Wylding Hall

Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Elizabeth Hand channels the summer of 1972, deep in an ancient English forest, where five young musicians are secluded from the world, creating their masterpiece. Their Child ballads, mystical and mythic original lyrics, virtuoso musicianship, and sense of wonder have been disorganized and derailed by the death of their lovely lead singer. Their manager thinks that Leslie, with her strong voice and lyrical skills, will energize the music and the remaining members of Windhollow Faire.

Wylding Hall reveals itself as a portal to very old magic, perhaps older than the perspective-bending barrow deep in the woods. By the time the young musicians record the album during a spontaneous outdoors session - photographed haphazardly by a young teenager with his first Instamatic - each member has been wounded by a mystery, and has discovered uncanny links to past tragedies. Have they also seen a ghost?

The short novel is structured as the transcript of a 21st century documentary, narrated in turns by each of the band members and participants - all but one, the beautiful, brilliant Julian, whose disappearance decades before was linked to a very strange young girl, and a very strange melody...

Did you enjoy Uprooted by Naomi Novik? Do you eagerly await the work of Charles de Lint or Pamela Dean or Terri Windling? Does your playlist include Loreena McKennitt, Pentangle, Steeleye Span, or Fairport Convention? This is your book. Anyone who loves folk-tinged fantasy will love it too. The only thing that will disappoint you: there is no soundtrack. Maybe someone will put together a Spotify list.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley.


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Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Go Set a Watchman is not a novel. It’s a series of sketches that happen to use the same names and locale as To Kill a Mockingbird -- it includes several chapters that do nothing to advance anything, a few charming flashbacks to scenes with Jem and Dill, some gut-wrenching pages-and-pages of the most vile, racist stuff (being spoken by various people, including Atticus), & a spot of humor. As a book, its purpose is totally, totally different.

It should have been part of Lee’s papers, cataloged in some library, and accessible to scholars or other curious folk who wanted to see how the famous book began. Publishing it as a novel is just.plain.wrong.

And now there might be a third? oy.


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The Painted Bridge: A Novel by Wendy Wallace
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Newlywed Anna Palmer, haunted from childhood by dreams and visions of a drowning boy, is committed to the Lake House Asylum for women by her husband, mere weeks after their marriage.  He uses her sudden trip to help the victims of a shipwreck as his excuse. What normal woman in 1859 would do such a thing without first asking her husband's permission?

Before we meet Anna, however, we are confronted with the inverted image of another patient, Lizzie Button. Dr. Lucas St. Clair is photographing the patients and hoping that the new art form will form the basis of a reliable, scientific method of diagnosing madness.

It soon becomes clear that the director, Querios Abse, has no insight into his own troubled family, and not a trace of good intentions towards his patients. Neither do most of the caretakers, whose behaviors range from moderate kindness to stark brutality. While some of the patients are ill, others have been dumped by families who found them inconvenient. Querios's own daughter is starving herself to death while quoting from "Aurora Leigh" and trying to emulate a carnival attraction named The Fasting Girl, who supposedly lives on "drops of dew, brushed onto her lips with a feather."

While the reader never questions Anna's sanity, others do. The treatments she endures are both horrific and historically accurate: purges, chairs that whirl, isolation. They nearly unhinge Anna, who wonders anew at the visions and dreams that have given others license to support her husband's decisions. But who wouldn't begin to lose faith, imprisoned in a torture chamber and seemingly forgotten by the world?

I am giving this book four-and-a-half stars instead of five, only because the villains are depicted without a touch of nuance, and at least one major character is a touch too saintly. But I do, most definitely, recommend it as a story with atmosphere, ideas, insight, and a plot that will keep you engrossed.


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The Other Daughter

The Other Daughter by Lauren Willig
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Rachel always thought her father was a botanist who died while he was away on a trip. Throughout her childhood, her mother maintained them as a respectable, if poor family. At the beginning of this engaging novel, Rachel has returned from seven years as a governess in France to find that her mother, dead of influenza, has kept secrets from her, secrets that change her life in ways she could never have dreamed: her father is neither dead nor a botanist. He is an earl - and he has another daughter!

