Tag Archives: book review

Seen/Heard/Read

The Moon Sister by Lucinda Riley

I switched off the light, and lay there thinking how all my sisters teased me about being the spiritual snowflake of the family. I couldn’t really blame them, because when I was young I didn’t understand that I was ‘different’, so I’d just speak about the things that I saw or felt.

I don’t remember exactly how I discovered The Seven Sisters books by Lucinda Riley – the cover of the first one might have been popping up in various social media feeds until I read about it and got curious, but a few months later here I am, finished reading book five, The Moon Sister, in this absorbing, detailed series with a myriad of stories about six sisters separately adopted and lovingly raised by a mysterious man in a beautiful Swiss mansion. The women are all named after the the Seven Sisters constellation and The Moon Sister is about the second youngest, Taygete, or Tiggy d’Aplièse.

It’s Christmas shortly into the novel, and it was also Christmas when I opened the book, which strengthened the feeling of being immersed in Tiggy’s experiences early on. The story sweeps between rural Scotland in the winter and sun-drenched Spain (both past and present), two contrasting countries, but with common themes of second sight and intuition coming alive through the characters living there. Tiggy is open to what comes her way, all the while listening to her instincts with quiet acceptance. She’s calmly assured in her introversion, yet she’s sociable and empathetic at the same time.

Like her other sisters, Tiggy is not only discovering the (as always mesmerizing and rooted in exciting history) truth of her parentage and heritage, but also learning to be truly independent while remaining connected to the people she grew up with as a family. She has a distinctive voice and it’s easy to hear. Tiggy’s book is satisfyingly thick, like the other novels in the series, and I asked myself why it reads so quickly, besides obviously being a very engaging and well written story. The answer is, perhaps, that the novel is not overdone with length in individual scenes, even when we think there could be more said – this works with packing in multiple storylines and timelines in one book. The history in the novel is not heavy, while based on fact and clearly excellent research, it conveys what it was, namely a real life lived by Tiggy’s ancestor at the time.

The landscapes in Scotland and the views from Granada in Spain, as we see the city through Tiggy’s eyes, come alive with the same exhiliration that she feels. It’s easy to imagine walking down paths and streets with her as she comes closer to uncovering the story of her birth, and there’s a disarming quality about her kindness and introspective connection to the world around her. As with the previous books, I might just have to go back and re-read after a while.

 

 

 

Advertisement
Standard
Seen/Heard/Read

Mary Higgins Clark Reading Spree: What I Learned

Besides the fact that I can accomplish the things I set my mind to?! Again! Hair flip! Another TICK on the list! Drumroll! All that good stuff. Using bookmarks like I mean it and reading standing up between the parts that making breakfast consits of. It’s been a rollercoaster of a ride.

But in all seriousness. . . This is one of my favourite writers I’m talking about here. Her books have accompanied me multiple times from my early teens in to adulthood, providing new viewpoints both on the novels themselves and life as I was experiencing it with every read.

This year I set out to reread all the suspense novels she had written so far that I had on my bookshelf, starting with the terrifying debut Where Are The Children and finishing with one of her latest, All By Myself, Alone. The novels span several decades of publishing, from the mid-seventies to today. After spending time with 34 books from January to mid-November, what have I learned?

Mary Higgins Clark has the gift. Her prose is seamless, structured, not overloaded, her descriptions are spot-on and her storytelling skills are mesmerizing. She knows how to draw a reader in.

Stand-out qualities in the pages she has written include a steady, continuous sense of sincere empathy – there are words and descriptions you simply cannot fake. There’s also a clear distinction between right and wrong, even good and evil, if you will. She writes with honesty and precision, but without preaching, deftly interweaving and examining complicated issues within the story.

Her books are a compliment to the intelligent reading experience, with plenty of visibly solid research that becomes an integral part of the story without reading like a lecture or textbook even when something needs to be explained. The experts in her novels are believable, and readers end up becoming curious about various topics not just due to the strong plot. From American history in various regions to actual famous murder cases, to burial customs, to reincarnation, to biblical scholarship, the palette is a colorful one.

It’s refreshing to have an author, and a bestselling one at that, who writes about relatable and likable heroines who are still as compelling and complex, just as much as any other. Their likability makes us see ourselves or someone we know in them, and this is part of the reason we get hooked. The “good girl” also has a place in literature. Most of us have known or know women like those who are at the center of Mary Higgins Clark’s novels. Many of us are like them, hard-working, at times struggling, faced with hard circumstances and loss, holding on to values and integrity, even sanity, loving with fear and sincerity at the same time and fighting for a sense of self in a difficult world.

