strange and random happenstance

Found Drowned by Laurie Glenn Norris
Published by: Nimbus Publishing
Publication Date: December 31th, 2019
Format: Paperback, 262 Pages
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The official patter:
"Based on a true unsolved crime from 1877, Laurie Glenn Norris's debut novel tells the story of two small towns linked by the disappearance of a teenage girl. Mary Harney is a dreamy teenager in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia, whose ambitions are stifled by her tyrannical grandmother and alcoholic father. When Mary's mother becomes ill, an already fragile domestic situation quickly begins to unravel until the September evening when the girl goes missing.

Across the water on Prince Edward Island we meet Gilbert Bell, whose son finds a body washed up on the beach below the family farm. As the community is visited first by the local coroner and then by investigators, Glenn Norris paints a fascinating and darkly comic picture of judicial and forensic procedures of the time. At once tightly plotted and pensive, the novel travels back to the circumstances that led to Mary's disappearance and then back further to the circumstances of her parents' marriage, all the while building toward a raucous courtroom finale."

Based on True Canadian crime? Yes please! 

Eventide by Mae Clair
Published by: Kensington Publishing Corporation
Publication Date: December 31th, 2019
Format: Paperback, 240 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"The darkness is coming...

The old house near Hode's Hill, Pennsylvania is a place for Madison Hewitt to start over-to put the trauma of her husband's murder, and her subsequent breakdown, behind her. She isn't bothered by a burial plot on the property, or the mysterious, sealed cistern in the basement. Not at first. Even the presence of cold spots and strange odors could be fabrications of her still troubled mind. But how to explain her slashed tires, or the ominous messages that grow ever more threatening?

Convinced the answer lies in the past, Madison delves into the history of the home's original owners, only to discover the origin of a powerful evil. An entity that may be connected to a series of gruesome attacks that have left police baffled. No matter where she turns-past or present-terror lingers just a step away, spurred on by a twisted obsession that can only be satisfied through death..."

A sanctuary turned evil? Oh, I can't wait! 

Much Ado About a Widow by Jenna Jaxon
Published by: Zebra
Publication Date: December 31th, 2019
Format: Paperback, 320 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Lady Georgina Kirkpatrick defied her family, jilted her fiancé, and married the man she loved. But when her husband died at Waterloo, she was delivered right back into her father’s power...

Victory is sweet - but England’s triumph was Georgie’s rout. Now that she’s widowed, the loathsome marriage her father first arranged has simply been renegotiated. With neither money nor rights, and nowhere to flee, all she can do is cherish her last weeks of freedom.... Until a band of ruffians overtake her carriage and kidnap her. When she escapes in seaside Brighton and encounters her brother’s rather wild friend, Lord St. Just - whom she suspects aspires to be a pirate - she’s prepared to entertain more of his adventurous suggestions than usual...

St. Just knows his mind and his duty, and he loves a challenge. Helping a fair lady make her farewells to hoodlums suits his talents well. Within the hour he has Georgie, her lady’s maid - and her little dog too - sailing for his castle in Cornwall. Meanwhile, the lady’s entire family, her kidnappers, and her scheming intended are in pursuit. But as he and the indomitable Georgie grow closer, he begins to suspect that together they will prove a match for them all..."

Because sometimes, after reading about all the bleakness and death, you need a nice romance to lighten the load. 