Despite her loving cousin's protests, Rachel's feelings of betrayal lead her to concoct a scheme of revenge with Simon Montford, a handsome gossip columnist who has his own reasons to want to hurt the earl - and the other daughter. Their adventures amongst the glitterati of Jazz Age London and the earl's family change many lives, and will entertain the reader throughout.    

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.I also received a copy of the book from St. Martin's Press. Thanks to both!


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Circling the Sun

Circling the Sun by Paula McLain
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Early in this novel, young English expatriate Beryl Markham (nee Clutterbuck) is almost eaten by a lion. Paddy is kept on a neighbor's property and considered tame, but her father knows better: "he can only be exactly what he is, what his nature dictates, and nothing else." She already has been abandoned in Kenya by her mother, taught more about horses than society by her father, and befriended by a Kipsigi warrior and his son, Kibii.

She longs to be a warrior, too, but has been told it is impossible for a girl. Besides, says her friend, no one would ever know about her triumphs. "I would," she says. "Where's the glory in that?" he asks.

Young Beryl goes on to achieve many bold triumphs, and the world comes to know them. She becomes the first woman to be certified as a horse trainer (and thoroughbred breeder, with Kibii, now a warrior named Ruta). She becomes the first professional female pilot in Africa. Like the lion whose scars she bears, she can be sociable, she can do what others expect, but she can not deny her own wild nature -- not in the world of horses, not in the air, and not in love.

Thrice-married, she and Karen Blixen formed two sides of a love triangle with the doomed aviator, Denys Finch Hatton, whose death drove Karen Blixen back to Denmark, where she became Isak Dinesen and enchanted the world with Out of Africa. His death drove Beryl into the sky, where this novel begins, as she becomes the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic from east to west.

Much of the novel takes place in and around Nairobi during the 1920s. The Happy Valley expatriates are contrasted with the lives of the farmers, animal breeders, and hunters who claimed the land for England. They may have been fooled if they they thought Africa could be tamed. Like the hungry lion, land and people will always retain their true and best nature.

The reader will be entranced, horrified, and engaged fully while reading this book - and after.

I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for a fair review, and in physical form from Random House. Thanks to both. 


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The Mysterious Disappearance of the Reluctant Book Fairy

The Mysterious Disappearance of the Reluctant Book Fairy by Elizabeth  George
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Annapurna (a/k/a Janet) is a librarian with a Special Ability. Mildred is an Indomitable Force. Add one indie bookstore with money woes, adventure-seekers with deep pockets, a best friend who can't keep a secret, and a dollop of literary opinions. Voilà - fifty pages that will leave you laughing and yearning for a friend named Annapurna.

Janet has always been able to lose herself in a story. Literally. Not as a character, already written, but as a participating extra. As a sickly child, she drank tea alongside Alice in Wonderland, tried on Cinderalla's slippers, and climbed down Rapunzel's hair. Her secret was never meant to be public. Ah, but after she settled an argument with her talkative friend by transporting her to a pivotal scene beneath an oak tree in To Kill a Mockingbird, she became a very popular girl indeed.

Years later, she has long eschewed her talent, and has spent 15 years travelling the country in a school bus with folks who want to duplicate "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert." Her now-married friend, Monie, entices her back to her hometown; a library job is the lure, but a desire for temporary escapes from her dullard husband is the real motivation. Monie really, really needs a trip to the terrace at Monte Carlo where Maxim proposed to Rebecca's nameless successor. (The delicious scene with Mrs. Danvers will have to wait.)

Enter the Indomitable Force, a stalwart fundraiser for local causes. She learns about the Special Ability. Enough said.

(Janet, by the way, is not a pushover. She has always sent people into books they had not requested, because a trip on the Argo is better than a game of quidditch, n'est pas? She insists on Dracula instead of trips with glittery vampires, refuses all requests for Danielle Steel, and acquaints many with The Scarlet Pimpernel and Pemberley.)

Elizabeth George has concocted a wicked funny book, a total delight. Will you think about "Being John Malkovich" and larks by Jasper Fford? Of course. That's part of the fun.

