strange and random happenstance

Where the Forest Meets the Stars by Glendy Vanderah
Published by: Lake Union Publishing
Publication Date: March 1st, 2019
Format: Kindle, 304 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Joanna Teale is alive because her mother is dead. Her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer too late. But it wasn't too late for Jo. After a radical double mastectomy Jo wants her life to get back to some semblance of normality. Cancer put her life on hold so she's trying to get back to that life. And that life means grad school. Therefore she is burying herself in her graduate work in the wilds of southern Illinois studying birds. She has her routine. It's solitary but restorative to work from dawn until dusk until all you can do is collapse into bed. Or drink a nice cold beer in the backyard of her white clapboard student housing before collapsing into bed, banging on the window AC to show a little life. But her life is about to change radically once again. A young shoeless girl appears battered and bruised outside her house. The girl claims to be an alien child named Ursa, sent from the stars to witness five miracles. Obviously the kid is running away from something and has created this mythology to cope. But the more time Jo spends with Ursa the more she questions what is possible. She can't do this on her own, and there's something about the police that she just doesn't trust, so she turns to her neighbor Gabe. He runs the roadside stand selling eggs while coming to terms with his own existential problems. Gabe agrees that Ursa is special. Maybe she is some sort of extraterrestrial. They can't deny that Ursa brings a strange sort of luck with her wherever she goes. As the three unlikely souls form a ragtag family time passes and Jo realizes that it will be harder and harder to explain to the authorities why she has kept someone else's child for an entire summer. But when Ursa's real life finally catches up to her and shows Jo and Gabe the dark underbelly of human existence they will do anything to save this little girl. It might just take a miracle, but as humans who are they to judge what an alien would view as a miracle?

You know the phenomenon of the last great book you read? Where it was so amazing and transformative that anything that came after would pale in comparison Well, I had the exact opposite experience with this book. I was suffering from last shit book I read. The book I had read previously was possibly the worst book I have ever read. It was Devil House by John Darnielle if you're interested. So anything would have been better than Devil House. Anything at all. While my friends were lamenting that this book used the alien angle as a kind of bait and switch all I could say was at least there wasn't fake ye olde english. So what if this is Northern Exposure meets Law and Order: Special Victims Unit verging towards the almost completely unrealistic? It wasn't Devil House. Where the Forest Meets the Stars is competently written if completely quixotic. But for me it was a place I could escape into. I felt just like Jo, I needed a reprieve from reality, I needed to swim in the rivers, I needed to bath in the forests, I needed to purge the stank of Devil House from my being and Where the Forest Meets the Stars did that for me. But it was Jo's graduate work that intrigued me the most. Glendy Vanderah was a field biologist who got her MS in the Cerulean Warbler so the insight she brought to the character of Jo made her research spot on. And the reason I connected so strongly to this is because of one of my best friends. She's now a Biometrician for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service but every summer for more years than I can count I remember her going out into the field somewhere to do research. She'd be in Ohio in prime Mothman country studying riparian zones or just slightly north of home looking into the impact of windmills on birds. Actually I think she didn't actually get the windmill summer job, but I remember proofing her resume. As well as her paper on riparian zones. What Glendy Vanderah gave me was a glimpse into my best friend's life for all those summers she was away from me and for that I am grateful. I can see her and Jo hanging out a sharing a beer.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Aliens, Birds, Breast Cancer, Devil House, For the Love of Book Clubs, Glendy Vanderah, Illinois, Joanna Teale, John Darnielle, Law and Order SVU, Northern Exposure, Summer, Ursa, Where the Forest Meets the Stars

Devil House by John Darnielle
Published by: MCD
Publication Date: January 25th, 2022
Format: Hardcover, 416 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy