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Canada, Eventide, Found Drowned, Hode's Hill, Jenna Jaxon, Laurie Glenn Norris, Mae Clair, Much Ado About a Widow, Nova Scotia, Tuesday Tomorrow

Still Life by Louise Penny
Published by: Minotaur Books
Publication Date: July 11th, 2006
Format: Paperback, 320 Pages
Rating: ★★
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Life in Three Pines is about to change forever. Jane Neal is a doyenne of Three Pines and just one of the many eccentrics loved by the residents. But Jane Neal has a secret. She has painted her whole life but she has never let anyone see her paintings, let alone invited them into her house beyond the kitchen. Jane has decided that the time has come to show the world her art, and in particular her small group of friends. But just two days after being accepted into the area's prestigious juried art show she is found dead in the woods. Her death looks like it might be a hunting accident, it is afterall Thanksgiving Weekend and the bow hunters are out in force. But Chief Inspector Armand Gamace of the Sûreté du Québec who is called in early on that Thanksgiving morning isn't sure Miss Neal's death is an accident. The aim of the arrow is too accurate and the murder weapon is missing. Beneath the placid surface of Three Pines Jane wasn't the only one with secrets to hide. After a shocking gay bashing a few days before Jane's murder, it looks like this small town is going into some kind of revolt and it's up to Armand Gamace and his team to bring back the peace.    

I've heard about Louise Penny and Chief Inspector Gamace for a few years now. But a cozy murder mystery series tends to be a comfort read for me so this book has been on a back burner, waiting, while my bloggerly duties took over my reading. A little over two years ago when they announced that this first book was being adapted for television starring everyone's favorite brooding detective, Inspector Lynley, ahem, I mean Nathaniel Parker as Gamace, I made a note that I should definitely move Still Life up the "to be read" pile. Yet it wasn't until my mother's book club chose it as one of their monthly reads that I finally bit the bullet and devoured Still Life. This book is not a masterpiece, not by a long shot, and falls prey to many problems of the first time writer, but there is something homey about it, something about the community created with the cast of characters that makes me feel deep in my bones that this is a series that will get better as it goes on and I want to read those further stories.

The cast of characters is both the book's strength and weakness. Penny is creating a community that we will want to return to. To me it's like the Candian Sookie Stackhouse mysteries, obviously without the supernatural element. But the thing about the Sookie books is that the mysteries were secondary, it was spending time with this well-rounded cast of characters that made you keep coming back for more. The problem with the cast of characters in Three Pines is that they have potential, but are not well rounded. They are very much the stereotypical cast of characters. The gay couple who run the bistro and bed and breakfast and say "Bitch please" and "Slut" but in a "loving" manner. The large black lady who is a fount of knowledge and down home advice. The kooky artist with the flyaway hair. I could go on and on. But all I'd be doing is listing superficial two-dimensional traits. Yet that's all these characters have! Going forward Penny will have to flesh these characters out because people aren't so superficial and can't be summed up in a catchphrase. Which is why I'm more excited for the future books than I was while reading this one.

The character who harmed this book the most though is Gamace's subordinate, Agent Yvette Nichol. I hated her more than the killer. Yes, I spent an inordinate amount of time fantasizing about her death, that's how much I hated her. Even if she was the red herring baddie used to distract us while Penny waited to reveal the true villain, she was such an annoyance that I could almost not read any part of the book she was in. We've all known people in our lives whose sole outlook on the world is how everything revolves around them. They are in their own little microcosm of unreality where they are the center of the universe. Anything that doesn't matter to them or would inconvenience them is pushed aside and forgotten as being irrelevant. I have sadly even had some close friends who lived in their own little world where I felt like an intruder in their very self-centered life story. This is Agent Nichol. Any advice Gamace gives her obviously doesn't apply to her, because she knows best. Nothing sinks in, nothing latches on. The murder would have been wrapped up right away if not for her unwillingness to be a team player. She can't be on a team, because that would mean she's not the star. Plus she views her mistakes not as her fault but the cause of others, making her view herself as a victim. Could someone please make her a victim, the kind in a body bag with a toe tag? Because seriously, if she's in the next book I don't think I can read it.

