The Curse of Morton Abbey is a quick and lowkey gothic tale that managed to keep me entertained though it failed to leave a lasting impression.
Look, IThe Curse of Morton Abbey is a quick and lowkey gothic tale that managed to keep me entertained though it failed to leave a lasting impression.
Look, I'm not your biggest gothic literature reader. I haven't even read Rebecca (shocker, I know!) or Jane Eyre (yes, yes, I'm aware of my shortcomings). Being a relatively inexperienced reader in gothic tales meant that I didn't have any expectations when it came to this book. I knew a friend of mine read it and rated it five stars, so I gave it a try!
1897: Vaughan Springthorpe is nearing her 30th birthday, and even though she's a trained solicitor and worked in her father's office up until his death, she doesn't have much more to show for. Unmarried and without a permanent position, she takes up Peter Spencer's offer to organise the sale of his crumbling estate of Morton Abbey. The offer seems too good to be true, and sure enough, as soon as Vaughan arrives at Morton, strange things are starting to occur. Gunshots in the night, eerie crying echoing through the walls, and even Netherton, the nearby village, seems too perfect, too beautiful to be true. Together with the handsome gardener Joe Dixon and Nicolas Spencer, her employer's perfectly irritable invalid brother, Vaughan sets out to solve the mystery of Morton Abbey.
The novel wastes no time in throwing you head-first into the plot. While the first chapter is spent telling the readers how conceited Vaughan's sisters are and that her mum's a bully who thinks that the best for Vaughan would be to marry and forget about all her professional ambitions, the second chapter already sets the mood with Vaughan's arrival at the Abbey. I enjoyed how fast-paced the beginning was. Given that the main character's mother and sisters don't play a role in this story, I think it was wise that the author decided not to waste any more time on them and instead shifted the narrative to focus on the Abbey, its inhabitants and immediate inhabitants surroundings.
The cast of characters in this book is minimal. It's easy to keep track of them though I wish that because there wasn't an extensive cast of characters, they had been more fleshed out and less one-dimensional. When Vaughan arrives, she learns that her employer isn't actually at the Abbey but overseas. Living or working at Morton are only the butler, the cook, the gardener Joe Dixon and Nicolas Spencer, Peter Spencer's brother and a sick man who mostly keeps to the confines of his bed. While Joe and Nicolas were given space to develop, I found the characters of the butler and the cook very bland. They could have been much better developed.
The gothic elements themselves were present, and there was enough of a mystery to keep me hooked. I did want to find out what was going on and find out the solution to all the mysterious things that were happening. Still, gothic tales should be as much about atmospheric writing as about mysterious happenings. Sadly, the book lacked the gothic atmosphere I was hoping for. It just didn't give me the haunted, weird, creepy, spooky vibes I was looking for. The book was a bit too stale in that respect.
I also agree with Chevy in saying that the novel could have done much more regarding visuals. I wish we had had a more extensive description of what Vaughan and the others looked like. Vaughan's lame leg/foot was often mentioned, and I appreciate the representation. I'm not disabled, so I can't speak for or on behalf of the character or the disabled community. Still, I think the author was quite good in describing how Vaughan's disability affects her, how she sees herself and how she perceives others based on their reaction to her disability.
What annoyed me most, however, was the romance. Don't get me wrong, I'm a sucker for slow-burn romances, but I detest enemies to lovers. The first part of the book makes you believe that Vaughan will end up with one character, while in the second half of the book, it becomes clear that she is interested in another character. I don't read haters to lovers, uh, enemies to lovers, so I can't really comment on whether it was well done or not.
However, I can comment on the slow-burn relationship introduced between Vaughan and that one other character. As soon as she realises his feelings for him, she's suddenly "so in love", can't stop thinking about him, and even though it's Victorian England and she was raised as a lady who should know better, she's not only ready to (view spoiler)[become his mistress but sleep with him as soon as the chance arises (hide spoiler)]. I'm not a stickler for historical accuracy but this grated on me. Suddenly everything between those two happened really fast, which was a bit of a buzz-kill. There is also the fact that this was (view spoiler)[an age-difference relationship (12 years, I think) (hide spoiler)] which I don't mind in real-life but loathe in fiction.
If I were someone to rate books alone on enjoyment, this novel would have probably bagged 4 stars. I just couldn't see past all the above issues, and I'm certain I will forget about this read in due time. Despite all this, it's not a bad book, and given that I read the first half within a single afternoon, I was still entertained.
Merged review:
The Curse of Morton Abbey is a quick and lowkey gothic tale that managed to keep me entertained though it failed to leave a lasting impression.
Look, I'm not your biggest gothic literature reader. I haven't even read Rebecca (shocker, I know!) or Jane Eyre (yes, yes, I'm aware of my shortcomings). Being a relatively inexperienced reader in gothic tales meant that I didn't have any expectations when it came to this book. I knew a friend of mine read it and rated it five stars, so I gave it a try!
1897: Vaughan Springthorpe is nearing her 30th birthday, and even though she's a trained solicitor and worked in her father's office up until his death, she doesn't have much more to show for. Unmarried and without a permanent position, she takes up Peter Spencer's offer to organise the sale of his crumbling estate of Morton Abbey. The offer seems too good to be true, and sure enough, as soon as Vaughan arrives at Morton, strange things are starting to occur. Gunshots in the night, eerie crying echoing through the walls, and even Netherton, the nearby village, seems too perfect, too beautiful to be true. Together with the handsome gardener Joe Dixon and Nicolas Spencer, her employer's perfectly irritable invalid brother, Vaughan sets out to solve the mystery of Morton Abbey.
