+ relationships, check. Snark and jokes aplenty, a thousand checks just for that dressing alone. What's more is that it's self-contained. While I love the Truly Devious series the fact that the first mystery doesn't resolve for three books came as a bit of a shock to me and then my wallet as I couldn't wait another six months to get to the head of the queue on OverDrive and had to buy the series. I just had to. So here, it's one and done. You get the mysteries solved, you get the love triangles worked out, and you aren't sitting here for over two years stewing about how David treated Stevie! I mean, how could he!?! Can they ever recover!?! Do I even want them to!?! But those are worries for another day, not today Satan! What really drew me into this book wasn't the teen angst, much like the Truly Devious series, it was the historical crime, and here, the Ralston family. Damn. They are a hot mess. And they're Nazis. So, hot messy Nazis. In this day and age it is more important than ever to stand up and say that Nazis are bad. Because, honestly, Nazis are all around us and it's terrifying. But saying nothing makes you complicit. And I will not be counted as one of those people who said nothing. And Maureen Johnson, oh, she has a conscience and a platform and she uses it for all she's worth. Really, if you do not follow her on her socials you are missing out. Yes, they are sometimes weird, but only in the best possible way, but more importantly, she is politically informed and helps out with valuable information about what is happening and even more pressing, what you can do about it. That's why I love Death at Morning House. A human connection to horror. Through a compelling story she shows why Nazis are evil. She shows how one person without a conscious and interest in eugenics can destroy an entire family. Of course, on person without a conscious and an interest in eugenics almost destroyed the world, but this shows it on a more human level. We connect with Clara and her siblings. We see their lives. We become a part of their lives and then their lives are snuffed out because of Nazis. Two of the siblings more literally because of a bomb during WWII. And the extra creepy eugenics twist? Well, I'll leave that for you to discover because this is a must read book. Though naming one of the kids Unity was chef's kiss brilliant. 

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Death at Morning House, Eugenics, Fire, LGBTQIA+, Marlowe Wexler, Maureen Johnson, Mitfords, Morning House, Murder, Murder Most Foul, Nazis, Petrichor, Socials, Suicide, The Ralstons, Truly Devious, Unity Mitford

Thornhill by Pam Smy
Published by: Roaring Brook Press
Publication Date: August 29th, 2017
Format: Hardcover, 544 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

Ella Clarke is unpacking her possessions and placing them about her new bedroom. She places her favorite books on her new bookshelf, Jane Eyre and Rebecca being among them. She carefully hangs a poster for Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black on the slopping wall. But it is the picture of her deceased mother that has pride of place. With her father always away for work she is truly alone and her attention is drawn to the abandoned building outside her window, The Thornhill Institute, which was built as an orphanage for girls in the 1830s. One April day, a month after moving in, Ella thinks she sees a young girl in the yard of this derelict home and she goes to investigate, working her way past the "keep out" signs and the barbed wire. There she finds a broken doll's head. She painstakingly repairs the doll and returns it to where she found it. As she makes to leave she finds another broken doll and takes it home to repair. Whomever this girl is who is leaving these broken dolls is also alone and looking for some kind of connection and has found a kindred spirit in Ella. The local paper is the first to offer a clue as to who this mysterious girl is. Mary Baines died tragically at Thornhill after it was sold for development in 1982, thirty-five years earlier. Work on the development has been suspended ever since. Ella becomes drawn into Mary’s world which becomes more real to her than her own. One day when she finds a key in the garden she is lead to Mary’s diary and learns all about the horrors that were inflicted on her; the bully constantly banging on her door, the indifferent care of Mrs. Davies, Jane, and Pete. The cook, Kathleen, who was her only friend. The Doctor, Creane, whom she thought was a friend. The dolls and puppets who were her only solace, as was her favorite book, The Secret Garden. Ella relates and wants to be friends with Mary. When they finally meet the house goes up in flames and Thornill claims another victim, but will she be the last?