Every town has an urban legend. A mystery or a murder that has captivated the minds of the locals and passed into lore. Gage Chandler just happened to turn his town's tale into a bestseller. A local teacher violently killed two of her students during an attempted burglary and was caught while taking their dismembered bodies to the beach in an attempt to dump them in the ocean. The White Witch of Morro Bay made a name for Gage and he has been looking for his followup project ever since. And then he hear's about "The Devil House." The house is in Milpitas, California, which is why no one has heard about it. The town became infamous for a grisly crime that happened in 1981 that ended up serving as inspiration for the movie River's Edge. The locals did not like the national attention. So when another murder happened with satanic overtones they hushed it up. "The Devil House" just happens to be up for sale. So not only could Gage write his next bestseller about the case he could write it at the scene of the crime. This PR stunt alone could generate huge sales. So Gage moves into "The Devil House." The home has been through many changes between when it was first built and it's infamy. But during the crime it was an abandoned store that sold pornography with booths in the back to watch videos. The "Monster Adult X" sign was still on the roof of the building when some teens moved in and decided to redecorate it as their clubhouse. The teens got very territorial and when the owner one day showed up with a potential buyer the interlopers were brutally murdered with a sword. But as expected Gage finds the locals aren't at all receptive to his arrival in their town. They don't want to talk about the murder, and they really don't want to talk about Derrick and Seth, the two kids who are the most likely culprits. Because that's another aspect of this case that is curious, no one was ever caught and charged with the murders. So Gage does what he does best. He immerses himself in the crime. He buys crime scene pictures off eBay and takes the interior of the house back to what it looked like when the murders happened. He becomes so entrenched that he can't be sure if he's writing a book now or living it.

As most reviewers with any sense have pointed out, this book is a bait and switch. The cover, the hype, everything about this book screams horror, and yet what it is isn't really clear even after you read it, but one thing is clear, it's not horror. Devil House is perhaps the sloppiest manuscript I have ever read. I am not even going to deign to call it a book because it needed several more passes to make it even legible and omit severe chronological issues, such as the constantly shifting date of the two murders at "The Devil House." The writing is beyond amateurish. In fact I take back manuscript and shall call this word salad. And seriously, don't get me started on the fake ye olde english that pops up in the "Song of Gorbonian" section. It's some of the worst writing I've ever read. This word salad has the pretensions to greatness, and instead comes off as a preposterous waste of time. As for the second person narration? Well, firstly, second person narration should be used sparingly, not for hundreds of pages, but what's more is that it isn't really second person narration, it's first person masquerading as second person wherein it's really the author talking to the murderess. I mean, what the fuck man? Really!?! You want to go there? You think you're Joe Goldberg? Joe Goldberg knows literature and he'd kill you for the crimes against it you've committed. But what's the worst sin in this book is everything is purposefully obfuscated and elliptical and talks around the subject in some attempt to make a statement on what is truth, what is really going on here, and in the end, it doesn't matter. Because, huge spoiler here, Gage Chandler has made it all up. There were no teenagers, there was no Satanic Panic, it's all BS in an attempt to what, write a book? To reclaim fame? To claw his way out of the insanity he'd driven himself to? Seriously, the ending negates the whole book, the whole story of "The Devil House." I mean, the whole "book" is so badly written and self-aware there was no way it could have clawed it's way back out of the grave it had dug to make me actually like it. But I was impressed that it made me hate it even more.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: California, Devil House, Gage Chandler, Going Gothic, Horror, Joe Goldberg, John Darnielle, Murder, River's Edge, Satanic Panic, Second Person Narration, The Devil House, The White Witch of Morro Bay, You

The Accomplice by Lisa Lutz
Published by: Ballantine Books
Publication Date: January 25th, 2022
Format: Hardcover, 368 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Everyone has the same questions about best friends Owen and Luna: What binds them together so tightly? Why weren’t they ever a couple? And why do people around them keep turning up dead? In this riveting novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Passenger, every answer raises a new, more chilling question.

Owen Mann is charming, privileged, and chronically dissatisfied. Luna Grey is secretive, cautious, and pragmatic. Despite their differences, they form a bond the moment they meet in college. Their names soon become indivisible - Owen and Luna, Luna and Owen - and stay that way even after an unexplained death rocks their social circle.