I have discovered something for myself in every novel, but as in most cases of continued reading, a few already well-thumbed favourites that I know I will pick up again and again are on my list. These are Remember Me, Moonlight Becomes You, On The Street Where You Live, Daddy’s Little Girl, No Place Like Home. Some of the reasons for these gems topping the list include heroines with creative professions, among them writing, a house with a tragic past, sisterhood, parenthood, family ties and dealing with loss, developing love stories. And heck, the crime.

Mary Higgins Clark is turning 90 this year and in a recent interview she made it clear that she has no intention to stop writing – YES! People will still ask her why she does it. She loves it and gets paid well for it! I want to punch the air and say Atta girl!

Now I have to go buy her newest novel Every Breath You Take, which came out while I was busy finishing my reading spree. The journey continues!

Standard
Seen/Heard/Read

On The Street Where You Live by Mary Higgins Clark

The first entry was dated, September 7, 1891. It began with the words “Madeline is dead by my hand.”

Now doesn’t that chilling quote just make you immediately want to pick up the book? On The Street Where You Live is yet another masterpiece by Mary Higgins Clark and one of my favourite novels among all that I’ve read so far.

Similar to Remember Me, this book also contains an impressive amount of historical research from life in the state of New Jersey in the late nineteenth century, specifically a real town called Spring Lake, which exists to this day and retains many of the features that make you understand particular descriptions in the novel. Coastal, charming, attractive, based on a quick YouTube search it does look like the kind of place that combines a restful retreat with the possibility of hidden stories from the past just waiting to be discovered.

After my virtual stroll, I can picture vividly what it felt like for the novel’s protagonist, criminal defense attorney Emily Graham, to walk the streets of Spring Lake as it gradually moved towards summer, as well as her reactions and admiraton of buildings and houses in the town. Houses play a particular role in On The Street Where You Live, as in several other of Mary Higgins Clark’s books. A house, a home, is a smaller world unto itself, and Emily enters one when she repurchases a house that belonged to the family of one of her ancestors who mysteriously vanished in 1891. Yep, that ancestor was the very Madeline mentioned in that cold-blooded note at the beginning of the novel.

We, the readers, learn of Madeline’s fate before Emily does, and wait with baited breath until Emily herself starts searching for the truth as she makes increasingly frightening connections about not only Madeline’s murder, but the disappearance of other young women, both from the past and the present…

Worlds within worlds spring up cunningly in this confection of a suspense thriller. On one hand present-day Spring Lake emerges as Emily is coming to know it, on the other the ghost of the town from the 1890s is constantly moving parallel to us, becoming more visible through the book within a book Emily is reading to get aquainted with the past and try reconstructing the chain of events that led to Madeline’s disappearance and death. It is eerie, but in a delightfully addictive way, how 1890s Spring Lake becomes almost as alive for the reader as Emily’s Spring Lake. The insistent, almost mystical idea that past and present are imminent of colliding in some way is successfully rooted in our minds by the author and doesn’t let go until the very last words of the book.

Last but not least, the diary of a serial killer, while not overdone, is a disturbing world of its own as well. In fact, the results of writing are represented prominently in On The Street Where You Live, and this is done in contrasting ways. There’s the factual reporting in newspaper articles from the past, the dark aforementioned secrets written down for posterity with perverse dilligence and the nostalgic, absorbing memoirs from a girlhood spent in Spring Lake in the 1890s. The fascination and power that the printed word can evoke is displayed within a novel that in itself is a testament to both.

 

Standard
Seen/Heard/Read

Moonlight Becomes You by Mary Higgins Clark

“This is my child! I didn’t give birth to her, of course, but that’s totally unimportant.”

That’s one of the passages that stayed with me ever since I read Moonlight Becomes You by the great Mary Higgins Clark for the first time, a book that went on to become one of my favourite works of fiction.

Maggie Holloway, a successful photographer from New York City, goes with a date to his family reunion party. While the date quickly leaves her to her own devices after arriving, entirely by chance, Maggie runs in to her former stepmother, Nuala Moore. The closeness the two women had shared in the past, some twenty years ago, when Nuala was married to Maggie’s now deceased father, is immediately rekindled as Nuala recognizes “her child”, and the two piece together the circumstances that lead to them falling out of touch. The themes of family, always present in Clark’s novels, as well as family ties forming outside of blood connections, are opened as Nuala embraces Maggie and the two look forward to once again being a part of each other’s lives.

Sadly, the mutual happiness of the two women is cut short. Shortly after meeting, Nuala is murdered.

In pure genre tradition and with Clark’s unmatched skill for threading suspense like beads on a wire that becomes more taut with each page-turn, Maggie makes the decision to follow the trail of troubling questions filling her mind and becomes embroiled in the search for Nuala’s murderer.

