Schlagwort: gripping

The Broken Girls – Simone St. James

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AuthorSimone St. James
PublisherWildfire
Date20 March 2018
EditionKindle
Pages338 (Print-edition)
LanguageEnglish
ASINB076H6T827

“Fiona realized as she walked inside that she’d been picturing something Harry-Potter-like, with high Gothic ceilings and warm candlelight.” (Quotation page 56)

Content

Idlewild Hall had been a boarding school for girls, sent away by their families. Finally closed around 1979 and since abandoned, the new owners want to restore it and reopen the house as a new, modern school.

Young Journalist Fiona Sheridan has her own bitter memories connected with the Idlewild property, as twenty years ago her sister Deb had been found dead on the former sports field. Although Tim, her sister’s boyfriend, had been sentenced, for Fiona there are still lots of very unclear details and open questions. She wants to write an article about Idlewild Hall and starts her own researches. When the renovation team finds the remains of the body of a young girl, dead for more than sixty years and definitely murdered, she digs deep into the past of Idlewild Hall. Who was Mary Hand?

Theme and Genre

This dark and atmospheric story is written in the perfect tradition of the famous Gothic fiction originated in England in the second half of the 18th and the 19th century. There are female heroines, four girls in 1950 and Fiona in 2014, a ghost and darkness and mysteries. Topic are the living conditions of for different reasons unwanted girls in the early 60ies, but also female friendship, tenacity and courage, now and then. Another topic are grieve and loss and the Holocaust.

Characters

Fiona is likeable, because although her questions are soon getting dangerous for her, she is not willing to stop and give up. 1950, in the dark, cold surrounding of Idlewild School, four girls, Katie, Roberta, CeCe and Sonia are best friends, holding together against everything.

Plot and Writing

The story takes place in Barrons, Vermont. There are two timelines, the fifties with each chapter focusing on one of the four girls and 2014, with details going back to 1994. Both timelines are gripping und breathtaking, with surprising twists and turns. Especially historical facts connected to Sophie´s story were thoroughly researched.

Conclusion

A dark, atmospheric novel in the tradition of the famous English Gothic literature, gripping and full of suspense. A perfect pageturner, sleepless nights included.

Deutsche Ausgabe: Die schwarze Frau, Goldmann Verlag, 18. Februar 2019

Gothic, Reviews, Thriller & Crime , ,

The Girl in the Letter – Emily Gunnis

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AuthorEmily Gunnis
PublisherReview
Date1 August 2018
EditionKindle
Pages384 (Print edition)
LanguageEnglish
ASINB079RMFFCJ

„They said it was good all the records had been destroyed, because it was time to move on.“ (Quotation pos. 2149)

Content

Young journalist Sam, mother of four-years-old Emma, after a bad row with her husband Ben stays with her Grandmother, where she had grown up. Her Grandfather had died less than 12 months ago and Nana shows her a bundle of letters she had found. They are from a girl named Ivy, written a long time ago, in September 1956. Ivy had gotten pregnant and was sent to, a home for unmarried mothers, open until the mid seventies. Sam is deeply captured by this very sad, impressive story about Ivy and her baby Rose and determined to find out the truth. She has left only two days, because the old Victorian manor is going to be demolished and the persons involved are not ready to talk about St Margaret’s. Are the many mysterious, sudden deaths in the area somehow linked to the past?

Theme and Genre

A gripping novel about the situation of pregnant but unmarried poor young girls and women, sent away by their own families to Catholic institutions. Often their babies were given up for adoption, often against the mother’s will. The story, settled in England, is based on known facts about real, similar institutions in Ireland.

Characters

Sam is a modern woman, struggling to be taken serious as an investigative journalist. A working mom feeling guilty for leaving her little girl with Nana, but definitely not ready to give up to find out Ivy’s story.

Ivy too is strong and helpful under her own worst conditions of life, willing to fight for her baby.

Plot and Writing

The gripping story has many twists, turns and many characters involved from the past until today. Told in two different main time levels, Ivy’s story beginning in 1956 and Sam’s story in 2017, there are more steps into the past when it comes to events in the lives of persons involved. Although the reader from a certain moment on might have some assumptions about how some events are connected, the story remains exciting until the end.

Conclusion

An impressive, gripping story, empathically written – a book that is unputdownable.

Novel, Reviews , , ,

Lullaby – Leila Slimani

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AuthorLeila Slimani
PublisherFaber & Faber limited
Date4 January 2018
EditionPaperback
Pages218
LanguageEnglish
ISBN-13978-0-571-33754-5

„Her face is like a peaceful sea, its depths suspected by no one.“ (page 17)

Content

Paul and Myriam live in Paris. They have two children, babyboy Adam and a little girl, Mila. Myriam, a lawyer, after a happy time as a mother, desperately wants to go back to work. When a former classmate offers her a job in his law firm, she is looking for a nanny. Miriam with her arabic roots definitely does not want a North African nanny for her children. Then comes Louisa, a blonde widow over 40 and perfect. Soon Louise becomes an indispensable part of the family …

Theme and Genre

This psychological thriller is about modern parenting, the difficult job of nannies, the complex place they have in the family they work for. This novel also shows how class and race can influence the whole life of a person.

Characters

Myriam, happy mother of two, with the months as a housewife passing, falls into a serious depression. Back in the law firm, she works on her carrier, often overhours, and sometimes feels bad about it. She also prefers to neglect small signs that should alert her.

For Paul it was normal to earn the money for his family and their privileged upper-class life. He wants to share part of it with Louisa. For him too, Louisa is the perfect nanny and when Myriam begins to be worried, he is convinced that she just overreacts.

Louisa loves the children and wants to be needed and be part of the family.

Plot and Writing

The book begins with telling the end, but this does not make the story less gripping. As reader you try to scan every sentence for hints, how and when things changed and led to what happened.

Leila Slimani is a captivating storyteller, switching between persons and their memories and descriptions of the life in Paris, comparing the different living conditions, while moving the plot forward.

Conclusion

A disturbing psychological thriller about the problems of mothers reconciling job and family and the questions of every parent, if the nanny their children grow up with can really be trusted. A dark, gripping page-turner.

Reviews, Thriller & Crime , , ,

I’m Thinking of Ending Things – Iain Reid

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AuthorIain Reid
PublisherGallery/Scout Press
Date21 March 2017
EditionPaperback
Pages240
LanguageEnglish
ISBN-13978-1501126949

“Reality happens only once.” (Quotation page 48)

Content

Two people in a car, driving on a cold winter day somewhere in the rural country. Jake and his girlfriend are going to visit his parents who live on a lonely farm. The girl is thinking about the future, but mostly about ending things. They could stay overnight but the girl wants to dive home, although it is late, snowing and freezing.

Theme and Genre

This is a gripping, dense, psychological thriller with many unforeseeable twists and chapters that seem not to fit into the story. A simple road trip that ends different from anything the reader would expect.

Characters

The girl, we do not even know her name, is thinking about ending things, maybe after having met his parents. She is scared by many calls and voice messages from a stranger, telling her “there is only one question”. Jack is intelligent and the girl seems somehow attracted to him.

Plot and Writing

It seems a simple car ride, written in the first person as told only by the girl and her thoughts. Interrupted by pieces of a written conversation that gives some frightening hints. A special twisted story, chilling and very entertaining the same time.

Conclusion

Words are missing to explain this gripping psychological thriller, the genius of the author, without giving too many hints. I would recommend just reading it and enjoying.

Reviews, Thriller & Crime ,