They’re still best friends years later, when Luna finds Owen’s wife brutally murdered. The police investigation sheds light on some long-hidden secrets, but it can’t penetrate the wall of mystery that surrounds Owen. To get to the heart of what happened and why, Luna has to dig up the one secret she’s spent her whole life burying.

The Accomplice brilliantly examines the bonds of shared history, what it costs to break them, and what happens when you start wondering how well you know the one person who truly knows you."

There are only a handful of must buy authors for me. Lisa Lutz is high on that list!

The Overnight Guest by Heather Gudenkauf
Published by: Park Row
Publication Date: January 25th, 2022
Format: Hardcover, 336 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"A woman receives an unexpected visitor during a deadly snowstorm in this chilling thriller from New York Times bestselling author Heather Gudenkauf.

True crime writer Wylie Lark doesn't mind being snowed in at the isolated farmhouse where she's retreated to write her new book. A cozy fire, complete silence. It would be perfect, if not for the fact that decades earlier, at this very house, two people were murdered in cold blood and a girl disappeared without a trace.

As the storm worsens, Wylie finds herself trapped inside the house, haunted by the secrets contained within its walls - haunted by secrets of her own. Then she discovers a small child in the snow just outside. After bringing the child inside for warmth and safety, she begins to search for answers. But soon it becomes clear that the farmhouse isn't as isolated as she thought, and someone is willing to do anything to find them."

Snow storms and murder go together like peanut butter and jelly!

The Appeal by Janice Hallett
Published by: Atria Books
Publication Date: January 25th, 2022
Format: Hardcover, 432 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Perfect for fans of Ruth Ware and Lisa Jewell, this "dazzlingly clever" (The Sunday Times, London) murder mystery follows a community rallying around a sick child - but when escalating lies lead to a dead body, everyone is a suspect.

The Fairway Players, a local theatre group, is in the midst of rehearsals when tragedy strikes the family of director Martin Hayward and his wife Helen, the play’s star. Their young granddaughter has been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, and with an experimental treatment costing a tremendous sum, their fellow castmates rally to raise the money to give her a chance at survival.

But not everybody is convinced of the experimental treatment’s efficacy - nor of the good intentions of those involved. As tension grows within the community, things come to a shocking head at the explosive dress rehearsal. The next day, a dead body is found, and soon, an arrest is made. In the run-up to the trial, two young lawyers sift through the material - emails, messages, letters - with a growing suspicion that a killer may be hiding in plain sight. The evidence is all there, between the lines, waiting to be uncovered.

A wholly modern take on the epistolary novel, The Appeal is a "daring…clever, and funny" (The Times, London) debut for fans of Richard Osman and Lucy Foley."

When I first heard about this book in my Waterstones newsletter I knew it was for me. I love how authors are uniquely using modern technologies to reinvent the epistolary novel.

Road of Bones by Christopher Golden
Published by: St. Martin's Press
Publication Date: January 25th, 2022
Format: Hardcover, 240 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"An American documentarian travels a haunted highway across the frozen tundra of Siberia in New York Times bestselling author Christopher Golden’s Road of Bones, a "tightly wound, atmospheric, and creepy as hell" (Stephen King) supernatural thriller.

Surrounded by barren trees in a snow-covered wilderness with a dim, dusky sky forever overhead, Siberia’s Kolyma Highway is 1200 miles of gravel packed permafrost within driving distance of the Arctic Circle. A narrow path where drivers face such challenging conditions as icy surfaces, limited visibility, and an average temperature of sixty degrees below zero, fatal car accidents are common.

But motorists are not the only victims of the highway. Known as the Road of Bones, it is a massive graveyard for the former Soviet Union’s gulag prisoners. Hundreds of thousands of people worked to death and left where their bodies fell, consumed by the frozen elements and plowed beneath the permafrost road.