Thornhill is an odd book alternating between the present and the past, with Ella's story being told through pictures and Mary's story being told through diary entries. The alternating narrative technique isn't what's odd, what's odd is that I'm unsure what Smy's point was in writing this book. She brings up so many different emotions throughout the narrative, hitting the empathy card heavily, and then destroys any sympathy, any moral, with a big sweeping conflagration. This is a book that could have been sweet and redemptive, but instead is dark and disturbing, and totally telegraphed. Because here's the thing, the bleak ending of Mary leading Ella to her death so that they can be friends forever is obvious from that first illustration of Ella in her bedroom. The heavy-handed foreshadowing was laughable. I mean, maybe you can trick the targeted teen audience because they might be unfamiliar with the staples of Gothic literature, but that's weak storytelling, hoping your audience is oblivious versus actually crafting something of value. So if I haven't completely spoiled the book for you by now and for some daft reason you still want to read it look away now because I'm laying all Smy's cards on the table. So what do Ella's two favorite books, Rebecca and Jane Eyre have in common? Could it be a big massive fire like the one that kills Ella and destroys Thornhill? If you said yes, you are correct! And what can we learn from The Woman in Black? We can learn that ghosts are evil remorseless killing machines that can not be satisfied. Therefore what can we learn about Mary? You may think she deserves your sympathy but you'd be wrong, because, SHE KILLS ELLA! AKA, Mary is a remorseless killing machine. This point is further driven home by the young boy, Jacob, who moves into Ella's old room and sees Mary and Ella in the garden. Mary wanted a family and just one friend isn't enough. She's an evil evil ghost and she will kill you. Jacob, watch your back! 

Smy has a very odd moralistic code in this book, I mean just look to Mary killing Ella to prove my point. Back in 1982 Mary is driven beyond endurance and kills herself because of a bully and yet the message seems to say that the bully deserved copious chances at forgiveness because they were in the same isolated boat? Um... no. Here's the thing, bullies don't deserve forgiveness. Ever. Because if you forgive them they'll just think they can get away with it again and again. It's an abusive cycle that is very rarely broken. So while I initially really felt for Mary I could never fully get behind her reasoning because I would never give a bully a second chance. As it turns out I'm glad I never fully connected to Mary because she was crazy and a manipulator in her own right. So maybe Smy's actually against forgiving bullies? Because if we can't trust Mary's thinking then we know we can't trust her reasoning and therefore we can't trust all the chances she gave that little torturing bitch. Because there needs to be a zero tolerance policy when it comes to bullies. They need to be reported, they need to be smacked down, they need to be stopped. When I was younger I was bullied, in particular by one classmate who loved to call me names as original as whale and blubber. Thankfully he transferred to another school after sixth grade so I didn't have to deal anymore with his verbal abuse. In high school he returned. But the bullying didn't, because I would not let him back into my world. My best friend at the time encouraged me to be nice to him because "he had changed." Well, if he had he would have started with an apology. He forever remains on my list of people who if bad things were to befall them I wouldn't be heartbroken. Yes. I have a list. You're probably thinking that this is a bleak way to look at things. That yes, people should be allowed to change, given the chance at forgiveness. But I have had too many instances when this has bitten me in the ass. Therefore I now only forgive people who have wronged me because I know it will really piss them off. Seriously, try it sometime.    

Moving on from bullies, because seriously, nothing annoys them more than their irrelevance, this book is a combination of narration styles so I would be remiss if I didn't move beyond the narrative and talk about the art. Talk about that cover which totally drew me in. That bleak, looming house in darkness with the one illuminated window. That cover has an amazing graphic quality that doesn't jive with any of the interior art. Smy's work feels out of touch with what is happening in art today. Not the concept of two different narrative styles, that's very one point, but just the look of her work. I really don't know how to get across this feeling that the art looks dated. OK, so when I was a kid I had this picture book about people and animals. I can't remember the name, but if you saw it you would easily place it as something from the seventies. The art was well done, but at the same time a jumble. Everything was on top of each other and the muted and limited color palette just didn't work. As a small child I kept thinking, this book's style is dated. And it wasn't that old a book! Smy's drawing style reminded me of that book. It felt too retro, too of my childhood, but not in a good and nostalgic way, in a way that made me think she was out of touch. Now you might be saying, "hang on a minute part of this book takes place in 1982 when you were only four!" First I'd say it's creepy that you know exactly how old I was in 1982, but I'd also point out four year old me thought the book this reminds me of was dated, so in doesn't bring to mind the time period, it brings to mind how much I didn't like that art, and anyhow, the illustrated section is the current timeline NOT the eighties timeline. Which indicates, that yes, I was a critic from a very early age, but more, I know what I like and I know what I don't like and just because someone might think this illustration style is classic, I just say dated. I've never followed the band, I don't believe a classic is a classic because everyone says so, I've never liked The Giving Tree, a detail I don't know why I feel I need to reveal here, but if you want to read a book the lets bullies win with meh art, go for it! You're forewarned.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: 80s, Bullies, Fire, Forgiveness, Going Gothic, Gothic, Graphic Novel, Illustration, Jane Eyre, Pam Smy, Rebecca, Susan Hill, The Giving Tree, The Secret Garden, The Woman in Black, Thornhill, Unreliable Narrator