The novel wastes no time in throwing you head-first into the plot. While the first chapter is spent telling the readers how conceited Vaughan's sisters are and that her mum's a bully who thinks that the best for Vaughan would be to marry and forget about all her professional ambitions, the second chapter already sets the mood with Vaughan's arrival at the Abbey. I enjoyed how fast-paced the beginning was. Given that the main character's mother and sisters don't play a role in this story, I think it was wise that the author decided not to waste any more time on them and instead shifted the narrative to focus on the Abbey, its inhabitants and immediate inhabitants surroundings.
The cast of characters in this book is minimal. It's easy to keep track of them though I wish that because there wasn't an extensive cast of characters, they had been more fleshed out and less one-dimensional. When Vaughan arrives, she learns that her employer isn't actually at the Abbey but overseas. Living or working at Morton are only the butler, the cook, the gardener Joe Dixon and Nicolas Spencer, Peter Spencer's brother and a sick man who mostly keeps to the confines of his bed. While Joe and Nicolas were given space to develop, I found the characters of the butler and the cook very bland. They could have been much better developed.
The gothic elements themselves were present, and there was enough of a mystery to keep me hooked. I did want to find out what was going on and find out the solution to all the mysterious things that were happening. Still, gothic tales should be as much about atmospheric writing as about mysterious happenings. Sadly, the book lacked the gothic atmosphere I was hoping for. It just didn't give me the haunted, weird, creepy, spooky vibes I was looking for. The book was a bit too stale in that respect.
I also agree with Chevy in saying that the novel could have done much more regarding visuals. I wish we had had a more extensive description of what Vaughan and the others looked like. Vaughan's lame leg/foot was often mentioned, and I appreciate the representation. I'm not disabled, so I can't speak for or on behalf of the character or the disabled community. Still, I think the author was quite good in describing how Vaughan's disability affects her, how she sees herself and how she perceives others based on their reaction to her disability.
What annoyed me most, however, was the romance. Don't get me wrong, I'm a sucker for slow-burn romances, but I detest enemies to lovers. The first part of the book makes you believe that Vaughan will end up with one character, while in the second half of the book, it becomes clear that she is interested in another character. I don't read haters to lovers, uh, enemies to lovers, so I can't really comment on whether it was well done or not.
However, I can comment on the slow-burn relationship introduced between Vaughan and that one other character. As soon as she realises his feelings for him, she's suddenly "so in love", can't stop thinking about him, and even though it's Victorian England and she was raised as a lady who should know better, she's not only ready to (view spoiler)[become his mistress but sleep with him as soon as the chance arises (hide spoiler)]. I'm not a stickler for historical accuracy but this grated on me. Suddenly everything between those two happened really fast, which was a bit of a buzz-kill. There is also the fact that this was (view spoiler)[an age-difference relationship (12 years, I think) (hide spoiler)] which I don't mind in real-life but loathe in fiction.
If I were someone to rate books alone on enjoyment, this novel would have probably bagged 4 stars. I just couldn't see past all the above issues, and I'm certain I will forget about this read in due time. Despite all this, it's not a bad book, and given that I read the first half within a single afternoon, I was still entertained....more
I’d say that if you truly want to know me, all you have to do is think of that creepy clown from IT luring children into the sewers with nothing but aI’d say that if you truly want to know me, all you have to do is think of that creepy clown from IT luring children into the sewers with nothing but a couple of fucking balloons except my clown is the publishing industry and my balloons are pretty covers. I am superficial like that and yet, my superficiality doesn’t even come close to matching this novel’s shallow attempt at unravelling a topic as timely, important, and affecting as sexual abuse and the entertainment industry’s decade-long involvement in it.
Because I know there are enough fools out there who would confuse my negative rating of this novel with a negative opinion of the themes themselves, I want to clarify: I support the #metoo movement though I’m aware of its mistakes, I will always rather believe an SA survivor than accused perpetrators, and, regarding the topic of sexual abuse, you can definitely miss me with the “innocent until proven guilty” bs.
Now that is out of the way, I gotta say that I have no idea why this book has come out now, in 2024, two to three years after the #metoo movement has gloriously failed to achieve most of the things it set out to do. The whole novel felt so stale, so tired, it doesn’t contribute anything new to the picture, its writing is unadventurous, undaring, and weak, and though it tries hard, it comes across as one-dimensional and flat, conveying its ambitious message linking the blackout sex rape of a twenty-something PR specialist by the most famous man on the planet to celebrity culture, sexism, and consent in a way that is neither smart nor entertaining.
The novel feels TIRED. Yes, it’s set in 2017, just shortly before the NYT Weinstein article broke, yes, as a society we still place too much faith in celebrities and some of us, after all this time, find a pathological sort of joy in maintaining parasocial relationships with celebrities who literally couldn’t care less, but this novel came out right in the middle of the blockout 2024 movement that saw millions of everyday social media users block celebrities over their silence on Gaza and Palestine, and as such, it didn’t add anything to add to my already disillusioned, realistic imagination of the entertainment industry’s depravity. Yeah, Hollywood is a shithole and so is the entire entertainment industry, tell me something I don’t know ...more
On the surface, it’s girl meets printer. On a deeper level, [image]
See, I get that every single character in this novel being nameless is a metaphor fOn the surface, it’s girl meets printer. On a deeper level, [image]
See, I get that every single character in this novel being nameless is a metaphor for capitalism because working in a capitalist society that sees you as just another cog in the machine will rob you of your identity, steal your time and energy, and sap you of your creativity, making you just another mindless drone.
I get that a young woman entering a deeply intimate yet platonic relationship with a printer is a metaphor for capitalism because in a hell hole of a society bent on constant optimisation and continuous profit-seeking, genuine human relationships are impossible since they become yet another commodity and are measured in gain and return.
I get that the nameless protagonist spending half the novel chasing after a package that, in the end, is still left unopened is a metaphor because late-stage capitalism has us perform meaningless jobs, that contribute virtually nothing to society, to instil the impression of productivity and protestant work ethic.
