The Girl from the Well by Rin Chupeco

 

I picked up a few creepy tales from B&N a few weeks ago and finally managed to read one of them. I'll confess I've been starting books, then picking up another one, over and over this month so far and not making progress on too many of them. Super restless reading-wise this month. However, I stuck with this and after a few "I'm not so sure about this one" moments, it clicked and wow, this was a great read. Just enough spooky to make you sit up and take notice, but not so much that you can't sleep at night. At least, for me it wasn't so scary. 

This novel is actually the first in a series about Okiku, a three hundred-year old spirit of a young woman who was brutally murdered in Japan. She was tortured, then tossed down a well, breaking her neck. She died upside down. So now, she spends a lot of time upside down, hanging from ceilings. She can look pretty gruesome, too. But sometimes she reverts back to what she looked like as a servant girl all those years ago. Her mission is to seek and destroy (yes, kill) people who murder children. She's pretty brutal about it, too. These serial killers carry the souls of those children with them--literally these souls are chained to these people (who are completely unaware of them). But Okiku can see them, and the only way to free those poor souls is to kill the horrible person who keeps them trapped. 

So, Okiku has been doing this for hundreds of years. Now she's taken an interest in Tark, a young teen boy who moves to a new community with his father. Tark has something strange about him--he has black tattoos covering his arms, chest and back. These tattoos look like they move, which is a bit freaky. Tark's mother gave those tattoos to him when he was five years old, and they are a symbol of something truly horrible living in Tark and trying to get out. Okiku sees what that horrible creature is, and is strong enough to defend Tark against it, but a final showdown can only come about if Tark and his father travel to a special shrine in Japan and undergo a dangerous ritual. 

Tark's cousin Callie can see Okiku, too. Freaked out a bit by her, but eventually gets a little more comfortable once she understands Okiku is there to protect Tark. Callie joins Tark in Japan and together they uncover the story of Okiku and the horrible spirit that lives inside Tark and is desperate to be free and kill, kill, kill. 

Sounds dark, right? It is actually a really well written story, full of Japanese mysticism, ritual, and legends. Fascinating look at how other cultures deal with death, spirits, and the afterworld. Okiku is even referenced as the inspiration for the movie The Ring. Her story continues in the next novel: The Suffering. 

This novel was published in 2015, so it's not new. Wow, it really was a gripping read. If you're easily queasy, don't read it. It's not super gory, but it has some moments. I'd read more of Rin Chupeco's novels any day. 

Rating: 5/6 for a truly creepy read, based in Japanese folklore and mysticism. Took me a bit to get into it, but BAM! it suddenly became unputdownable and I got completely sucked into it. 

Available in paperback, ebook, and audio.

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The Girl from the Well by Rin Chupeco

The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Dare

Thanks to Penguin Random House for a review copy of this book. It's one of those books I probably would have missed completely otherwise, and I'm so glad I got to meet Adunni. She's an unforgettable character. 

Adunni is fourteen, and living in a small village in Nigeria. Her mother has died, leaving Adunni with her waste of a father and her two brothers. She had been going to school at the wish of her mother, and she loves it. She knows education is the way out. Unfortunately, her father doesn't feel the same way, and makes her leave school. He sells her to an older man in another village for the money to pay rent and for food. Adunni is crushed. She doesn't have a choice, so she ends up the third wife of this man who only cares about getting her pregnant and having a son. 

Adunni faces so many trials, and so many hard choices. She's constantly treated as a commodity and never as the bright young woman she really is. She's never heard. Adunni's dream is to continue her education, become a teacher, and help other young girls become successful and have more choices. But other people are in control of Adunni's life for most of the novel, as she flees her marriage and ends up in Lagos working as a house servant for a very wealthy woman. Adunni is treated horribly; only fed once a day, made to clean a mansion top to bottom every day, and beaten regularly for absolutely no reason. She's also under threat of rape by her Madam's leacherous husband, Big Daddy. The only hope Adunni has is in securing a scholarship for a school that will provide a free education, a place to live, food and clothing for her. That hope rests with a friendship Adunni forms with a young wife who recognizes the potential in Adunni and secretly works with her to write the essay that will secure the scholarship. 

The rhythm of Adunni's thoughts and speech took a little bit to get used to, but once I was in, it wasn't hard at all to move through the story. Adunni is such a strong young woman. She's so innocent, but keeps believing life will get better even when things look grim. By the end of Adunni's tale, I was so darn proud of her absolute belief in herself, and never giving up on her dream. All she wants is to walk in a room and "...people will hear me even before I open my mouth to be speaking." She wants her louding voice. 

