Review: The Gone World

3 stars. Finally! Returning to work after maternity leave is basically kicking my butt, but I've been slowly chipping away at reading when I can (before my eyes start closing). I should probably stick to exciting thrillers for a while, at least until I can get more than 3 hours of sleep at a time. 

Still, this is a really interesting book. It's an investigative procedural that takes place in a world where traveling to the future (or one of many possible futures) and back (to the present) is possible. But messing with time/space/physics comes with serious consequences - for the travelers and for the world itself. 

Investigator Shannon Moss, a veteran of making the trip, becomes personally tangled in the hunt for a missing girl... a girl whose family was murdered. Eventually it becomes clear that whoever perpetrated the crimes is connected to the different worlds of different timelines, one of which will trigger the end of the world. Or the end of all worlds. Or something.

The Gone World plays around with being too smart for its own good (or maybe just for me). For someone who is not a quantum physicist, it teetered on the brink of being inaccessible. In fact I sort of had to resist the urge to skim after the 50% mark because - despite knowing the importance of every little detail - I felt a little burned out. Still, there are readers out there who will love the technical aspects of this. It’s hard sci-fi for sure. I admire the premise and the impressive world building - despite my occasional confusion, it really earns points there.

I also felt a strange disconnect between myself as the reader and Shannon's emotions. Not sure if I can diagnose it - maybe it's because the author did so much telling instead of showing? Maybe it's his writing style - somewhat dry? It's great that Shannon isn't a perfect, stoic machine. But it was jarring to read about her emotional moments because it felt like they came out of nowhere. I also didn't feel very strongly about Marian. I didn't feel any emotional pulls to her as a victim so I wasn’t really concerned. I was far more interested in the how than the whodunnit of this mystery. Zooming out, I think that’s kind of the point - there aren’t many unpredictable twists in this novel. 

So, not my favorite, but I have no regrets - I’ll probably chew on this story for months to come. I enjoyed reading theories and clarifications online, which helped cement the ending of the story for me. It’s a feat of writing I can’t wrap my head around and will probably be - don't get me wrong, as it should be - regarded as a classic. 

The Gone World on: Amazon | Bookshop.org | Goodreads

Review: Every Dead Thing (Charlie Parker #1)

4 stars. Man, I would love to see this adapted. Can you imagine how gritty the soundtrack would be? There are at least 2 seasons here - I wonder how much it influenced True Detective. There’s just so much potential it’s gross. Can’t wait to dive into the rest of the series.

After the tragic and brutal murder of his wife and child, private detective Charlie Parker takes a case to track down a missing woman connected to a wild crime family. Almost immediately the people orbiting the disappearance begin to die. As he pieces together the clues around the conspiracy, his family’s killer continues to stalk and haunt his every waking - and sleeping - moment.

Charlie Parker is different. Not only does he willingly rely on the help of his friends, he values them. He knows when they need space and respects them for it, and earns their respect in return. He recognizes when he’s out of his depth, he knows he’s a walking mess, and a magnet for danger. But he doesn’t just push people away like your classic baggage-laden detective. He’s haunted (literally), but not just by what or who he’s lost, also by his own choices and actions. He’s pretty self-aware for a grizzly anti-heroic detective.

It took me awhile to read this because it’s kind of dense, and requires close attention to detail. There are a ton of names and faces to remember, anecdotes to recall, and swirling points of context that you’ll blink and miss if you aren’t careful. I went back a lot, mostly to re-read character introductions. Still - all of this is part of why it’s addicting to read. The world building is incredible. So many have said these books need paring down, but what exactly would you cut?

Despite being written by an Irish author, this book feels super American. I have to point that out because it’s not always done so successfully - have you ever encountered a character from Los Angeles, for example, referring to people as “bruv?” Cultural anachronisms abound since the explosion of self publishing. Connolly carefully avoids it.