Five stars for a book that's short, but oh, so savory.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.


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Uprooted

Uprooted by Naomi Novik
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What Naomi Novik has created in Uprooted is a new vision from old fairy-and-folktale tropes. We have seen enchanted and malevolent forests before; likewise, the cold wizard from the stony tower who claims a young girl from a nearby village every ten years.

What we have never seen before is how the young girl challenges her selection because her beautiful friend had been groomed for the honor by her proud family, how the girl who is selected masters her own nature and changes the course of her magical training to add compassion to power, and how material corruption can be understood and transcended by the power of a woman's faithfulness.

Each of the revelations of this book follows a new logic down an old, old path. Read it with joy and astonishment.

Five stars, and straight on 'til morning.

I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.


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Hugo & Rose

Hugo & Rose by Bridget  Foley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

High-concept books require readers to buy into the premise - in this case, that a woman, Rose, has been dreaming about a fantastic island and playmate, Hugo, since she was recovering from an accident at age six. Every.Single.Night. The island is a whimsical affair, with sparkling pink sands, weird foes to be vanquished, and landmarks such as Castle City and the Green Lagoon. Hugo leads their adventures aboard the Plank Orb, and flying above Spider Chasm.

Rose marries Josh, a surgeon, and has three little children. Although she continues to have the dreams, she ages, as we all do, and is vaguely dissatisfied with what she calls her "sweatpants years." On the island, in her dreams, she is still beautiful and fit, as is Hugo, even though both have aged in the dreams. "Of what consequences are the dreams of housewives?" she wonders, retreating into sleep and feeling alienated from the other mothers.

Her husband and children have participated vicariously in the dream-world via the stories they have adopted as a shared mythology. They look forward to their bedtime play with the Tickle Monster, and they build a LEGO replica of the island.

Of course, the impossible becomes possible one day when she drives a carload of hungry, grumpy children to a less-travelled fast food restaurant, Orange Tastee. The cashier, against all real-world logic, is Hugo: older and less beautiful, like Rose, but unmistakable.

She is shaken - who wouldn't be? - and she begins to stalk him when her children are in school. When she decides to show herself, he recognizes her but panics. Soon, the dreams they share begin to change...

The concept is intricate, and beautifully limned. The lines between good guys and threatening entities, waking and dreaming, shared history and unique childhood traumas, are honored, even when circumstances begin to deteriorate. Many of the recurrent themes - imperiled children, the perceived shallowness of caregivers - resonate deeply. Who hasn't wished for an imaginary world and an agreeable companion?

My rating is really 3.5 stars, shading toward a generous 4. One star is subtracted because the writing sometimes slips into cumbersome, tell-don't-show pronouncements ("it played into their innate desires for self-reliance") that are annoying and spell-breaking, especially after a well-written passage of show-don't-tell. Another half-star would be subtracted because Rose's husband is just too, too patient. But it's a good and diverting read, and a fine first novel.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.


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At the water's edge

At the Water's Edge by Sara Gruen
My rating: 2 of 5 stars


The proprietor of a Scottish loch-side inn, the men and women who work there, the townspeople who keep the faith during the dark times of WWII: these are well-drawn, real characters whose survival matters deeply to the reader. Their folklore (including the Loch Ness Monster), their remedies for everything from seasickness to the devastation of domestic violence, their soups and teas - these illuminate personalities of a terrified, but far from fractured community.

Unfortunately, these are secondary characters, used as backdrop for three Americans whose heedlessness, selfishness, casual cruelty, snobbishness, and backbiting are only a hair's breath from cartoonish. A young, married couple is disinherited by insular, callous parents. They and an equally callow friend go to the Loch to film (by any means necessary) the Monster, which the beastly father had filmed - falsely - years before. The two men mistreat everyone they come across - except, possibly, each other - and the woman, left behind at the inn for days at a time, grows a soul.

There are love stories mixed in here, some of which engage the reader. There is so much backstory in the first third of the book that the reader may despair of finding the thread of a worthy plot.  There are glimpses of what the real war has done to real people, both military and civilian, and there is hope - because the reader knows the outcome of the war.

