Number 40- Don't Let Him In- Lisa Jewell

 

My first Lisa Jewell book, and probably not my last.

This is 400 pages but I steamed through it in 2 days. It's pretty much the definition of a pageturner. The short chapters mean you look to see how long the next one is and think 'oh sod it, one more chapter'- several times.

It's the story of a man who inveigles his way into women's lives, marries them, steals their money and runs off to join another family. 

I was reminded very much of the old film the Stepfather with Terry O'Quinn as a similar character- although when he got bored of his families, he didn't just run off with their money. He ended things much more finally.

This book did slightly lack that level of drama, but it was still a compelling and very very quick and easy read.

After all the build up, I did think the final showdown when all the plot lines converged was more than a little bit anti-climactic. But I can't deny that the journey to that ending was so much fun, it's not as much of a complaint as it might otherwise have been.

All in all, 7 out of 10. It takes talent to make the reader hate a character as much as I hated he of many names who was at the centre of all the storylines. I will definitely be reading more of hers.  This was practically a cheat read.

Number 39- Royal City Volume 1: Next of Kin- Jeff Lemire

 

And this was the second of the pair of Jeff Lemire graphic novels. Volume 1 of his Royal City saga.

A struggling writer returns to his roots in the eponymous city after his father suffers a stroke.

To say the family is dysfunctional would be a vast understatement. His little brother Tommy drowned several years earlier as a child, and his siblings and his mother are all haunted by a different version of Tommy.

We are thrown into the internal politics of the family and the city itself.  His family run the manufacturing plant which is the heart of the town's wealth, but they're struggling badly.

I was starting to feel real emotions for this cast of characters, and then the book finished. The characters are well drawn and utterly believable, even the ghost.

This is all illustrated by Lemire as well as scripted. His artwork is distinctive. I tend to find it quite ugly until I settle into the story, at which point it weirdly makes sense and starts looking strangely pretty. 

Again, I need to order part 2 of this sooner rather than later. This is Lemire at the height of his creativity.

Number 38- Black Hammer- Secret Origins- Jeff Lemire/Dean Ormston

 

It occurred to me that I've not read many graphic novels this year, so i thought I'd fix that with a pair of Jeff Lemire offerings.

This is Lemire's non-DC take on the superhero genre.

A group of Golden Age superhero types are stuck in a small town that they can't escape for reasons not yet disclosed. They've been there for 10 years, since they and Black Hammer defeated the AntiGod and saved Spiral City. They vanished from their own universe at the moment of victory and are assumed dead.

This is absolutely vintage Lemire. It's got great characters, a mind-bending premise (especially Colonel Weird's storyline) and an emotional heart the size of Texas. 

The artwork by Dean Ormston is top notch. I need to get volume 2 of this ASAP given the cliffhanger ending.

Number 37- Hampton Heights- Dan Kois

 

This is a strange little book. I'm not entirely sure why I bought it.  That cover is not particularly enticing.  But I must have thought so on the day.

Kevin is a newspaper distributor.  He decides to take a bunch of his paperboys to the Milwaukee suburb of Hampton Heights to try to sell some subscriptions. This is not his wisest decision. Hampton Heights is no ordinary neighborhood, and the boys find themselves facing werewolves, witches and trolls as they wander the streets.

This is more of a short story collection than a straight novel. Kevin has his story, and the three pairs of boys he sends off around the streets each have their own segments, which only really merge into one story in the closing pages.

I wasn't finding much to love about the book in the first two stories.  There wasn't anything to hate either, it just wasn't pushing any of my buttons. Then the Mark and Ryan story started.  This was a radical departure from what had come before, with a sleek fairy tale feel to the narration which was just brilliantly handled.

That segment saved this book for me. Dan Kois can really write when he wants to.

Kevin stars in the first story, meeting a mysterious woman in a bar and falling for her otherworldly charms. The weirdly named Sigmone (I assume pronounced Simon) and Joel meet up with warring gangs of werewolves. Ryan and Mark encounter a pair of witches who have a story to tell them. Al and Nishu run foul of a mischievous troll with an appetite for memories. then they all go to Burger King for the final short segment that ties the narrative together.

This is never scary. It's almost a YA novel and I would hesitate to call it a horror novel, despite all the tropes in play. It's more of an urban fantasy crossed with a coming of age story. I had fun with it, and the last half is very good indeed.

If you're looking for something a bit out of left field, give this a try.

Number 36- (Don't) Call Mum- Matt Wesolowski

 

Another cheat read from last weekend. It's another of the novella's in Wild Hunt Books' Northern Weird Project. I think I only have one more till I've read the full set, and very good they've all been so far.

This is set almost entirely on a train. Our protagonist Leo is trying to get home to the remote town of Malacstone. An obnoxious man boards the train thinking he's headed for London, but he couldn't be more wrong.