I get all that, and in a novel less intent on cramming so many topics and themes into a mere 250 pages, I can even see some of these metaphors working beautifully, even if they’re a bit on the nose (which hasn’t stopped one or two reviewers from still missing the point by miles). But Hard Copy doesn’t stop there. Somehow, it also wants to tackle the lie of social upward mobility, misogyny in and outside the workplace, violence against women, classism, and violence as an immediate result of being forced to stay in poverty.
Thusly, the main protagonist not only comes from a working-class background, but she also experienced childhood negligence, was acquaintances with a girl who was raped and as a result became pregnant when they were teenagers, encountered teenage gang violence, and faces continuous covert and overt misogyny at the workplace.
Naturally, there are thousands and thousands of women out there in the real world who exist at and live in these intersectional margins that influence their identity and sense of self, so writing a character who is similarly complex, thereby calling attention to the very real issues too many women from disadvantaged backgrounds face, should not be the issue here, on the contrary. But the novel just doesn’t manage to braid these different strands into a cohesive narrative.
I don’t have much to say about the writing style (which I can’t properly judge anyway since I didn’t read the novel in the original but Hester Velman's translation) except that there was this one passage:
People swat fruit flies, but even fruit flies have nightmares (and good dreams too, as it happens: even a fly needs to escape reality).
No live organism can continue for long to exist under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream.
All chapters are told from the nameless protagonist’s perspective except for one chapter towards the end of the book in which the printer takes over and tells its story. On the one hand, it’s unique to give an inanimate object a voice and let it tell a story but on the other hand, Challengers (2023) gave us a tennis ball’s POV shot this year so, there’s that.
All in all, my reading experience was a rather unsatisfying one. I wish, I could have enjoyed this more.
As always, thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for granting me an ARC in exchange for an honest review....more
A book so surprisingly mediocre I’m having trouble even formulating something resembling a proper review. Was this good? Not really. Was it bad? Not rA book so surprisingly mediocre I’m having trouble even formulating something resembling a proper review. Was this good? Not really. Was it bad? Not really.
Probably the most “it’s just there” novel I’ve read all year, despite the fact that it promises to deliver on so many fronts: Mexico City in the 90s, two bisexual best friends protagonists, magic come to life, film production and editing, throw in some runes and the attempt of a cultish resurrection, and you’d think you got yourselves a five star read.
Alas, no. What ended up working best for me was the overall setting and atmosphere. Moreno-Garcia evidently knows her history of horror movies and does not only transport you to humid Mexico City with its tiny cafes, small bars, and graffitied street walls, but she effortlessly blends fact with fiction by mixing evidently well-researched details on the history of Mexican cinema, including, but not limited to, references to famous directors, auteurs, and films with based-on-true-events characters. Montserrat being a talented, though because all her co-workers are men, overlooked, sound editor paired with her fascination for horror films served as a believable starting point to warrant the character’s interest in the horror director’s life and the mystery surrounding his unfinished movie.
At times, and especially in the beginning, the (what I’m sure was carefully researched) information came across as info-dumping which, combined with a general telling instead of showing attitude, made the novel drag out unnecessarily long. There is just so much information about irrelevant secondary characters and their backstory and it is all rendered inconsequential even before the final show-down. I read it and forgot about it.
The whole story meandered more than it purposefully walked. While the build-up in the novel’s first half might have been slow, it was THERE (though you do have to fight through some heavy exposition). After the thing that acts as a catalyst happens around the 50% mark, the pacing fell apart for me. So much so that even during the finale, arguably the novel’s tensest scenes, I put the book down to mindlessly scroll through Pinterest. Any fiction novel, but especially one categorised as horror, should have me not wanting to take my eyes off the page from around 80% until the ending. I was sorely missing any lack of urgency that was always blotted out by very detailed, focused zoom-in descriptions of either one of the two main characters’ actions.
Even as someone so far removed from literary horror as I am, I was getting mild spooks at best and yes, everyone’s experience of horror is subjective and just because I wasn’t horrified doesn’t make this not horror, but go into this book with expectations based on any King novel and you’ll be sorely disappointed. I can’t really pinpoint what exactly went wrong but I’d put it down to the novel being more about horror than be horror as well as a general lack of suspense during the third act.
Last but not least, don’t read this if you can’t handle realistic depictions of friendship and/or romantic relationships! I say this since I’ve seen some people say this was the “worst romance” they’d ever read, rightly noticing that the guy is a “self-centered, egotistical prick” like, yeah, most people are a bit self-centered at their core and most real-life friendships and relationships can occasionally be toxic, people can have really mean internal thoughts (even about their friends), and most romantic relationships are definitely not like in the movies or in the books of Emily Henry!! I’d much rather have Tristán and Montserrat be a bit messy, not have their lives completely together, and not be the perfect romantic partner than represent some idealised version of two people in love.
Wanted to love this more than I did. Also wanted to hate this more than I do. Overall, my feelings towards this novel are neither here nor there. Will have forgotten about it by the end of the year, if not sooner....more
Believe me when I say I so wish I could have liked this more. When I was approved for an e-arc that I requested based on the very basic premise of thiBelieve me when I say I so wish I could have liked this more. When I was approved for an e-arc that I requested based on the very basic premise of this novel being a queer sapphic retelling of a Greek myth, I was HOOKED, but this was such a disappointment that I’m having trouble finding anything positive to say about it apart from the fact that it exists.
I’m not the biggest Greek Mythology fan out there, I didn’t know the original myth before diving into this novel, but I do know that I will always be here for a queer retelling of ANYTHING. As a queer reader myself, keeping a balance between “I’m just glad this queer story exists no matter how good or bad” and “telling queer stories isn’t an end in itself, they need to accomplish something” isn’t easy. This novel will, for some people, undoubtedly be exactly what they needed and have always looked for, and that’s great, but I wish it had at least been GOOD.