Disappointing, but worth two stars for the heart and soul of the small town that takes in three hapless Americans.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.


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Doll God

Doll God by Luanne Castle
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In the realm of the Doll God by Luanne Castle, intention is not limited to the usual actors. Nesting dolls may choose to share Snow White's casket. The old, life-sized toddler doll, denied a little girl's ability to say "No," may force the beholder to read her history in chill, stony eyes ("See how it was for me, my history"). In "A Bone Elegy," a poem that refers to surgery on a "ravenous tumor" on the foot of the poet, a mother's voice is "a clothesline/heavy with soggy laundry" as the poet remembers a visit to the shore, where "the wind stirring up/ the waves/ goosebumped my arms." Dolls and their homes, and the objects in those homes, challenge the reader to examine the transcendent issues of love, loss, beauty, presence, absence ("because absence has its variations").

"God's toolbox begets stained glass," she says, hinting at both beauty and danger. You will "see the sky's floor crack open in one poem; in another, the sky is "so blue it hisses." Even the peace of a mother knitting in golden lamplight while listening to Nancy Wilson is transient, as a girl, "whose blood is "buzzing through/ its gridded network," well knows: "Anything could unbalance it./ An extra star in tomorrow's sky, rain/ or no rain/ could re-set it all."

I particularly loved the poem, "Prospective Ghost's Response to the First Duino Elegy," in which Castle tells the Master, "I am still looking for angels," and tells of possible encounters with ghosts who appear to her as sensations.

Ghost animals skirt my ankles.
I could be in love with them or their shadows.
Now, I sit on the ledge watching
terror as it creeps and insinuates
into everything that is life or the world...

Rilke himself might have told her that "...the wind/ full of outer space/ gnaws at our lifted faces.." or that "...many stars lined up/ hoping you'd notice."  He might have told her to show the angel "how even the wail of sorrow/ can settle purely/ into its own form..." -

- but Castle knows that, as she has created art from artifacts of childhood, and from the ancient teaching-tales of humanity. As proof, one more quote, from Snow Remembers an Old Tale:

From that other screen
once upon that time
a girl crawled out at night to dance
in aisles of cornfields
from Mayday to Halloween.

In a guest post on Peeking Between the Pages, Luanne Castle recently wrote "Because I grew up with the imaginary world of dolls, I can't see a doll that doesn't inspire me for a poem Often my imagination will transform the doll into a magical portal through which to see more of the human heart."

Need I say that I loved this book? It has everything poetry can offer, from stunning imagery and metaphors to a storyline that encompasses the search for meaning and identity.

Thank you to Serena Agusto-Cox of Poetic Book Tours and Savvy Verse and Wit for inviting me to participate in the blog tour for Doll God.


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The Witch of Painted Sorrows

The Witch of Painted Sorrows by M.J. Rose
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

M.J.Rose writes lush, evocative, sensual, smooth prose that brings the reader through a labrynthine multiple-timeline, filled with art, history, satin, velvet, and the pervasive scent of violets. The Witch is La Lune, a 16th-century courtesan whose passion for art and life illuminated her own live, and has captivated the lives of all of the women in Maison de la Lune house for centuries.

Sandrine is an American woman who has fled her abusive husband at the end of the 19th century. She goes to her grandmother's house, the Maison. Grandmother is a courtesan, one of a line that has charmed generations of generous men with wit and intellect. She is also a pragmatist, and she discourages Sandrine's growing passions for painting and her own architect, Julien, whose Art Nouveau style has begun to challenge Parisian standards of beauty in the Belle Epoque.

At first, Sandrine reads The Portrait of Dorian Gray while her grandmother holds her salons. Soon, though, she begins to explore the ornate mansion, and devises an audacious plan to force the Ecole des Beaux-Arts to accept her as its first female student.

Many worlds collide in this novel: Cabala and alchemy v. pragmatism and reason, duty v. passion (beautifully rendered in erotic interludes and transgressive art), fictional characters v. cameo appearances by Gustav Moreau, Debussy, Satie, and others. Can a long-dead enchantress overpower and inhabit a modern woman? Where does imagination end and possession begin?