When the train starts breaking down in the middle of nowhere, they can hear noises from outside. There are local legends surrounding the next stop, if they ever make it.  Could there be truth to the stories of the mysterious Underwood?

This short novel manages to build an incredible atmosphere, as well as making us well and truly loathe the man who initially thinks he's headed south.

It's a masterpiece of how to create convincing characters with minimal brushstrokes. I raced through this book in a couple of hours and loved every page.  

Highly recommended.

For reference, the other Northern Weird Project books are This House isn't Haunted But We Are (Stephen Howard), The Off Season (Jodie Robins), Good Boy (Neil McRobert), Turbine 34 (Katherine Clements), all of which I have reviewed in the past 12 months or so, and The Retreat (Gemma Fairclough) which is close to the top of my TBR. It's an excellent selection of short novels.

Number 35- A Short Stay in Hell- Stephen L Peck

Another cheat read- trying to get my numbers up before the halfway point in the year ( I finished this on Saturday just gone- 5 days ago)

The title tells you in an ultra-sarcastic way what this book is about. When Soren Johanssen dies, he assumes he's going to heaven since he's been a good Mormon boy all his life and followed all the rules.

However, in a waiting room hosted by a genial demon, we find out that Mormonism isn't actually the one true faith, and therefore he's going to hell to repent. I won't reveal which faith it is that gets the free pass to heaven, you will need to read the book to find that out for yourself.

He finds himself in an almost infinite library and tasked with finding the book that describes his life. If he can find that book, he can move on. That's easier said than done though.

It appears that mystical, infinite (almost) libraries are almost becoming a subgenre of their own. And it's one I approve of.

This is a much better example of the genre than The Midnight Library was. The humour works and the whole treatment of the theme is much better. I think Mark Lawrence's Library trilogy might still hold the edge for me though.

I really liked the characters in this. The scope of the task they face becomes horrifically clear very quickly. The fact that Peck manages to make a hell of eternal tedium into such an intriguing and more than vaguely disturbing story is nothing short of miraculous. It's difficult to say if the Hell of other people is better or worse than the Hell of Loneliness that Soren also endures.

The Hell in this is based on a short story by Borges  this is openly admitted to in the book by the demon who decides which Hell to send our poor protagonist.

The world Peck builds is truly Hellish.  Far worse and more imaginative than any lakes of fire and brimstone.

I know this is a book that is going to stick with me.  It's also a dead easy read and very short- just over 100 pages, but more satisfying than a lot of novels four times that length.

Highly recommended.

Number 34- Turbine 34- Katherine Clements

 

Another entry in the numbers theme so quickly...

The year is 2050 something. The world is baking.  On the West Yorkshire moors, an environmental scientist is trying to determine the impact of a controversial wind farm on the local peat bogs. She camps up by Turbine 34. However, there is something else on the moors, something that knows her, something that shouldn't be there.

This is a nice quick read that builds its atmosphere with great efficiency. The images and visions she experiences are at times genuinely unnerving.

The acknowledgements highlight the strong environmental message that runs through the story about the importance of the peat bogs as habitats for the wildlife, and flood defence etc. The book manages to carry these messages without overloading the story.

However, I do think the ending was fluffed quite badly. The twist to the tale really doesn't work for me.  It's a shame because I was really enjoying it up until that point.

Your mileage may vary.  This was a damned good trip, even though the destination was a bit of a letdown.

Number 33- 33 Place Brugmann- Alice Austin

 

This book was specifically chosen for the number in the title, and it sounded interesting. The next part of my occasional numbered books theme for the year.

Set in the second world war, this follows the inhabitants of the eponymous Belgian house in their various experiences of wartime Europe. The Jewish family from the first floor flee to the UK. Other inhabitants join the army or the resistance. Others are more sympathetic with the invaders.

This is all very nicely written, but it's such a slow burn I struggled to get involved with any of the characters or their dramas. The second half of the book is definitely much more interesting, especially when the residents start running foul of a traitor.

Each chapter is written from the point of view of a different character, including two chapters told posthumously, which allows for a first person narration of the character's death. That was an interesting twist.

However, this falls foul of the old trap of all the characters talking with the same narrative voice. Older characters will not talk in the same way as younger characters. The old colonel will not have the same voice as a Russian immigrant Jewish girl. But in this book, they all sound the same. It robs the book of a lot of its potential.

I can understand why people would like this. The prose is undeniably good, even if it should be varied and isn't. The story, when it gets going, is good. The slow unravelling of plot points is actually very nicely handled where a passing comment from one character can take a whole new meaning later on. However, I just didn't get on well with this book.

Lots of potential, but for me it fell well short.