After the Armistice Ball (Dandy Gilver Book 1) by Catriona McPherson
Published by: Robinson
Publication Date: 2006
Format: Kindle, 308 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

Dandy Gilver has never thought that she might be a detective. Yet that's exactly what her friend Daisy is begging of her. Their mutual "friend" Lena Duffy claims that her very expensive diamonds were stolen at Daisy's estate after Daisy's grand Armistice Ball. It has taken awhile for the "crime" to come to light because they were replaced with paste and it wasn't until a jeweller pointed this out to Lena's daughter Cara a few months later that the "crime" was discovered. Now Lena, whose husband is shockingly in trade, and insurance at that, is demanding that they pay for the diamonds, despite the fact that it can't be proven if the theft occurred when Lena says it did, and the more obvious fact that the insurance had lapsed on the jewels.

Daisy has invited the Duffy's back to her house and has begged Dandy to come along too. Daisy admires that Dandy is able to bluntly cut to the gist of a matter without overly offending anyone by just being herself. Daisy wants Dandy to wrinkle Lena out, find out what is really going on and why Lena is trying to extort them! After the house party, Dandy is still hot on the trail of the truth when she is invited to a small cabin by the sea that Lena and her two daughters have taken. Dandy is able to enlist the help of Cara's fiance after he receives an abrupt letter from Cara ending their engagement with the wedding only a few days away. When they arrive in the small hamlet, the delightful cottage has burned to the ground with Cara inside. They must all stay for the inquest, and in that time Dandy has time to mull things over. There is no way the death and the diamonds are not connected. Dandy's first full fledged case will take her where she never thought she'd go, and will risk more then just her own life.

When I was at my local bookstore one day I picked up a book by Catriona McPherson. The book was titled, Dandy Gilver and the Proper Treatment of Bloodstains. The title and the lovely cover designed by Jessica Hische made it a no-brainer buy. Of course, as is often my luck, whenever I find a great book at a store it invariably ends up being not the first or even the second in a series... in this case it is the fifth. I cannot read a book out of order, but, you know what, I think that this series my be an exception to my hard and fast rule. After the Armistice Ball has some issues right from the first chapter, mainly, you feel as if you've been dumped unceremoniously into the middle of a story with people who you should remember at an event you know you've been invited to, but you have no idea who they are or where it is. This lack of introductions and place meant that I could have easily picked up any book in the series and still had the feeling that I was missing something. The first book should neatly establish place and characters, with subsequent volumes doing only a short recap. A good editor could have quickly fixed this by just having Catriona write a nice intro paragraph or two setting up where the action of the book takes place, it's Scotland by the way, so as you won't be confused for a quarter of the book, and have Dandy fleshed out a little more then her friends just dropping veiled hints as to her personality. Something can't be "so Dandy" unless we know what she is so like! Luckily the readers ignorance wanes as the book progresses.