I know taste and enjoyment are subjective, but I buddy-read this with a friend of mine and we were both in agreement that this book is severely lacking in almost every major department, including writing (style), plot, and dialogue.
PSA: I received a digital reader advanced copy of this novel and can’t say what changes this will go through before being published. However, while it’s very likely that small details will change, I don’t think the writing style will.
If there is one thing I will forever do it’s comparing every Greek Mythology retelling to The Song of Achilles. It’s unfair, it’s biased, but I can’t help it. Madeline Miller set a gold standard that many writers will struggle to achieve. However, when comparing De Robertis’s writing to Miller’s, it falls flat on its nose. Where Miller’s prose is just the right shade short of purple, De Robertis’s takes elaborate and flowery to a whole new level. Similes follow metaphors follow too luscious imagery follows hyperboles on every page, constantly, so that the plot itself, the words’ meaning is completely lost, and needs to be uncovered before one can even attempt to understand it.
There are nuggets of gold to be found, for sure:
“All of time collapses in the immediacy of desire.”
“Those of us who’ve been broken have more shards inside us than we know – and who among us has not been broken, as women in this world?”
there is something so metal about Robert Thorogood initially wanting to write a “The Marlow Murder Club” TV series which everyone rejected, only to dethere is something so metal about Robert Thorogood initially wanting to write a “The Marlow Murder Club” TV series which everyone rejected, only to decide to publish the story as a novel, which then became so successful it was turned into a TV series after all. First and foremost, you gotta respect the hustle.
Naturally, I was curious to see how the series’ first book that I enjoyed so much would play out on screen and while the series is entertaining, though unremarkable, I now cannot help but view the books through an entirely new lens. Once you know this story was originally created and written for TV, you cannot help but notice all the signs pointing towards it, no more so than in Thorogood’s newest entry into the Marlow verse, The Queen of Poisons.
This time, Marlow’s idyllic peace is disturbed by a murder no one can explain. It’s not only the how, but the why that puzzles Judith, Suzie and Becks. After all, who would have wanted to kill Geoffrey Lushington, Marlow’s affable mayor who was beloved by all and hated by none? When traces of aconite – also known as the queen of poisons – are found in his coffee cup, they and the police realise they’re dealing with a stone-cold killer who will do anything to avoid being found.
The crime is set, the team is back together, and I was primed to enjoy the heck out of this murder mystery and yet… everywhere I looked I stumbled over signs just how much better this would have worked as a TV script and how much this was written with one in mind. There’s a scene in which Judith and Suzie are face-timing each other when Judith accidentally uses one of those animal filters which leads to half a page of banter about how hilarious Suzie finds Judith talking to her whilst wearing giraffe face.
This scene SCREAMS television so much so that it made it into the TV adaptation of the first book, making me question just how invested the author still is in writing these novels rather than just developing his stories for the screen and afterwards putting the same scenes into his books, killing two birds with one stone whilst only putting the work in once. There’s rather a lot of telling instead of showing going on, and I can imagine much of the humour would translate so much better on screen than it does here.
The overall plot is unfortunately a bit draggy, with many of the characters’ decisions feeling like plot devices. The story lacked a natural flow, especially since 90% of it is the trio running around Marlow, going from interviewing one suspect to the next, then regrouping, finding out a fact that sheds new light on one of the suspects they had previously discounted. Then Judith says something like: “There’s one way to find out. We should ask her, don’t you think?” or “I think we need to talk to him, don’t you?” at the end of a chapter and off the women are to interview one of their previous suspects. It’s a pity the story essentially isn’t more than that because the three women could not be more different and it’s their character dynamic that really brings these stories to life.
While I think that Tanika’s decision to bring on the team as civil instigators served to make the narrative of three women sticking their noses into everybody’s business and running around questioning suspects a bit more believable, it also led to some of the spice missing that in previous books was so wonderfully created by the ladies’ continuous run-ins with the police.
Running parallel to the murder plot are several minor side plots that are concerned with further developing the main trio to a lesser success than I would have liked. Suzie is given another side hustle so utterly ridiculous, it begs to question whether it does anything at all for her character development. It does, however, provide the beginning of her turning over a new leaf so that’s that. Similarly, Becks does not only have to deal with the murder case but with an entitled and posh mother-in-law, a side plot neither responsible for laughs nor good storytelling, merely serving to pad out the murder plot, while also “making it a bit about the people in it”.
I found the story lacking in much of what I had previously enjoyed about the series’ first two instalments and I would be content not to get another Marlow Murder Club for a while if it meant Thorogood putting all his focus on getting a second tv season off the ground.
As always, thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for granting me an ARC in exchange for an honest review....more
— 3.5 stars It’s been a long time, and I have been all too silent about this issue, but I’m here now, taking accountability and speaking my truth:
I’m — 3.5 stars It’s been a long time, and I have been all too silent about this issue, but I’m here now, taking accountability and speaking my truth:
I’m not a true crime podcast girlie. I’m just not. I’m a podcast girlie but never in my life have I listened to a single true-crime podcast episode in its entirety. I started watching Mindhunter, a fictional account of actual true crimes and stomached all but two episodes. I can’t even tell you what compelled me to pick this one up except for the EXQUISITE cover. But here I am: I enjoyed this, probably just because “Listen for the Lie” is a novel about true-crime, podcasters and a woman society condemned to be a murderer, for people who don’t like true crime stories.
One of the reasons I have always been put off by this specific genre and way of storytelling is the questionable ethics that through Netflix’s Jeffrey Dahmer series have now become part of a wider discourse that rightly questions the way true-crime stories are unearthed, told, and circulated.
The rather brilliant thing about Amy Tintera’s adult debut novel is that it manages to circumvent those issues and put a twist on what already feels like a formulaic genre, creating a fresh entry in the very saturated female slasher/woman at the centre of a murder/true-crime canon by centring the woman everyone suspects has murdered her best friends and only pretends to have forgotten everything about that night as the main character.