The terrifying opening of the novel, almost suffocating in its depiction, grips readers, and grips them hard, not letting go. A classic, tested tactic, yet despite being a first-class whodunit, as all of Clark’s novels are, there is so much more to this book than just the finely executed components of a classy suspense thriller.

Maggie is a creative, sensitive, resourceful and independent heroine, whose own personal history unfolds throughout the book, giving the reader insight in to the reasons for her decisions, desires and actions with Clark’s trademark empathy and non-preaching descriptions. Anyone who has experienced the joy of being creative, the irresistible pull of molding the ideas in your head in to something tangible, will relate to Maggie’s literal molding of clay as she tries to make sense of the weight on her mind and in her heart.

Then there’s Neil Stephens, one of the love interests. Despite being successful, independent, well-raised and having a wonderful relationship with his parents, Neil apparently has some romantic involvement issues. These issues influence not only his treatment of women, but also, ultimately, their treatment of him, something he runs up against with Maggie. While Neil is never disrespectful, rude or uncaring towards his dates, Clark once again manages to examine an ever-present societal development. While Neil’s parents are proud of him, and their happiness when they see their son leaps off the page, they don’t pull any punches. Clark lends voice to Neil’s sympathetic mother, who hits the nail on the head in a conversation which is not necessarily entirely about marriage, but in the context of the first-time romantic brooding Neil is going through, she couldn’t have put it better.

“You know, Neil, a lot of the smart, successful young men of your generation who didn’t marry in their twenties decided they could play the field indefinitely. And some of them will – they really don’t want to get involved. But some of them also never seem to know when to grow up.”

Add the clearly meticulous research of a chilling historical topic and the lovely seaside city of Newport, Rhode Island, and you’ve got yourself a book I was (re-)reading slower on purpose. Moonlight Becomes You is another memorable masterpiece I will be coming back to again and again.

Standard
Seen/Heard/Read

The Waterfire Saga by Jennifer Donnelly

Magic depended on so many things – the depth of one’s gift, experience, dedication, the position of the moon, the rhythm of the tides, the proximity of whales. It didn’t settle until one was fully grown; Serafina knew that. But she needed it to be with her now, and she prayed to the gods that it would be.

Taking a deep breath, she pulled on everything strong and sure inside of her, and started to sing.

Whales? Well, why not, it’s all explained in The Waterfire Saga, an absorbing four-book YA fantasy series about…mermaids. My exploration of the YA genre continues, and after some searching for something else about mermaids, I stumbled on Deep Blue, Rogue Wave, Dark Tide and Sea Spell. Serafina, Neela, Becca, Ava, Ling and Astrid are thrown together by adversity and destiny, and while a mission of global proportions awaits our heroines, discoveries about life, love and friendship are plentiful along the way. The usual, but always interesting components of the genre.

Clear-cut language and a lot of drawing from the richness of world history, folklore and linguistics make this an appealing read to all of us who had literature courses during our studies. We recognize origins of names, titles, countries, and the additional logic behind this is clearly presented in the novels. While these layers and background often rooted in humanities make the reading experience all the more enjoyable for those of us outside the target audience, they do not overload the reading process for a younger reader. I remember my reading times from a younger age very clearly and I am sure I would have enjoyed this series just as much as I did now, albeit with different accompanying thoughts.

Each heroine lives, breathes and swims right off the page and in to my imagination, going through identity struggles and the pains of self-discovery. The appeal of the series also lies in the fact that the end goal of this particular story, while dealing with romance, themes of home and family, longing, wanting more than what life turns out to be, does not revolve around the mermaids wanting to escape their world. In fact, not only is the warmth and energy of their patriotism palpable, so is the respect and focus with which the author includes descriptions of the seas and its creatures. This warmth and empathy extend to the depiction of one of the central themes of the novels – the strength of friendships.

How could she explain to them what her swashbuckler clothes meant to her? When she looked at them, she didn’t see frays and tears, she saw Sera and Ling eating stew in Lena’s kitchen after Ling had almost been captured by Rafe Mfeme. She saw Becca and Ava in the River Olt, fighting off the rusalka. She saw fierce Astrid battling Abbadon in the Incantarium with only her sword.

And she saw herself – being braver and stronger than she’d ever thought she could be.

The Waterfire Saga shows mermaids who are self-aware, intelligent, vulnerable, loyal and resilient. They are relatable, and if a younger friend or relative of mine was reading this series, I would not be worried about the ideas they might be getting.

Becca was not only good at making things, she was good at making things better. Life in foster homes had taught her that if she waited for someone else to make things better, she’d be waiting a very long time.

Well plotted, well written, well researched and probably created with a lot of enjoyment.

 

 

 

Standard