Dandy Gilver has got to be one of the most unique creations in twenties historical fiction today, that is once we get to know her properly. She doesn't fit into any well defined sleuth category and this makes her a breath of fresh air. She is not male. She is not a young single woman who has been disowned or at the very least frowned upon by her family as being "eccentric" and "beyond the pale." She isn't widowed and therefore at leisure to travel hither and yon without the gimlet eye of society fast upon her. Instead she is married, one could argue for, not happily, but at least contentedly, with a slightly oblivious spouse. She has no intentions of leaving her husband either, he just bumbles around talking about drainage ditches while she does as she pleases. She has children! Not fully grown, so that they put Dandy into the spinster category, she is still young enough to be of child bearing years, hear that? Young! Also handily the children are usually off at boarding school, which is a blessing, because children can get underfoot when one is sleuthing. So that means Dandy can move about society without impunity and she can closet herself away and solve crimes with male friends without eyebrows (or at least too many eyebrows) being raised. A respectable crime solver, how about that?

Yet Dandy is by no means perfect. While it takes awhile to get the gist as to why she would be the perfect crime solver, it basically comes down to the fact that she is overly blunt and has a tendency to stick her foot in her mouth by saying something that no one else would dare say. "Discussing loud and plain what everyone else is thinking about but dare not mention." But this habit of hers makes her come across as a little callow, though she is far from it, and therefore leads people to confide in her, the ideal trait for someone who wants to root around in your life to have. She may be a little dense, a little artless, sometimes easily confused or led astray, with it being hard for her to know where her facts end and her fancies begin. Yet all this together does make a good-ish detective. Like most of the best detectives, she tends to take awhile to get to the point and gets the wrong end of the stick, but this is what makes a book have a compelling narrative. You don't want it over and done with five pages in. Though there is one random trait of Dandy's that I just can't wrap my head around. She really puts down men. Now I'm not saying she's a man-hater (which her overly protective maid obviously is), but she does tend to put down the opposite sex quite a lot, and while Dandy might be befuddled by clues most of the time, this odd character trait has me a little befuddled.

As for the plot itself... once I came to gripes with what was going on, ie, Scotland, Dandy, the rest of the characters all fell into place. While the diamond theft and the murder are relatively simple plot devices, Catriona does a good job of layering the mysteries and doling out the clues so that the book clips along. Yet there was the nagging feeling I had, quite early on, about a third of the way through the book, that I was on the right track, unlike Dandy. It turned out that I was indeed right, but the little wrinkle thrown in helped to make the ending still satisfying. Though with all the tiring to and fro across the countryside, I really do realize that the lure of the Golden Age of Detection was the actually leg work, but this was a bit much, it was the small details that made this book have memorable moments, excluding the vagueness of the ending. The most striking of these moments is the photographs of the dead Cara. They way they are discussed and how they play into the plot make a book that would have just been average reach new heights.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: After the Armistice Ball, British Country House, Catriona McPherson, Dandy Gilver, Dandy Gilver and the Proper Treatment of Bloodstains, Fire, Golden Age of Detection, Golden Summer, Jewel Thief, Scotland

Fire by Kristen Cashore
Published by: Dial
Publication Date: October 5th, 2009
Format: Hardcover, 480 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"She is the last of her kind...

It is not a peaceful time in the Dells. In King City, the young King Nash is clinging to the throne, while rebel lords in the north and south build armies to unseat him. War is coming. And the mountains and forest are filled with spies and thieves. This is where Fire lives, a girl whose beauty is impossibly irresistible and who can control the minds of everyone around her.

Exquisitely romantic, this companion to the highly praised Graceling has an entirely new cast of characters, save for one person who plays a pivotal role in both books. You don't need to have read Graceling to love Fire. But if you haven't, you'll be dying to read it next."

This sort of sequel to Gracling, prequel or companion book would better sum it up, is finally released tomorrow, which you would probably notice from the widget in my sidebar, and almost every other bloggers sidebar. Everyone is ecstatic about this book, making it the must have book of October. See I would say fall, but there was Catching Fire, and I have a feeling that's even why the book release was bumped from September to October. By now everyone has finished Catching Fire and really needs a good YA fix, enter Fire right on cue. I would go into more verbosity, but I know you've been waiting, I know you know all about it, so why bother when I could be reading it? I was lucky enough to snag an ARC the other day...who really would sell there copy to Half-Priced Books? Really I want to know so I can see what else that might be willing to part with!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 4:33 PM 0 comments  

Labels: ARCs, Catching Fire, Fire, Half-Priced Books, Kristen Cashore