Fascinated by the history, documentary producer Felix "Teig" Teigland is in Russia to drive the highway, envisioning a new series capturing Life and Death on the Road of Bones with a ride to the town of Akhust, “the coldest place on Earth”, collecting ghost stories and local legends along the way. Only, when Teig and his team reach their destination, they find an abandoned town, save one catatonic nine-year-old girl - and a pack of predatory wolves, faster and smarter than any wild animals should be.

Pursued by the otherworldly beasts, Teig’s companions confront even more uncanny and inexplicable phenomena along the Road of Bones, as if the ghosts of Stalin’s victims were haunting them. It is a harrowing journey that will push Teig beyond endurance and force him to confront the sins of his past."

Yes, it's January and I'm leaning heavily into murder and snow. But this is Christopher Golden. He's in a separate category. A must buy category.

Devil House by John Darnielle
Published by: MCD
Publication Date: January 25th, 2022
Format: Hardcover, 416 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"From John Darnielle, the New York Times bestselling author and the singer-songwriter of the Mountain Goats, comes an epic, gripping novel about murder, truth, and the dangers of storytelling.

Gage Chandler is descended from kings. That’s what his mother always told him. Years later, he is a true crime writer, with one grisly success - and a movie adaptation - to his name, along with a series of subsequent less notable efforts. But now he is being offered the chance for the big break: to move into the house where a pair of briefly notorious murders occurred, apparently the work of disaffected teens during the Satanic Panic of the 1980s. Chandler finds himself in Milpitas, California, a small town whose name rings a bell– - his closest childhood friend lived there, once upon a time. He begins his research with diligence and enthusiasm, but soon the story leads him into a puzzle he never expected - back into his own work and what it means, back to the very core of what he does and who he is.

Devil House is John Darnielle’s most ambitious work yet, a book that blurs the line between fact and fiction, that combines daring formal experimentation with a spellbinding tale of crime, writing, memory, and artistic obsession."

Look at the cover. That beautiful retro cover. Now don't let it draw you in. This might be one of the worst books I've ever read.

Hold My Place by Cassondra Windwalker
Published by: Black Spot Books
Publication Date: January 25th, 2022
Format: Paperback, 170 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"From the Helen Kay Chapbook Award-Winning poet Cassondra Windwalker, an unsuspecting librarian falls head-over-heels for a married man, but when she finds herself caught up in a whirlwind romance, she discovers her new husband’s past wives have all met early deaths - and some aren’t ready to let go yet.

Obsession never dies.

When librarian Sigrun falls head-over-heels for the sophisticated and very married Edgar Leyward, she never expects to find herself in his bed - or his heart. Nevertheless, when his enigmatic wife Octavia dies from a sudden illness, Sigrun finds herself caught up in a whirlwind romance worthy of the most lurid novels on her bookshelves.

Sigrun soon discovers Octavia wasn’t Edgar’s first lost love, or even his second. Three women Edgar has loved met early deaths. As she delves into her beloved’s past through a trove of discovered letters, the edges of Sigrun identity begin to disappear, fading into the women of the past. Sigrun tells herself it’s impossible for any dark magic to be at play - that the dead can’t possibly inhabit the bodies of the living - but something shadowy stalks the halls of the Leyward house and the lines between the love of the present and the obsessions of the past become increasingly blurred - and bloody.

Mixing lyrical prose with simmering terror, Hold My Place is a modern gothic horror worthy of Shirley Jackson’s nightmares and Daphne Du Maurier’s dangerous lovers."

What was that about Shirley Jackson and Daphne Du Maurier?

Never Tell by Stacey Abrams
Published by: St. Martin's Griffin
Publication Date: January 25th, 2022
Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"From popular national leader and #1 New York Times bestseller Stacey Abrams writing under the name Selena Montgomery comes Never Tell a novel of spinetingling romance and unforgettable suspense.