A big thanks to Penguin Random House for the opportunity to discover the story of Adunni. Author Abi Dare has created a remarkable, strong, unforgettable character in her first novel. You won't soon forget Adunni--a  courageous young woman who keeps believing even in the darkest moments. 

Rating: 5/6 for a powerful novel about hope, courage, the rights of women, and the belief in pursuing a dream. 

Available in hard cover, ebook, and audio book. 

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The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Dare

Highway of Tears by Jessica McDiarmid

One last book for November. It's a sobering non-fiction look at the disturbing disappearances of thousands of Indigenous women along a stretch of highway in Canada. Called the Highway of Tears, this road travels through some pretty desolate places, in between very small communities and towns. 

These disappearances, some over fifty years old, are a national crisis that, hopefully with this book, will be getting some much needed attention and funding. Reading the stories of these young women--most of them teenagers, disappearing and never found, broke my heart, and made me pretty angry at the same time. Their families knew something was wrong, and when they would report their loved ones missing, the police often brushed off their claims, saying the girls ran off on their own, or were troublemakers--prostitutes. In reality, these were young girls who were ignored by law enforcement because they were Indigenous, and that meant they weren't important enough to look for them. 
All of them had dreams to attend college, become forest rangers, psychologists, mothers, artists. They had so much life ahead of them. 

Families spent years searching and begging for help, and often got nothing in return. A few learned of the fates of their daughters and sisters: their bodies were found; stabbed, beaten, left in ditches or off the side of a desolate road. Thrown away like garbage. No one has ever been arrested for these murders. So many unanswered questions. So much heartbreak, the kind that destroys families. Poverty, culture, prejudice, and hundreds of years of oppression certainly play a big part in this outrageous lack of justice. The madness of it all is that it continues on, in 2019. Young women continue to disappear on the Highway of Tears at a consistent pace. 

This was a fascinating, and disturbing look at a national crisis that highlights the continued dismissal of Indigenous people. The utter lack of respect for them as human beings with the same rights to safety and protection as the rest of us is maddening and absolutely shameful. 

Rating: 5/6 for a detailed look at the dangers of the Highway of Tears, the continued dismissal of Indigenous people's safety and concerns for missing loved ones, and the hope that their voices are finally being heard. 

Available in hardcover, ebook, and audio. 

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Highway of Tears by Jessica McDiarmid

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

I've joined the thousands of other readers who have jumped on the crawdad wagon (or boat). I've been reading recently that Delia Owens has the distinct honor of having the one fiction book that in the past few years  has sold over 1 million copies in hardcover. The novel in second place comes in at around 750,000 copies sold in hardcover. That's a heck of a lot of books sent out in the world, and that doesn't even count the ebooks and audio books purchased!  Pretty impressive for a first novel, wouldn't you say?

So what is it about Where the Crawdads Sing that resonates so deeply with so many people? I think it's a few things, at least that was the case for me. Kya, oh Lord, she broke my heart. It took me quite a while to be able to come to terms with the fact that her entire family abandoned a little girl and left her alone to fend for herself. And the townsfolk of Barkley Cove did nothing to help this little girl. How she survived and thrived are the magic of the story. Nature-the marsh and all the wonders it held nurtured and protected her. The marsh was her mother, her provider, her teacher, her friend. Kya loved it as she would her family, and the relationship between Kya and the marsh are the foundation of this amazing story. 

Delia Owens' writing makes you wish for a secluded cabin, a boat, and time alone. Kya's life is rough--nearly penniless, she survives on grits and what she can gather from the marsh. Uneducated, until Tate comes along, and teaches her to read. Jumping' and Mabel were the closest folks she had to family, and their relationship sustained her through some rough times. Tate, the boy who loved the Marsh Girl with all he had, but still hurt her. And there is the mystery of Chase Andrew's death on that October night in 1969. The story bounces back and forth between the early 1950's and 1970, as Kya's story unfolds.  

Kya is one of those unforgettable characters that you don't often meet in fiction. How this little girl grew to be a brilliant naturalist, purely because she so loved the marsh and everything in it, is an unforgettable story. The writing is effortless, and simply stunning. It makes you itch to grab a sketch pad and sit somewhere and observe nature. It reminded me of my fascination with the children's book Pagoo by Holling C. Holling when I was a child. I actually spent time attempting to recreate the illustrations about Pagoo, the hermit crab and his life in the tide pool. I still have that book, and love to look at it. 