Sure, it’s a little dated. You can smell it in his descriptions of characters - especially the women. But it’s progressive in other ways. I highly recommend for fans of detective mysteries, noir fiction, and atmospheric thrillers where the setting is a character and the burn is - not slow exactly, but worth savoring and chewing on before swallowing. An excellent beginning.

Every Dead Thing on: Amazon | Bookshop.org | Goodreads

Review: Penance

3 stars. This is a really tough one to rate and review - how much can I attribute to the author, and how much can I attribute to the “author?” Eliza Clark was very obviously trying to say something about reader consumption of true crime stories; about authors and content creators benefiting. As someone who has always been drawn to dark stuff, with what I hope is a handle on properly honoring victims, I’m not sure I totally pulled a clear message. But it’s a cool attempt at something!

This book reads like a nonfiction account of a small town crime - the torture and murder of a teenage girl by three peers. The “author” interviews the victim and the perpetrators’ families, collects their digital footprints, explores local history and folklore, and draws some pretty intense conclusions about how things went down.

There’s no doubt that Eliza Clark captures something here. The age of Tumblr was super specific and any of us who even dipped a toe into the platform will recognize the aesthetics she channels. It’s the weird, broody, stubborn, ferocious sense of teenage entitlement around worship that manifested so potently online back then. It’s the sense of electric possibility you felt - the possibility of acceptance or understanding online where you didn’t get it IRL. The pain when you couldn’t find it. The ick of bending over for it.

The terrible fanfiction she includes stopped me in my tracks - it’s so accurate. But that’s really where the success of this book ended, for me. The opening is terrific, the ending picks up again, but everything in the middle was quite boring. There’s so much detail - am I missing something? It seemed so superfluous. Is that partly the point? I hate to say I was bored, but it fell flat for me. I’m actually not sure if I fully even understand the crime being written about - falsified details or otherwise. I dunno, I’m just… kind of confused.

Still, there are plenty who loved it. It’s worth checking out. Clark is and will continue to be an autobuy for me. I just can’t wrap my head around this one.

Penance on: Amazon | Bookshop.org | Goodreads

Review: The Lighthouse Witches

3 stars. This is a fun one - mystery, thriller, horror all wrapped up in an easy box with a supernatural bow. While I think maybe there were too many threads woven into the tapestry, it still illustrates a pretty entertaining picture at the end of the day. I loved the folklore angle and the setting, and the twists and turns kept me paying attention.

The core of it involves Liv Stay and her three daughters, who arrive in a small
Scottish town in 1998 so Liv can paint a mural in the local historical lighthouse. The town is welcoming enough and strongly superstitious - which makes sense considering all the strange events involving missing and reappearing children that happen there. In 2021, one of the daughters is forced to reconcile with her past and is drawn back to try to sort through it all. There’s also a grimoire, witchy neighbors, dodgy locals, a cave, a shark. runes, a cute plasterer with hunches, and a mysterious lighthouse owner. And pop tarts.

I don’t know quite how to explain this, but I wish it went darker. There are some really dark elements but they don’t really land in a disturbing way… like, it tries to be dark, and there are some graphic moments, but I just wanted to pat the book on its head and say that’s adorable, bless your heart. Which is saying something, because the Scottish witch trials exemplify the darkest, blackest, most awful damage humanity can inflict upon itself. I dunno, the stakes just never felt super high, and there were so many things going on.

So many things: a lot of characters, and subplots, and entanglements; relationships to remember and interactions to keep track of. Some of the details were great, some of them felt superfluous. I’m not convinced the teenagers were written realistically (a very hard thing to be fair), but the kids were pretty cute.

Overall, I liked it. I enjoyed the mystery aspect the most, and I’d love to check out more by this author, who clearly knows her way around an intriguing premise / puzzle. This would make a great beach read.

The Lighthouse Witches on: Amazon | Bookshop.org | Goodreads

Review: The Ancestor

2 stars. Oh dear, I hate to say it: I thought this was kind of lame. A great premise - and there's definitely an audience for this sort of thing - but not for me. It kind of felt like a monster-of-the-week episode of X-Files or Supernatural with a little extra padding. There were elements of a scientific or anthropological thriller, like something from Michael Crichton or Dan Brown, and elements of a gothic horror novel, but nothing came together successfully. This is just a really strange book, start to finish.