Leaving Agent Nichol far far behind and going back to the other characters, an overall trait they all had which was an annoying foible in Still Life was the overuse of patois. Local sayings and even Quebecois swears were scattered throughout the book like pixy dust. Instead of adding flavor and color to the book it seemed forced into the narrative at random moments like we might be on the verge of forgetting the book is set in Quebec so here's a short sharp reminder. The patois didn't come naturally from the narrative, like it should. It felt like a gimmick. Like a mediocre substitute to actually bothering with some worldbuilding. Why would Penny bother to show us the world of Quebec when she could just tell us with a few words? This is where her greenness as an author shows. It's show not tell, not the other way around. Again, my hope is that as she grows she learns more how to develop her story and her world. Right now her world is very two dimensional when what we need and want is three.

Yet, despite all these nagging issues, they could all easily come under the heading of issues experienced by first time writers. They can be fixed in time. The core of her book, the mystery and the life of Jane, these ephemeral things that trip up even experienced writers succeeded here, making me hopeful for the future. But it's Jane's home that captured my imagination the most. I wanted into that house that even her closest friends were barred from so badly that every time there was a delay I almost audibly cried out. For us readers outside Canada we might not get the connection between Jane's house and the Canadian folk artist Maud Lewis. She is beloved in Canada and their answer to Grandma Moses, only with more cats. I was lucky enough to visit Nova Scotia over a decade ago and see her artwork that is on display at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. More importantly I was able to see her house which is situated fully in this Gallery. While I won't spoil the reveal in Still Life, let me say that Maud Lewis and Jane Neal had very similar decorating schemes and I think they would have gotten along marvelously.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Art, Canada, Cats, Chief Inspector Armand Gamace, Grandma Moses, Inspector Lynley, Louise Penny, Maud Lewis, Nathaniel Parker, Nova Scotia, Patois, Quebec, Sookie Stackhouse, Stereotype, Still Life, Three Pines

I seriously don't know why or how I knew Doctor Who was returning. At this time I didn't really use the internet for much, other then to do homework (see, I can't escape school now that it's sucked me back in, and in fact this fall is the first time since 2006 I haven't had classes) and to play online games with my friends. But there, in the back of my mind, I knew that there was a new series and that, well, obviously, I had to see it. The one thing I did know, from my various British addictions, was you could be sure, whenever the show showed up in the US, it would be a long time since it had aired in England. In fact it was almost a full year from the airing of "Rose" on the BBC till it aired on Sci-Fi (or Syfy as it now ludicrously is). As it turns out, I didn't have to wait that long...

In the spring of 2005 I was done with college (round one) and at a bit of a loose end, thinking maybe grad school, maybe not. My friend Sara had gone to graduate school in Halifax, Nova Scotia at NSCAD. She was graduating that spring and having a big gallery show/thesis/dissertation combo event with mashed potatoes on the side (seriously, there were mashed potatoes at the opening). Her whole family and a few of her close friends, me included, decided to descend on Halifax. Cold and wet and bleak and full of children wielding led pipes... the drug capital of Canada... needless to say, I didn't go out much. After most everyone else had returned to their respective homes, I stayed in Canada for another two weeks or so. I spent most of my time in Sara's little cramped apartment. She had one roommate, Kenny, and no spare space. The kitchen was minuscule, the bedrooms were tiny, the bathroom was somewhat large, but the hallway was non-existent as it kind of merged with the stairwell and the ceiling in this stairwell was mildly psychedelic, as the landlord had plastered the ceiling with these swoopy wave patterns. It was white, but there was like glitter mixed in. This ceiling fascinated me, because all I could think of was who would spend that much time on a ceiling? It would have actually fit in quite well with a few of the TARDIS interiors over the years.

Her roommate Kenny was also doing his performance/thesis/dissertation, so he was gone much of the time. He was gone and in return for keeping the tiny kitchen clean (not that hard) I had full access to his tv. I was instantly addicted to Canadian television, mainly because it's like all the big shows are on one station and some of it is in French. There was no flipping back and forth between ABC and CBS and Fox, it was all there on one channel. And while watching that one channel of an evening they said something that really caught my eye... on April 5th, a mere ten days after "Rose" aired in the UK, the CBBC was showing the first episode of the new Doctor Who! Even though Kenny had basically given me carte blanche over his television, I made sure to ask him as soon as I saw the ad that I would have the tv that Tuesday night. He said there was no problem and my heart leaped.