But this novel isn't just about a young girl surviving in the marsh. It's about family, abandonment, stereotypes, shunning others who we see as different, prejudice, conforming to society's expectations, and most of all, love and trust. And oh, by golly, strength to get through the worst life can hand you and come out the other side and into a new day. 

So yes, if you haven't read this, please do. It will give you a new appreciation for nature, and the beauty around us that we seem to cavalierly destroy just for the sake of progress. And read it because it's a damn good story. 

Rating: 6/6 for a multi-layered novel about a young girl raising herself in the marshes of North Carolina during the 1950's and 1960's. You will smell the water, squish the mud between your toes, and feel the breeze on your face. 

Available in hardcover, ebook, and audio. 

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Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

Yesternight by Cat Winters

 I normally don't pay any attention to cover blurbs, but I was delighted to see Simone St. James' thumbs up for Yesternight.  I've read Winters' teen novel In the Shadow of Blackbirds and started her other adult novel Uninvited so I knew what to expect--historical fiction with a paranormal twist.  Yesternight appealed to me because it added another twist:  children and reincarnation.  

Imagine my disappointment when I finished the book and couldn't figure out just what it was about the book that left me unsatisfied. Was it the main character, Alice?  Was it the ending?  What the heck was it?!

Alice Lind is a psychologist in 1925 Oregon.  She travels to Gordon Bend, Oregon to administer IQ tests to schoolchildren.  Frustrated by the doors in higher education staying firmly closed to her because she's a woman, Alice travels the country for a job that mostly leaves her unsatisfied and yearning to be accepted into a PhD program for psychology.  Alice is an intelligent, passionate young woman who has to walk a fine line between being a respectable young professional, and living her life in a way that makes her happy. So far, she hasn't found a perfect mix, and deep down her frustration has stoked quite a bit of resentment against men and society.  

Alice arrives in Gordon Bend, Oregon to administer tests, but also because she's been asked by a local father, Michael O'Daire, to look into his daughter's claims that she once lived as a brilliant young female mathematician who tragically drowned in Kansas decades before.  Alice is pretty skeptical; after all, she is a scientist, and believes she must consider all psychological possibilities before arriving at reincarnation as an explanation for Janie's odd behavior and astounding grasp of advanced mathematics.  Janie O'Daire is only seven years old.  

Gordon Bend is a dismal small town on the coast, with plenty of atmospheric storms, a hotel run by Michael that is empty during the off-season, and Janie's teacher (and Aunt) and mother who want to protect her from anyone who may think Janie is crazy.  It's an uphill battle for Alice to get Janie to confide in her and to win the trust of Janie's mother, Rebecca.  Alice's confidence that her science will explain Janie's odd behavior begins to erode away as she gets to know Janie's story, and looks for facts to support Janie's claims of a previous life.  

So why did this novel leave me with a vague sense of dissatisfaction?  Well, I don't think I liked Alice very much.  I liked her sister Bea; maybe because Bea seemed to embrace herself much more easily than Alice could accept who she was.  Alice seemed at once helpless against society's strictures, yet her whole adult life was a giant push-back against those strictures.  She was a confusing mess.  And, to add to this, the vague attraction between Alice and Michael never seemed to be believable to me.  It was a distraction, but part of the plot that made the whiz-bang of an ending possible.  Janie's story was pretty interesting, and I was glad to see that play out to a satisfactory conclusion.  But the added story of Alice's suspicions of having a past life herself seemed disjointed and didn't fit easily into the rest of the plot. Both stories seemed to be stitched together with a ragged seam.  I think Cat Winters could have made Alice's subplot a standalone novel; it could have easily been a follow-up to Janie's story.  

There were many parts of Yesternight that I enjoyed.  I'm always interested in a good reincarnation thriller.  This book has some good bones, but just didn't quite make it for me.  But, don't take this review as a "do no read" sign. Read it for yourself, and let me know what you think.  I would love to discuss this book with someone else who's read it.  

Rating:  5/10 for a plot that has some really interesting points, but falls short in character likeability and some disjointedness in the story line.  Give it a read and decide for yourself.  Fans of reincarnation thrillers will be intrigued. 

Available in paperback and e-book. 