Our heroine is Alberta, who is whisked away to Italy after discovering that she is the last heir to the estate of an ancient European noble family. She is told this by a handsome and lawyerly visitor, who promptly disappears from the story completely along with her estranged husband. Upon arriving at her isolated castle in the mountains, Alberta realizes there's more to this inheritance than money and legal documents: the household staff seems kind of secretive and hostile, there are rumors of a family curse, and maybe at one point there was some sort of beast wandering around stealing children from the village. Some of her relatives are alive, BTW. And she can't leave?

It just... gets even more ridiculous from there. And sure, ridiculous isn't necessarily bad. Ridiculous can be fun, and campy, and gripping. This was just strange. A lot of my eye-rolling was in reaction to the character of Alberta herself - I couldn't relate to her at all. Sure, I can't relate to every single protagonist I've ever read, but this girl would literally run dramatically from the least dramatic situations, and somehow things like murder, kidnapping, and being shot not only didn't really phase her - she found ways to justify and accept them. Very odd.

But the story itself - I think in the name of found family (one of my favorite themes) - also does some bizarre sidestepping, around incest and self-isolation and infliction of harm. There are stunning, boggling displays of self-righteousness and colonialist mindset, and some of the plot developments are really ... random. Not that books need to follow traditional narrative arcs, but any chance of emotional investment was destroyed pretty early on, so every "twist" got kind of a "huh" from me. I have to mention I'm still a little unclear about the antagonists here (like the who, the what, the why). 

The latest wave of hand wringing over reviews and Goodreads and reader response has hit the shore, so once again I'd like to declare: I've never written a book. It seems really hard. I'd be terrible at it. Also, this "review" is not professional, nor is it meant for the author or anyone who worked on the publication of this book. Just my thoughts, just my reaction to it. So if you're a prospective reader, just do your homework. Maybe you'll love it! Maybe you'll find this book spooky and surprising and satisfying. I did not.

The Ancestor on: Amazon | Bookshop.org | Goodreads

Review: The Devil Aspect

4 stars. I'm all over the place with this one - on the one hand, I found the first half pretty bland and boring. On the other hand, I'm 9 months pregnant (which means almost anything could put me to sleep), and I just finished Swan Song, one of the most entertaining epics ever written. At times I was like, is this not really predictable, and cheesy? And at other times I was like, just one more chapter... just one more page... couldn't put it down. Sometimes the writing felt borderline pretentious, other times it was beautiful, cozy, dark... I should also mention that the political backdrop felt extra terrifying thanks to current events. Overall, I have to give it a good rating, because I have absolutely zero regrets reading it and would recommend it.

Craig Russell's The Devil Aspect takes place in Czechoslovakia in the mid-30s, where a young psychiatrist named Viktor takes a position at an isolated asylum in a rural castle. His goal is to examine, and hopefully treat, the "Devil's Six," a notorious group of criminals imprisoned for committing particularly violent crimes. As he settles in and conducts his studies, however, he uncovers more than the darkness within his patients: in nearby Prague, women are being murdered in the style of Jack the Ripper; in the castle's small village, children are going missing; his own friend Filip is slipping into depression; and he feels somewhat haunted in the medieval castle and its surrounding forest. 

It all comes to a head in a super maniacal, destructive, villainous way. Though maybe more of a dark thriller than a horror novel, there are some truly creepy moments well-placed throughout the narrative. Russell clearly did his research, so the scientific aspects ring true, but he writes with a respect and reverence for the folklore of his setting, creating some really rich, delicious, supernatural layers. This book screams to be read by the fire, during a blizzard, under the blanket, with a beer. It is just that gothic and atmospheric and vibe-y.