I read this heady novel slowly, savoring and admiring the author's immersion in the details of houses, paintings, philosophers, folklore, and the customs of the courtesans. That I sensed the depth or research instead of becoming immersed as a reader is one of the flaws of this novel. The other is that the ending, after all of the struggles, seemed abrupt.

Still, 4 stars.

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.



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First Frost

First Frost by Sarah Addison Allen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read this book in one day because I just had to know -- everything -- it was a delight to revisit the Waverley women and children, to know that Evanelle is still giving things to people because they *will* need them, to witness the good men Sydney and Claire have married, and to get more of a glimpse into the Waverley heritage. Sydney's daughter Bay has become a wise and charming teenager who makes mistakes, just like her mother and aunt, but who has the benefit of a loving, enchanted family to help her when she stumbles.

If you haven't read Garden Spells yet, do -- you will enjoy this installment so much more if you know how the sisters reconnected and how their magic manifests.

I must say - seeing that this is called "Waverley Family #2" has me utterly chuffed: there will be more Waverley books. Yes!

One-half star off because of one storyline that just didn't make it for me - it didn't detract much, but it also didn't add, and I thought it was telegraphed with a heavier hand than Allen's usual delicacy.



I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.



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The Little Paris Bookshop

The Little Paris Bookshop: A Novel by Nina George
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Jean Perdu's great love, Manon, left him two decades ago. Since then, he has maintained a floating bookshop-barge, a Literary Apothecary, on the banks of the Seine. His own heart and life have been hardened; the room in his apartment where he knew great love has been barricaded and left idle.  By day, he dispenses books, suiting the title to the customer with uncanny accuracy, One customer might receive The Elegance of the Hedgehog, while another might be given a poem by Hesse or Tom's Midnight Garden. Only his cats, Lindgren and Kafka, are permitted to touch him; he can not prescribe a book for himself.

Catherine, his new neighbor, has escaped an abusive relationship. When M. Perdu's landlady urges him to donate something to help furnish her new apartment, he breaks into the long-deserted room to fetch a table. He is stunned when Catherine gives him a letter she found in a drawer - a letter from Manon. Unopened.

Tearing open the letter tears him apart when he learns why Manon chose to leave - not for lack of love at all. Suddenly, disappointment and anger become something very different. The young woman he first met on a train from Provence, for whom he prescribed books for homesickness, had another reason to leave him - and he failed her.

Also in the apartment complex is a young writer, Max Jordan, who wears earplugs and wooly mufti to escape the fans who clamor for more, more. He, too, has been abandoned - by his muse.

For much of the book, M. Perdu and Max navigate the the barge through the waterways of France, from Paris to Provence, as Perdu tries to retrace Manon's steps and learn her fate. They are not quite Huck and Jim, but some of their adventures are bittersweet, each meeting people and learning truths about themselves as they float through the countryside.

The book is a love song to love itself, Paris, the tango, food, books, and freedom. Some of the characters and episodes would be at home in "Amelie." Other situations are more like a gastronomic panorama. We learn that Paris is scented "like lime blossoms and expectation," that the air, one day, "was as warm as a brimming teacup." Catherine wanted to be a pirate and a librarian; she serves as M. Perdu's lodestar, and represents the possibility of mature, honest love. We learn of Manon from a diary in which she describes Perdu as a white raven.

If you are hungry when you finish the book, recipes are included for some of the dishes - (a Provencal soup called Pistou, lavender ice cream). Also included: "Jean Perdu's emergency literary pharmacy,"   from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (to be read "in easily digestible doses... with warm feet and/or with a cat on your lap"), Romain Gary's Promise at Dawn ("...protection against nostalgia for one's childhood"), Robert Musil's The Man Without Qualities ("a book for me who've forgotten what they wanted from life"), and Enchanted April by elizabeth von Arnim, "for indecision and for trusting one's friends."

If I had a literary apothecary, I would prescribe this book to all of my friends.

Thank you, Net Galley, for allowing me to read and review this wonderful book.