Criminal psychologist Dr. Erin Abbott wants nothing more than to live a quiet life. That means no danger, no intrigue - and absolutely no romance. But when Erin suspects a serial killer is roaming New Orleans, her investigation throws her straight into the arms of the one man who can help her.

Journalist Gabriel Moss is hot to find his next big story - and he knows Erin is onto something that will rock the city to its core. However, Erin is also a mystery he must solve. From the moment they meet, Gabriel senses that she is hiding more than her beauty behind her boxy suits and sensible shoes. When she reluctantly agrees to work with him to uncover the most shocking story they have ever come across, explosive secrets are revealed and danger and passion begin to rise."

I have been "patiently" waiting for Stacey Abrams's books that she wrote under a pseudonym to be reprinted. The day is finally here!

Violeta by Isabel Allende
Published by: Ballantine Books
Publication Date: January 25th, 2022
Format: Hardcover, 336 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"This sweeping novel from the New York Times bestselling author of A Long Petal of the Sea tells the epic story of Violeta Del Valle, a woman whose life spans one hundred years and bears witness to the greatest upheavals of the twentieth century.

Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first girl in a family with five boisterous sons. From the start, her life is marked by extraordinary events, for the ripples of the Great War are still being felt, even as the Spanish flu arrives on the shores of her South American homeland almost at the moment of her birth.

Through her father’s prescience, the family will come through that crisis unscathed, only to face a new one as the Great Depression transforms the genteel city life she has known. Her family loses everything and is forced to retreat to a wild and beautiful but remote part of the country. There, she will come of age, and her first suitor will come calling.

She tells her story in the form of a letter to someone she loves above all others, recounting times of devastating heartbreak and passionate affairs, poverty and wealth, terrible loss and immense joy. Her life is shaped by some of the most important events of history: the fight for women’s rights, the rise and fall of tyrants, and ultimately not one, but two pandemics.

Through the eyes of a woman whose unforgettable passion, determination, and sense of humor carry her through a lifetime of upheaval, Isabel Allende once more brings us an epic that is both fiercely inspiring and deeply emotional."

I like epics and I hope you do too.

The Magnolia Palace by Fiona Davis
Published by: Dutton
Publication Date: January 25th, 2022
Format: Hardcover, 352 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Fiona Davis, New York Times bestselling author of The Lions of Fifth Avenue, returns with a tantalizing novel about the secrets, betrayal, and murder within one of New York City's most impressive Gilded Age mansions.

Eight months since losing her mother in the Spanish flu outbreak of 1919, twenty-one-year-old Lillian Carter's life has completely fallen apart. For the past six years, under the moniker Angelica, Lillian was one of the most sought-after artists' models in New York City, with statues based on her figure gracing landmarks from the Plaza Hotel to the Brooklyn Bridge. But with her mother gone, a grieving Lillian is rudderless and desperate - the work has dried up and a looming scandal has left her entirely without a safe haven. So when she stumbles upon an employment opportunity at the Frick mansion - a building that, ironically, bears her own visage - Lillian jumps at the chance. But the longer she works as a private secretary to the imperious and demanding Helen Frick, the daughter and heiress of industrialist and art patron Henry Clay Frick, the more deeply her life gets intertwined with that of the family - pulling her into a tangled web of romantic trysts, stolen jewels, and family drama that runs so deep, the stakes just may be life or death.

Nearly fifty years later, mod English model Veronica Weber has her own chance to make her career - and with it, earn the money she needs to support her family back home - within the walls of the former Frick residence, now converted into one of New York City's most impressive museums. But when she - along with a charming intern/budding art curator named Joshua - is dismissed from the Vogue shoot taking place at the Frick Collection, she chances upon a series of hidden messages in the museum: messages that will lead her and Joshua on a hunt that could not only solve Veronica's financial woes, but could finally reveal the truth behind a decades-old murder in the infamous Frick family."

What's my favorite museum in New York? If you guessed The Frick, you are correct!

Her Hidden Genius by Marie Benedict
Published by: Sourcebooks Landmark
Publication Date: January 25th, 2022
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"The new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Mystery of Mrs. Christie!