I can totally see why this is so popular, and I'm looking forward to chewing on it, now that I can see the big picture, so to speak. My first by Craig Russell, but it definitely won't be my last. 

The Devil Aspect on: Amazon | Bookshop.org | Goodreads

Review: The Paleontologist

4 stars. This totally snuck up on me - I'm just about to hit my third trimester, and it's the busiest time of year at work - so I read the first portion of this book half-asleep. But by the end I was genuinely loving it. It checks a lot of boxes: a compelling mystery, a museum setting, archeological digs, DINOSAUR GHOSTS?! plus throw in sort of a... prehistoric treasure hunt, some exhibition design, evil pottery?! I'm all in. Though not as complex or thrilling as a Pendergast novel, I think fans of Preston and Child's series will enjoy this very much.

Dr. Simon Nealy has just taken a job at Pennsylvania's Hawthorne Museum of Natural History, despite a horrific personal connection to the space: it's where his younger, half-sister was abducted decades ago. As he acquaints himself with his new place of work - smack dab in the middle of the covid pandemic - Simon begins to unravel the museum's dark past, revealing ties to his sister's case, dark cover-ups, a shadowy conspiracy... and threats to his own life. 

There's so much more here - themes of trauma, privilege, addiction, grief, guilt, fear, and the connection between past and present - and Dumas weaves all of this into the central narrative deftly. Sure, it's a little cheesy at some points (okay, really cheesy), maybe the author tried to pack a little too much in, but it never feels preachy. The villain is a bit cartoonish... the whole climax/victory felt a bit like the end of a Scooby Doo episode - in fact, the whole book could've been an episode of X-Files - but that's not a criticism. In this case, it's passionate praise.

I hope this is the start of a series! I loved Simon, and he makes a really endearing paleontologist slash doctor slash detective slash hero. I liked the thread that touched on him seeking reassurance from his previous partner, an unfortunate symptom of his trauma. He's kind of weird and goofy and charming and I would love to see him tackle a monster-per-book. The minor characters, too - well-done. Nobody felt forced, out-of-place, totally in service of the plot, or try-hard. It was just really great worldbuilding. 

I also really appreciated the horror. The audacity of that premise! To present some of the more eerie plot elements without even a sniff of self-consciousness or insecurity, avoiding the urge to over-explain or intellectualize... I enjoyed letting it all unfold and wash over me. It was delightful. I appreciated it. 

One thing I'll add: I myself have spent 10 years in nonprofit development, lol. How should I react to Fran's character? Do I take offense? Do I look in the mirror? Do I laugh? Do I rejoice in her triumphs? A little bit of all of the above? Listen, it's an incredibly challenging job/sector - but we all make our choices, and someone has to do it. In the end Fran's arc was one of my favorite things about the book.

I dunno - a lot of reviewers should (and do) acknowledge when a book isn't bad, it's just being read at the wrong place, wrong time for them. This might be one of those cases of right place, right time... but I think I'll stand by it. I had a lot of fun.

The Paleontologist on: Amazon | Bookshop.org | Goodreads

Review: I Remember You

3 stars. I really treasure Scandinavian noir - especially mysteries/thrillers set in Iceland. I've been twice and - at the risk of offending any locals - feel very at home there. And yes, it really does present a perfect backdrop to explore the dark side of humanity. Unfortunately, this one didn't really capture me the way I was hoping it would - I'll get into why, but it doesn't mean I don't recommend it - it's obviously a successful contribution to the genre. 

I Remember You weaves together two tales: 1) that of a married couple who travel to an isolated village with their widowed friend to fix up an old house, and 2) that of a psychiatrist investigating the vandalism of a school that is seemingly connected to the disappearance of his young son. The main players in both stories have disturbing supernatural experiences that unravel clues and push revelations with devastating consequences for everyone involved.

Pros: the setting - omg - I just love it. Such a unique type of remoteness out there in Iceland, especially in winter. Some of the spooky moments are very well done, invoking imagery just begging for adaptation. The ending, as well, really took things to a place I admire. That final page almost had me forgiving some of the things I didn't enjoy.