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Yesternight by Cat Winters

A Creepy Ghost Story: The Family Plot by Cherie Priest

It's been quite awhile since I've read a novel that creeped me out.  It was creepy  enough that I decided to only read it during the day, on my lunch hour in a busy hospital cafeteria. Either I'm getting soft, or it was a pretty darn good ghost story.

It was a pretty darn good ghost story.

I love Cherie Priest's writing.  Her Eden More series is about restless souls; usually from the Civil War Era.  She followed that up with her steampunk Clockwork Century novels; Boneshaker really put her on the radar of a lot of science fiction/fantasy fans.  I did read Boneshaker years ago, and did enjoy it quite a bit, but her gift, to me, lies in her ability to make you uneasy in the comfort of your own home.  And that is what The Family Plot did to me. 

Music City Salvage is on the cusp of financial ruin, and one big job will save the company.  Enter Augusta Withrow, the last member of the Withrow family.  For $40,000, Music City Salvage gets all the rights to her family's estate before it's torn down.  They have a week to claim everything they can from the house, the barn, and carriage house. 

Dahlia, Bobby, Gabe, and Brad travel to Chattanooga to the Withrow estate, up a badly maintained road on the side of a mountain.  What should be a routine salvage job is not so routine as eerie things start right from the get-go.  Is the house angry at its demise, or is there something else in the house that is really, really angry?  And why is Dahlia the center of all the attention?

One thing that annoys me about paranormal fiction is a super slow buildup in tension.  Don't get that here--it starts right away, and thankfully, Dahlia, Bobby, Gabe and Brad start comparing notes on what they've experienced pretty quickly.  Showering in any bathroom at the house is a very bad idea.  Going up to the attic by yourself?  Bad idea.  Trying to reason with the paranormal?  Bad idea.  It's a race to finish the job and get the hell out of dodge for this crew.  Things start escalating as they near the end of their time at the house and start putting the pieces together to discover what, exactly, happened in the Withrow home all those years ago that has made the place a nightmare for anyone who tries to make it a home.  

The end...well... it's one of those endings where you get to decide how it should end.  

Loved the mystery of the house; it truly was enough to make me uneasy, and I don't scare easily (Unless you're a bat. Then I freak out.  Ghosts?  No.).  Sometimes the evil that is done to people sets off emotions that don't die when our physical bodies stop.  Yikes.

Rating:  8/10 for a truly chilling story.  My appreciation for Cherie Priest's writing grows with every book she writes.  

Available in hardcover and e-book.    
 

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A Creepy Ghost Story: The Family Plot by Cherie Priest

Savage Girl by Jean Zimmerman

Jean Zimmerman writes historical fiction that demands you pay attention and weave your way through incredible detail.  All  while attempting to figure out just what is going on and why.  

That's what happens in Savage Girl, a fascinating look at late 19th century New York high society and the attempts of the Delegate family to "rescue" and refine a young woman thought to be brought up in the wild.  

The Delegate family are filthy rich.  As in hard-to-imagine-rich.  Hugo is the spoiled son, attending Harvard as an anatomical student, obsessed with drawing anything anatomical. He has a weird obsession with the human body.   The story is told through his eyes, and they are a bit unreliable.  Hugo is sickly, and has blackouts where he doesn't remember what happened or what he did during those times.  His life is altered when his family, traveling on a private train to Virginia City, come upon a dingy side-show down a dark alley.  That side show is savage girl, a young women who runs on all fours and seems pretty vicious, yet incredibly intelligent.  Hugo's father decides he needs to rescue her and  bring her back to New York City.  Here Hugo's parents will educate and refine savage girl and introduce her to society.  She's a big experiment.  

But this experiment has some dark baggage, and that baggage is murder.  Men are being found dead and mutilated wherever savage girl goes.  As savage girl slowly transforms into a young lady,  and begins speaking (her name is Bronwyn), she's even more mysterious.  Where did she come from, and what does she know?  Is she the killer?  Is it Hugo, who hallucinates from drink and blacks out whenever there's a murder? This mystery keeps you on your toes.  

Nature vs nuture is a big theme in this novel.  It's a fascinating look at people and motives with a mystery added to the mix.  

Rating:  8/10 for the writing, descriptions of 19th century New York City, and a clever plot.  

Available in hardcover, audio, and ebook.  

Thanks to Viking/Penguin for a review copy.

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Savage Girl by Jean Zimmerman