She changed the world with her discovery. Three men took the credit.

Rosalind Franklin has always been an outsider - brilliant, but different. Whether working at the laboratory she adored in Paris or toiling at a university in London, she feels closest to the science, those unchanging laws of physics and chemistry that guide her experiments. When she is assigned to work on DNA, she believes she can unearth its secrets.

Rosalind knows if she just takes one more X-ray picture - one more after thousands - she can unlock the building blocks of life. Never again will she have to listen to her colleagues complain about her, especially Maurice Wilkins who'd rather conspire about genetics with James Watson and Francis Crick than work alongside her.

Then it finally happens - the double helix structure of DNA reveals itself to her with perfect clarity. But what unfolds next, Rosalind could have never predicted.

Marie Benedict's powerful new novel shines a light on a woman who sacrificed her life to discover the nature of our very DNA, a woman whose world-changing contributions were hidden by the men around her but whose relentless drive advanced our understanding of humankind."

I have been reading about Rosalind Franklin EVERYWHERE lately. She is the woman of the moment. So that makes this THE BOOK of the moment. Go read it!

Fossil Hunter: How Mary Anning Changed the Science of Prehistoric Life by Cheryl Blackford
Published by: Clarion Books
Publication Date: January 25th, 2022
Format: Hardcover, 128 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"A fascinating, highly visual biography of Mary Anning, the Victorian fossil hunter who changed scientific thinking about prehistoric life and would become one of the most celebrated paleontologists of all time. Perfect for children learning about woman scientists like Ada Lovelace, Jane Goodall, and Katherine Johnson.

Mary Anning grew up on the south coast of England in a region rich in fossils. As teenagers, she and her brother Joseph discovered England’s first complete ichthyosaur. Poor and uneducated, Anning would become one of the most celebrated paleontologists ever, though in her time she supported herself selling by fossils and received little formal recognition. Her findings helped shape scientific thinking about extinction and prehistoric life long before Darwin published his famous work on evolution.

With engaging text, photographs, and stunning paleoart, Fossil Hunter introduces this self-taught scientist, now recognized as one of the greatest fossilists the world has ever known."

Speaking of another scientist who is everywhere lately, meet Mary Anning and her ichthyosaur! 

Loveboat Reunion by Abigail Hing Wen
Published by: HarperTeen
Publication Date: January 25th, 2022
Format: Hardcover, 448 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"This companion novel to Abigail Hing Wen’s New York Times bestselling debut, Loveboat, Taipei, takes readers back to Taipei through the eyes of fan favorites Sophie and Xavier - on an unforgettable journey of glittering revelry and self-discovery that’s perfect for fans of Jenny Han and Mary H. K. Choi.

Sophie Ha and Xavier Yeh have what some would call a tumultuous past.

Hearts were broken, revenge was plotted - but at least they’re friends now. They left the drama behind them back in Taipei - at their summer program, Loveboat - forever.

Now that fall is here, they’re focusing on what really matters. Sophie has sworn off boys and is determined to be the best student Dartmouth’s ever had. Xavier just wants to stay under his overbearing father’s radar, collect his trust fund when he turns eighteen, and concentrate on what makes him happy.

But the world doesn’t seem to want Sophie and Xavier to succeed. Sophie’s college professor thinks her first major project is “too feminine.” Xavier’s father gives him an ultimatum: finish high school or be cut off from his inheritance.

Then Sophie and Xavier find themselves on a wild, nonstop Loveboat reunion, hatching a joint plan to take control of their futures. Can they succeed together...or are they destined to combust?"

After all the murder and science I've recommended this week, how about some YA fun? We could all us the diversion.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Abigail Hing Wen, Cassondra Windwalker, Cheryl Blackford, Christopher Golden, Fiona Davis, Heather Gudenkauf, Isabel Allende, Janice Hallett, John Darnielle, Lisa Lutz, Marie Benedict, Stacey Abrams