Cons: predictable. Unlikeable characters - and not the crunchy, interesting kind - the bland, annoying kind. Perhaps one too many narrative elements/connections, many of which had me sort of scratching my head trying to piece things together. I practically skimmed a lot of it... I just wasn't hooked. I couldn't concentrate on it.

I would recommend this as a bridge between Scandi noir/crime thrillers and horror. It's gateway scary - maybe a little amateurish. But that doesn't mean it's bad; only that I'm maybe not the right audience. Still, I found myself wishing for a lot more here. 

I Remember You on: Amazon | Bookshop.org | Goodreads

Review: Old Bones (Nora Kelly #1)

3 stars. Nora Kelly has grown from her Utah days, and so did these authors. This one is much shorter, punchier, and to the point than the previous two NK books, but it also, IMO, lacks a lot of the warmth and soul as well. It's very procedure-y (from both a detective/mystery standpoint and an archeological one), and somehow makes the fascinating legends surrounding a truly crazy, horrific true story dry as a bone (lol).

Nora returns to her Institute in Santa Fe after the loss of her husband. She's approached by a historian who wants her to lead an expedition to find the Lost Camp of the ill-fated Donner Party. Everything - the trip out, the initial excavation, the discovery of the camp and the bones left there - is straightforward. Until, of course, it isn't, and new bodies start turning up. Also - there's treasure!

It should have hooked me. All the ingredients are there. The Donner Party is one of my favorite rabbit holes. I enjoy a crunchy, contained crime spree with insane motivations. I love treasure. But this just wasn't my favorite. I never became emotionally invested in any of the characters - not Corrie Swanson (I have a hard enough time proving myself in the workplace IRL), not Clive Benton, not Peel or Maggie or the other hollow members of the team, not Nora Kelly. It felt rushed. It felt a little like reading Dan Brown. The heart just wasn't there.

Still - I basically couldn't put it down. This style of writing here is so, so refreshing to me. Straightforward, intentional, precise. I really loved that aspect and I look forward to continuing on with the series. The plot drives you onward as needed and there are even a few appearances by beloved characters from past encounters. If you're a fan, go for it. Slightly disappointed but I have zero regrets. 

Old Bones on: Amazon | Bookshop.org | Goodreads

Review: The Cabinet of Curiosities

4 stars. I am INTO THESE BOOKS. Surprise of the year and I couldn't be happier about it. I'm about to buy the rest in the Nora Kelly series and see where I land after that in the giant Pendergast Universe. So glad there are so many to choose from! I loved how different this was from Thunderhead, with similar history-mystery-mysterious-museum-archeological vibes. (These books remind me of the National Treasure movies, my favorite of all time, so keep in mind I am someone who would be super into them. Right up my alley.)

This one takes place in New York, after a giant pit of bones turns up at a construction site. FBI Special Agent Pendergast takes a special interest in the case, and involves Nora Kelly and her journalist boyfriend, Bill Smithback. Kelly is now working at the New York Museum of Natural History and becomes embroiled in a tangled web of politics, that very specific NY-style of greed, jurisdiction fights, workplace pitfalls and - unfortunately, the biggest threat of all: MURDER. 

Okay - that's a terrible summary. But these books actually go really deep. They're complex! There are multiple characters with multiple motivations and POVs. There are a lot of conflicting themes and clues and avenues for our heroes to investigate, and somehow - though they are racing against the clock - it feels like they take their time. It's a hearty narrative, one you can really sink your teeth into. And no part of it felt sloppy or lazy or worth skipping.

I was a little disappointed with the final "twist" (there were a few too many "reveals," I think) but I was totally glued to the page as the action ramped up and the stakes got REALLY high. I can only double down on my admiration of these authors and I'm so excited to have something that's perfect to read on a plane, on a train, on the beach, while brushing my teeth because I can't look away... 

The Cabinet of Curiosities on: Amazon | Bookshop.org | Goodreads