The wonder mentioned in the title is a young girl named Anna who lives in a small village in Ireland and has reportedly not eaten any food for four months. The protagonist is a widowed English nurse, trained by Florence Nightingale, who comes to the village as an impartial judge to examine the claims of the village. The nurse is judgmental of the poverty of the Irish village and skeptical of the community’s claim that this girl is somehow getting nourishment from God. Lib the […]
You can never go home again
A spring evening in 1985, nineteen-year-old Frank Mackie is waiting impatiently outside for his girlfriend Rosie Daly, as they plan to elope and move to London, making a new life for themselves away from the hard life of the Dublin working poor. When she doesn’t show, Frank goes looking for her in the abandoned house a few door down, and finds a note that suggests she’s gone off without him. As Frank’s father is a violent drunk, his mother is neurotic and shrewish and his […]
Historical Fantasy Takes a Weird Turn
I finally got around to re-reading Betraying Season, the sequel to Bewitching Season, and now I remember why I was so reluctant to tackle this one again. Not only is it not particularly good, but it’s also weird. If the first book is a pleasant afternoon tea in a sunlit parlor, then the sequel is more like gnawing on stale fried chicken by the light of the full moon–odd, unsatisfying, and more than a little off-putting to witness. After her twin sister marries at the […]
Sweetness Follows is the best novel yet from Ciarán West
It takes a talented writer to inject new life in to the well worn coming of age genre. It so happens that Ciarán West is just that talented, and then some. He takes a shopworn concept and spins it into a 350 page story that moves by so quickly it’s over before you’ve had time to properly say goodbye to the characters. Sweetness Follows is a sequel to West’s previous novel The Boys of Summer. Don’t worry though, you don’t need to have read that […]
My life was an absolute bastard with a chip on his shoulder.
Who recommended this to me? How did this end up on my to-be-read list? Whoever you are, thanks, my friend! It was an absolutely fantastic interlude after the deep, dark despair inspired by the “Peculiar Children” series. Honestly, this is the kind of story-telling I think people are talking about when they talk about Rainbow Rowell (note: I have only read one Rowell book, and it was totally fine). The prose is very sharp and full of whimsy. It’s clever, but lands on the right […]
Can’t believe I almost skipped this one
This book really surprised me. I loved The Likeness, but detective Frank Mackey was NOT a favorite character. I really considered skipping this one and moving on to book four of the series. I’m so glad I resisted temptation because Faithful Place ended up being my favorite so far. As with all her novels (at least the ones I’ve read!), French is just as interested in the characters and how they cope with events as she is in the mystery itself. Frank grew up poor […]