Yes, the amnesia trope is an old one, but the novel manages to not turn it into a stale piece of bread by constructing the narrative around the POV of Lucy, a deeply sarcastic, scarred, untrusting woman, who, five years after the murder of her best friend Savvy, has tried to move on, literally and figuratively, by leaving her Texan small-town life behind, moving to LA to start a new life. With the advent of the second season of a new successful true-crime podcast and its host, Ben, digging into her past in the hopes of solving the murder of Savvy, Lucy is forced to return to the place and people where everything began.
The narrative unfolds in short, snappy chapters that alternate between Lucy’s POV and transcripts from Ben’s podcast interviews with family members, friends, acquaintances of Lucy and other villagers. What spices things up is the little voice in Lucy’s head that, even after years of therapy, can’t be silenced and that continuously suggests numerous ways in which to kill the various people in her life, from her soon-to-be ex-boyfriend to her father to the man grocery shopping for avocados in aisle seven. Lucy’s missing memories from the night the murder took place are only gradually returning throughout the book and together with her VOICE, are responsible for keeping the readers guessing if maybe she did murder her best friend after all.
Aside from Lucy and Ben, who, due to their constant presence throughout the novel very much deserve to be called its main characters, there’s a stack of witnesses and potential suspects that continue cropping up here and there, making appearances on the podcast as well as in Lucy’s POVs once she’s back in the town she once called her home. Amy Tintera manages to juggle all of them, and every character feels relevant and crucial to the story. Most interesting to read aside from Lucy’s thoughts were the characters’ testimonies, as I was really engaged in trying to catch them red-handed in the act of lying.
While the overall mystery, the suspense arc, and the characters are handled well, the writing was at times just a wee bit too millennial for my taste. The novel opens with Lucy getting fired, leading her to “making apology chicken”.
“Monday morning, I run extra miles on the treadmill in the gym at Nathan’s complex, and then head to the grocery store because I need to tell my feelings to chocolate. Lots of chocolate.”
“Tiny houses are very hip. Millennials love them.” “You’re not a Millennial.” She shrugs once, a shrug that would make Arya Stark proud.
“You read romance novels?” “Well, no, these were my first, but maybe I should read more because they were very exciting. I liked the one with the couple that pretended to be married best.” “Why?” “Apparently I enjoy a good fake-marriage trope.”
I mean, it’s not bad, but I can smell the millennial vibes coming off these passages from MILES.
Besides being an entertaining true crime murder mystery mashup, the novel tackles themes such as domestic abuse, sexual assault, rape, gender-based violence, and the portrayal of all these topics through and in the media, which it manages to do successfully, with one exception:
Lucy and her grandma (who is a scene stealer, by the way!) are weighing Lucy’s options, discussing the pros and cons of working with Ben to solve the murder of Savvy. Lucy is reluctant to do so, but her grandma is of a different opinion:
“People believe men. Especially men who look like that. If he says you didn’t do it – if he even casts enough doubt – people will actually believe him. Look at that Ronan Farrow fellow. No one believed that movie man assaulted all those girls until he said it was true.”
By “that Ronan Farrow fellow” she is, of course, referring to the American journalist Ronan Farrow, who won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for his investigative reporting on allegations of sexual abuse against Harvey Weinstein (“that movie man”). Tintera packs a whole lot of stuff into this passage, including pretty privilege, the innocent-until-proven-guilty privilege every white cis straight man is afforded solely based on who he is, references to a real-life abuse case, and how powerful men have it much easier to swing the opinion of the public given their gender and status. It’s just a bit… flat. While “people believe men” is certainly a true statement in many cases, it felt a bit like the author was trying to go for an inspirational feminist truism power sentence, but maybe I’m just in a cranky mood.
Overall, I would say that Tintera handles all the topics mentioned above without being too on the nose and without patronising her characters who have suffered from abuse. No idea what this author is going to turn out next, but I’d be up for another adult standalone novel situated in the same or similar genre if it’s as creative and subverting as this one.
it’s only March, but I can confidently say literally no matter what else I’ll be reading this year, this book will firmly sit at the #1 spot of “what it’s only March, but I can confidently say literally no matter what else I’ll be reading this year, this book will firmly sit at the #1 spot of “what the f did I just read” by the end of 2024. ...more
I let myself be queer-baited by this gorgeous cover (that’s on me for hitting request without even reading the description!!), thinking this was goingI let myself be queer-baited by this gorgeous cover (that’s on me for hitting request without even reading the description!!), thinking this was going to be a lesbian story, so God saw fit to immediately punish me for it. I’m simply his favourite little lamb most likely to be slaughtered. But even after I learned that the main relationship focused on a straight couple, I was willing to persevere; too bad I didn’t enjoy myself in the process.
Listen, the setting is gorgeous, though left a bit unexplored. Xue lives in a world of which the Mortal Realm is but only one of several realms, existing alongside five other realms including the Spirit Realm, the Demon Realm, and the Celestial Realm. It is the latter she is whisked away to in a manner openly inspired by du Maurier’s Rebecca, though this novel’s gothic atmosphere is severely limited and restricts itself to a secluded, in-parts broken-down mansion.
Unfortunately, the very limited setting that only ever focuses on two major locations, the before (the House of Flowing Water where Xue grew up) and the after (the Meng family estate), led to relatively weak worldbuilding so that besides the story’s focus on music, nothing really stuck with me. The fictional world the characters inhabit, as well as all characters aside from Xue, really, were all rather shallow.