Here I was, far from home and my cat, in another country, but I was going to watch Doctor Who! Not just any Doctor Who, the newly rebooted series! I remember the Sunday night before there was a horrid cold front that moved in. Sara and I were driving back from PEI and it was so windy the car was struggling the whole way back to Halifax. And then the wind that night. It howled and howled. I started putting on more and more clothes in an attempt to keep warm. The next day the whole apartment was frigid, because of the fact the landlord turned down the heat during the day. The cold continued into Tuesday, but I didn't care, I had a fire in me to keep me warm, I had The Doctor. I remember it was still a little light outside the window as I sat down on the edge of the orange plaid blanket that covered Kenny's bed. I was instantly hooked as soon as Christopher Eccleston said "Run!" I mean, the first episode sure had it's flaws, but, well, that was to be expected. Mickey was the main flaw, but then, well, Rose left him in the dust didn't she? When the episode ended and I realized that come the next Tuesday I would be in New York again and not able to watch "The End of the World" I was beyond depressed. When Christopher Eccleston's face lit up in that wide smile surrounded by the London Eye, well, I knew I couldn't wait till this show came stateside.

I still think how naive I was to the ways of the internet. I didn't know about downloads or torrenting. I knew about Amazon UK, and so, I pre-ordered the DVDs, which came out in batches of three episodes every so often and then took about a month to get to me. So over the course of 2005 I slowly watched all the series. Each episode making me more and more a Whovian. In fact, that Christmas when they aired David Tennant's first episode simultaneously in Canada and England, I told Sara all I wanted for Christmas was for her to tape that episode, she did and I was ever so grateful, it was like being back in Canada again!

Step two was to get others addicted. When I went back to New York in Fall 2005 to look at a grad school, I bought tons of Doctor Who tie-in books at Forbidden Planet. When I was back again in Spring 2006, well, then the inculcation of my friend Miss Jessica began. We had returned to her apartment after a long night seeing Alan Cumming in The Three Penny Opera, and then several hours outside to meet him (which we did!) Then there was the train ride back to Queens, so it was long after midnight when I popped in disc one and said, "just one episode." Soon it was episode two and we were singing along with the 9th to "Tainted Love." Over the years, whenever me and Miss Jessica get together, well, there is always Doctor Who involved somehow. When she came to visit me shortly after David Tennant became The Doctor, a certain line from "New Earth" was used repeatedly while bowling. "Ooh. Curves. Oh Baby! It's like living inside a bouncy castle!" (Say while caressing a bowling ball, or other round parts of your anatomy. Oi! Not so dirty, we were at a bowling alley! They allow small children in bowling alleys and they get the cool bumpers).

Since then, the addiction has only gotten more rooted and with my increasing knowledge of technology, my addiction is fed on a regular and timely basis. Though I will admit to not watching the end of Rose's time on Doctor Who till I read some spoilers... I was really worried they were going to kill her and I knew I couldn't take that (and right there is where I lose my friend Moxie's sympathies, Rose hater that she is). Ever since that fateful Tuesday evening in Canada, I have become a Whovian in every sense of the word. And you know what? I wouldn't change a thing! Meeting new people, falling in love with new Doctors and companions, having recurring jokes with friends. Every single second of it has been awesome. Though if Moffat makes me cry again this Christmas as much as I did during the Michael Gambon Christmas special... I may go slam his hand in a car door so he knows the pain he has caused me.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alan Cumming, BBC, Canada, Christmas, Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, Doctor Who, Michael Gambon, New Earth, New York, Nova Scotia, Rose, Steven Moffat, TARDIS, The 10th Doctor, The 9th Doctor