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The Nightingale

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Kristin Hannah begins her tale in 1995, as an ailing, elderly woman tells her son that she will not be parted from a steamer trunk that has stood, unopened, for half a century. He believes it contains mundane mementos that can be repacked into a more compact container. He is wrong. Her son loves her, thinks the old woman, but the dependable, ordinary woman he knows has  many secrets.

In 1939, two sisters in France live very different lives. Vianne Mauriac's husband Antoine has just been mobilized. She and their daughter, Sophie, remain in quiet Carriveau. Meanwhile, Vianne's younger sister, Isabelle Rossignol, has been expelled from yet another school in Paris. She briefly works for her father's bookstore, but is forced to flee Paris when the Maginot Line breaks. Along with masses of frightened Parisiennes, Isabelle gets the first hint of the suffering France will endure under the Nazi occupation.

The clashes between the sisters began in their childhood, when their mother died and their father withdrew into alcohol. Even the war does not soften the antagonism between them. Vianne's first concern is the safety of her daughter. She refuses to go along with Isabelle's call to rebel. Vianne believes that the Vichy government will keep them safe, but her hopes shatter one by one.

When the German officer who billets at her home, Beck, informs her that Antoine has been captured, Vianne begins to realize that there are levels of collaboration. Is it wrong for her to cook Beck's meals in exchange for antibiotics, or news from Antoine? Isabelle leaves the village to become a freedom fighter, risking her life to ensure the safety and victory of the Allies.

And what of the old woman? She accepts an invitation to go to paris and attend a ceremony. She is dying, but her son will learn the truth about his family.

Every character, every scene, every flash of history in this novel is a clear look at realities: war, love, courage, and compromise. Vianne and Isabelle embody the experiences and choices that everyday people have to face in wartime. Kristin Hannah has given us a look at the courageous women whose actions may be less-known than those of the heroic men, but who were no less courageous and important.

I received this book from GoodReads in exchange for an honest review. Thank you!


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The world before her

The World Before Us by Aislinn Hunter
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The frequent comparisons between this book and A.S. Byatt's Possession are, I believe, misguided. Although both involve dual timelines and long-hidden secrets, Hunter's book focuses on memory, and eschews satire and verbal pyrotechnics.  Instead, she takes us inside the ghosts? shades? spirits? of the long-dead actors in a story connected to a long-shuttered Victorian asylum and a Victorian botanist. She shades struggle to remember who they were, and how their stories intertwined. So does archivist Jane Standen, whose dissertation included the asylum, and whose job is ending at the museum where she works is closing.

She has long been haunted by the disappearance of a girl from the asylum, known only as N, when she and two men walked to the botanist's house. The men returned; the girl did not. When Jane learns who is to speak at the gala for the museum's closing, she flees: The speaker, Jane's first crush, was the father of a little girl, Lily, who disappeared during a walk in the woods - when Jane was babysitting her. Jane goes to the village where both disappearances happened, searching for clues to the disappearance of N, and for clues to the tragedy that has defined her for many years.

An archivist preserves and sorts artifacts that keep the stories of a place and its residents alive. Some stories are more personal than others. N's disappearance might not have caught Jane's attention had Lily not disappeared. Others are less so, at least on the surface. The new owners of the botanist's house are recreating his gardens to be as they were in his lifetime.

As Jane reads the letters, journals, and logbooks, looking for clues into N's life and disappearance, the shades begin to recover their essences. As Jane begins a relationship with one of the gardeners, they also begin to remember how it felt to be alive, how their senses defined them.

The reader gets to absorb complexity in both timelines, and sees how Jane becomes more solid and complex as she assembles clues and allows the present - with risks and uncertainty - to to affect her as much as the past.

I was particularly taken by side-stories about the village and villagers, past and present, which deepened the theme of memory. One example: local miners who gather to remember their experiences as others, trapped, their stories told by the media, are in the long process of being rescued. The subterranean story illuminates the hope for salvation when the men can be brought to the surface to tell their own stories.

So, yes, this book is not Possession. Instead, it is a subtle tale of duality and memory, discovery and connection, which shines in its own, elegant, ultimately beautiful terms.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley, and this is an unbiased review.


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