Told from Xue’s first-person POV, we naturally get a lot of insight into her mind, but even the friendship and eventual romance developing between her and The Duke of Dreams never lifts off the page since the narrative doesn’t grant him the attention he should get in order for us to care. For everyone who DOES plan to pick this up because of the romance, don’t bother (I didn’t mind, but others who choose to read the novel based on its promised romance only will end up disappointed). It’s very sidelined, granted next to no space to properly develop, and is dealt with in as few words as possible (Then again, if you pick up a Rebecca retelling because of the “romance,” it’s kind of your own fault).
The same thing goes for his friends, which eventually end up being Xue’s friends, too. Chenwen is flirtatious and egotistical, Linwei is kind but intelligent. There really is no further characterization to speak of beyond their respective two traits.
The second trapping that following the gothic novel tradition provides is the plot. True, most of the famous gothic novels can be very quickly summarized, but what they live on is atmosphere. As readers, we don’t mind spending chapter upon chapter with Rebecca who is stuck in the same house for months on end since the atmosphere directly contributes to a constant feeling of fear and uneasiness that never lets up and keeps you turning those pages again and again. Now, if your gothic retelling novel doesn’t have that atmosphere and has more of a “this being whisked away business isn’t so bad since the setting is beautiful, the food is good, the company is great, and only my maid is being a bit rude” vibe, readers WILL notice the missing plot.
As a consequence of being a mortal entering the Celestial world, Xue must prepare to convince the Ruler of the Celestial Realm to allow her to keep living by impressing him with her musical skills. This SOUNDS like a very important and consequential plot line that sees Xue preparing and worrying about it for weeks, but the trial comes and goes without having any impact whatsoever on the rest of the story. More like a filler than anything else, said plot point mainly gave me the feeling of having been included to stretch the book’s length.
My main problem, however, is with the writing (UPDATE: point 1 & 4 will hopefully be completely redundant once this book is out as I went back to check and it turns out i was indeed provided with an uncorrected proof!!):
1. Though written in the past voice, there are more than a dozen instances of some sentences written in present tense, some written in a weird mix of present tense AND past tense. I can’t tell if this is on purpose or not, and I don’t know whether they’ll be edited before publication, but the unwarranted and sudden switches in tense sound wrong even to my non-native English speaker ears.
"I forced myself to move forward, one step at a time, until I found the stool on which I was supposed to sit. I wished I didn’t feel so terribly out of place. Jinglang nods in her direction, and with that silent command, Danrou was gone (…)"
"It didn’t look like it had been wholly neglected, for the path could still be seen, making its way through the garden. Some of the trees and the shrubs have been cut back and piled against the wall (…)" (how come there's past perfect in the first sentence and present perfect in the second sentence for no reason whatsoever??)
"The tea and the pastries were a welcome distraction from the mysteries of the duke’s past. My brief interaction with Yingzi confirmed for me that the other staff of Meng Manor may not be so opposed to my presence, that perhaps it is only my maidservant who found me particularly distasteful." (okay so "it is" but also "found"?? make it make sense)
2. As for the writing style itself, it is the opposite of flowery. The sentences are short, clipped, staccato-like, and tediously uninspired. A heart beats “so rapidly,” Xue feels “as if it would burst” from her chest. Moonlight is silver, everything looks like “something out of a dream,” stars are described as “distant and cold,” and not a singular creative, daring, or original expression is to be found in this book.
3. Entire passages felt like they have been written by a very tired, uninspired high schooler forced to describe a photograph in an exam:
"Under our feet were white pavers that quieted our footsteps. There were white statues of various birds, carved in meticulous detail, interspersed in the space. There were peacocks, swans, …" (wait, let me guess, the next sentence also starts with "there were")
"I tried my very best not to gawk, but I couldn’t help but look this way and that as we entered the interior courtyard."
"Under my feet were white paving stones. I was on a bridge, with white stone banisters. The bridge let to the foot of a mountain." (damn, that's some bland writing)
4. Other times, repetitions repeat themselves:
"Then from his palm, there emerged a shoot. A tender green vine that emerged, winding itself around his arm. Buds popped from the branches, growing into leaves before me. From his palm, another tendril emerged…"
5. There are descriptions that make little to no sense:
"The deer opened its mouth and let out an inhuman scream." (like yeah, of course inhuman since deer aren't human?!!)
6. There’s the classic telling instead of showing:
"I placed a hand upon his arm, reminding him he was not alone."
7. And a general clumsiness when it comes to descriptions:
"[she] looked as if she would love the opportunity to bury it somewhere in [name] where it would hurt." (1. if and would in the same clause?? "somewhere where it would hurt" okayyy)
This list isn’t comprehensive but should be enough to give you an idea.
What Lin IS good at is writing about and describing Xue playing her qin and what each song sounds like, something that can be incredibly tough to put into words. Often enough, the very real poems (some of them originally written by Tang Dynasty poets, as stated in the author's note), are included in the text, followed by a “translation” of what each poem symbolizes and what it stands for. This, as well as Xue’s deep connection to music and its importance for the narrative, was beautiful to read. Additionally, some of the songs in their original Chinese characters are included in full at the end of the book, alongside a glossary that includes the pronunciation and meaning of every Chinese term used throughout the novel. I loved seeing the Chinese characters stand right next to the English ones and appreciate the work the author put into not only creating the glossary but transcribing the poems from their original language into English.
All in all, a story that tries to be too many things at once, failing to succeed at most of them. One star for the queer representation and one star for the beautiful descriptions of the food and music.
As always, thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for granting me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Original review: not to be mean but this read like a first try ...more
Opening: the way millennials think gen z acts and thinks needs to be studied and by studied I mean, I just want a tiny winy peek inside Hazelwood’s anOpening: the way millennials think gen z acts and thinks needs to be studied and by studied I mean, I just want a tiny winy peek inside Hazelwood’s and her entire team’s brains to understand how one can come up with and okay lines like “I google Nolan [and] have to comb through more results than anyone who’s barely twenty year old should have, including a Tumblr of him as a cat, and explicit erotic fanfiction of him and Percy Jackson sixty-nining on a hippocampus.” Like, huh?? ...more
There were lesbians, but the first half of the book dragged immensely, there were lesbians, but there was simultaneously too much info dumping and notThere were lesbians, but the first half of the book dragged immensely, there were lesbians, but there was simultaneously too much info dumping and not enough world-building going on, but there were lesbians!
“Last to Leave the Room” is one of those books I picked up on a whim. I heard speculative science fiction meets horror, and I hear queer, and I was like, let’s buddy-read this because why not.
Set in an undetermined feature, in an undetermined society, the novel takes place in the fictional Silicon Valley-inspired San Siroco, LA. Headed by the arrogant and headstrong Dr. Tamsin Rivers, a team of researchers are looking into why the entire city is sinking more and more every day. What Tamsin is keeping a secret from her colleagues? Her basement is sinking too, and at a far more alarming rate. What she doesn’t tell them, too? That a door has appeared in her basement, a door out of nowhere and leading to nowhere since it refuses to open. When, one night it opens to allow a genetically exact doppelgänger of her to enter the world, Tamsin’s world, her life as she knows it begins to change drastically. The doppelgänger has its uses, sure, but soon Tamsin begins to forget pieces of her life, lose track of time, to grow terrified of the outside world… and since when did she own two cats?
I very much agree with other readers in saying that the novel’s pacing is its biggest flaw. Its first half is as tedious as it is repetitive, consisting of nothing but Tamsin going to work and coming home, taking measurements of her basement, then going to work again, coming home to perform tests on her doppelgänger, then going to work again. The build-up is so excruciatingly slow, pages upon pages of the same stuff repeating itself, that the sudden plot twist around the 50% mark occurs much too late to keep readers less willing to persevere from possibly DNF-ing the book.
The first few chapters consisted of a lot of tell, don’t show, and the author left readers completely in the dark not only about what year the story is set in but about what kind of futuristic society the story takes place in, we don't get to know anything about the political and social landscape or indeed what the world looks like beyond the city itself. Given that 70% of the book takes place in Tamsin’s house, it made for a very confined reading experience, which, yes, might have been the author's goal all along, but I would have needed more background knowledge to be more fully invested.
Thankfully, the novel’s pacing picks up in the second half, and that’s where I finally got invested. The fear and the excitement of having a doppelgänger take over your life (for better or worse) are thoughtfully explored, and the author spends a lot of time pondering the ethics of what is moral and what isn't when it comes to how you treat a thing, a person (?) who talks, acts, thinks, behaves as you do, who basically IS you, while still being an extraterrestrial being.
I LOOOOVED Tamsin’s dynamic with Lachlan Woodfield, her tech company’s supervisor and watchdog. While she was barely in the first half of the book, her character became more important to the story and to Tamsin as the narrative progressed. The bathroom scene between those two? The intimacy? WHHHEEEEEWWWW. Still, their relationship came a bit out of nowhere and was left very open, dare I say, hanging, at the end of the novel, making me wonder why it was included in the first place.
While the introduced concepts of sinking cities, doppelgängers and parallel universes are both intriguing and spooky, I was only left with a vague sense of dread and wouldn’t have categorised this as horror had I not known its genre. In comparison, Jackson’s “The Haunting of Hill House” which I read only shortly after, left me much more shaken. All in all, I don’t regret having read this, but I highly doubt I’ll ever pick it up again.
“The British Booksellers” is one of those historical romance novels that goes down well with a cup of tea and a biscuit. You can read it in one go if you wish, it’s neither harmful nor controversial, stays in its lane at all times and does exactly what it says on the tin. That it doesn’t introduce anything new or exciting, and that it chooses to focus on four very white, very bland, very heterosexual characters, can’t well be used as arguments against it, but it doesn’t win the novel any bonus points either.
Advertised as a second-chance romance between two childhood friends turned enemy bookshop owners who, in the face of World War II finding its way to Coventry, have to band together to save their businesses, their loved ones, and their home, I do think the novel fell a bit short of its self-advertised plot. Amos Darby, once a farm boy, now an independent bookseller who returned from the Great War with scars on the outside as well as the inside, and Lady Charlotte Holt, whom World War I turned into a young widowed mother responsible for running her late husband’s sprawling estate all but by herself, are supposed to unanimously hate each other, though little if anything of that hate shines through on the page.
It doesn’t take much to figure out from the instance we are introduced to Amos that he still seems to be head over heels in love for Charlotte. Even Charlotte, who might come across as a bit more aloof, though less gruff and less anti-social than him, fails to convince readers that she could regard Amos with anything more than mild annoyance at best. Again, no surprise here, it is, after all, a trademark of the genre as well as the second-chance romance trope, but still, the author could have worked harder to let readers get a real feel for the animosity and hate supposedly existing between the two. While no fan of the haters-to-lovers trope, I think a novel should deliver what it promises, and if there is one surefire way to lose readers, it’s marketing a book as one thing when it effectually is another.
Apart from the fact that you had to squint real hard while simultaneously turning a blind eye to find the promised animosity between Davos and Charlotte, I don’t think the triple-POV structure worked in the narrative’s favour. The book was not only split into past Charlotte’s and past Amos’s POVs, but also between present-day Charlotte’s, present-day Amos’s, and present-day Eden’s (Charlotte’s daughter), the latter’s POVs making up a not unsubstantial part of the book, thus taking up a lot of pages. Said lack of space to properly develop Amos and Charlotte in more detail can be keenly felt, especially because they just weren’t well-rounded enough to get me properly invested at all in their romantic relationship. I do think there could have been a lot more yearning, and many more pages dedicated to the two to achieve that sizzling feeling you get in your stomach when you read about two characters that you need to end up together so bad, it hurts. In and of itself, the romance doesn’t exceed lingering touches and a few kisses, so if you’re looking for a clean romance; I’d say this is for you.
Don’t get me wrong, I do love everything about the DNA inherent in this set-up: second-chance romance, adult characters falling in love, and an in any way disfigured character thinking they’re worthless and undeserving of love because of their disfigurement/disability when actually, the opposite is true… the ingredients are all THERE, but someone wasn’t cooking.
I don’t have much to say regarding the writing except that it felt oddly choppy at times. I can’t even list examples since every time one of those sentences made me stumble, I chose to ignore it rather than highlight it and think about it even longer. The best description I can give is that especially when the author was describing an action or an event, some sentences were just devoid of information as to what exactly was happening with me feeling like I missed a few seconds of the plot. In one sentence, she describes person A putting their hand on person B’s arm, and in the second part of the sentence, the hand was suddenly somewhere else. Just… choppy. I’m okay with beautiful-sounding though empty metaphors and the odd simile here and there, but I hate when I’m losing the plot because actions aren’t described in enough detail.
Even without having read any of the author’s previous historical romance novels, which, on a first glance, all seem to be set during either WW I or WW II, I can tell she is not only knowledgeable about the subject and devoted to writing about and including WW II events that are lesser known because they happened outside of London (the Coventry Blitz, for once, which serves as the novel’s backdrop, and which the Nazis deemed so successful, the coined a new verb after it ‒ coventrieren / (to) devastate, or raze a city to the ground), but that she has a good eye for how to write what feels to me like authentic and historically appropriate dialogue.
All in all, a decent enough historical romance novel though it would have needed a bit more oompfh and more clarity in its writing to win me over.
As always, thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for granting me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Nothing hurts as much as a novel that you know could be truly good and entertaining ending up squandering its potential. Based on its description, bluNothing hurts as much as a novel that you know could be truly good and entertaining ending up squandering its potential. Based on its description, blurbed by Stuart Turton, one of my favourite murder mystery/thriller authors, and citing a quote from Anthony Burgess’ “A Clockwork Orange” on its opening pages, I expected Sarah Moorhead’s speculative fiction debut novel “The Treatment” to sweep me away into an Orwellian nightmare of state-controlled prison society, presenting its readers with moral dilemmas and ethical conflicts to engage in and ponder over. Instead, the novel lost itself in its own set-up, too focused on the fickle emotional state of its characters rather than the greater overall implications of said characters' doings.
Set in a narratively relatively unexplored and underdeveloped futuristic London and in a society in which nothing seems to have changed except the fact that smartphone-like devices are now called shells and alcohol has been substituted with mood-changing drinks, the future of law enforcement has arrived in the form of the four-tiered “Offender Treatment Programme” in which offenders are classified into Tier One for low-risk crimes, Tier Two for crimes resulting from trauma and addiction, Tier Three where they are exposed to aversion therapy and cognitive punishment, and Tier Four which is simply called Siberia.
It is when Tier 2 working rehabilitation psychiatrist Psychologist Grace Gunnarsson is offered a job at the top-secret Tier 3, and the re-appearance of her oldest childhood friend the government is looking to admit to Tier 3 coincide, that things spiral out of control.
Putting too much emphasis on Grace’s repetitive and sometimes extremely boring inner monologue, the novel didn’t get the supposedly horrifying treatment of the clinic’s tier three inmates across as neatly as it might have thought it did. This is partly due to the writing, partly due to how unbothered and frankly, uninterested, the story seemed in building upon its initial premise. The writing was not nearly strong enough to convey the shock and terror the reader was probably supposed to feel when reading about the psychological warfare wrought on Tier 3’s patients.
The whole set-up of using psychology to manipulate emotion, coupled with drugging re-offenders and forcing them to watch their crimes being played back at them, should be terrifying enough to equal 1984’s darkly dystopian setting of Big Brother and the Ministry of Love.
A pity then that the story chose to ignore its inherent potential and focus all its attention on a rather annoying character driven by nothing else than the desire to save her childhood friend, which, in an attempt to get readers to care, was reasoned as important due to their shared difficult upbringing.
As it turns out, with Grace’s childhood friend on the run and the constant danger of his Tier 3 procedure looming over him and weighing heavily on Grace’s consciousness, an attempt was made at engaging the audience on an emotional level, but since that doesn’t take place before the 80% mark, it is much too late to turn an emotionally distanced reader into someone sweating blood and tears over the main characters’ fates.
Grace’s regurgitated exclamations of how “horrible”, “evil” and “nightmarish” Tiers 3 and 4 are remain hollow, then. “Yeah, so??” I asked myself. “Get me emotionally invested in the fate of the people entering Tier 3, and then we’ll talk.”
It didn’t help either that so much of the novel’s secondary plot revolved around rape, attempted rape, and mentions of rape that resulted in me going back to check whether the author wasn’t a man as the casualness of how rape was talked about and consistently woven throughout the plot reminded me of male-authored 90’s gas station pulp fiction. Grace is sexually assaulted at least once, and so are two other female characters. Out of the group of three antagonists, one is a rapist who assaults at least two women on the page, and the other, whom we get POV chapters from, spends most of his time thinking about his deceased girlfriend who was raped and then murdered.
I am no Puritan demanding a ban of rape from literary fiction simply because, but I do feel strongly about only including on-page rape if it contributes to the story in a meaningful way and drives the narrative and/or character development forward in a way that is neither exploitative nor serves as mere embellishment. Given that this is not the case here, I fail to understand the reason for the constant threat of rape looming on every female character’s horizon.
Finally, the anticlimactic ending that came with several foreseeable plot twists did not satisfy me in any way. Given my general disinterest and lack of emotional engagement, I received it with mute acknowledgment and little to no excitement. A shame this novel proved to be such a let-down, but it would have needed much more work to convince me of its merit.
As always, thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for granting me an ARC in exchange for an honest review....more
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