The Taxidermist's Daughter, book review. (Kate Mosse)

Atmosphere.

If you like a book with atmosphere, whether you're on the moors with Cathy and Heathcliff, crossing the causeway to Eel Marsh House, running from the ruins of Manderley, or walking the rain soaked alleyways of Carlos Ruiz Zafon's Barcelona, if you like your books with atmosphere look no further than Kate Mosse's, The Taxidermist's Daughter.

A hundred years ago in the small fishing village of Fishbourne on the south coast of England, there was a terrible storm, a storm that caused the tide to surge and breach the sea defences, a storm that brought death and destruction but also a cleansing, because before that storm there was rot in Fishbourne, unholy activity, secrets that Connie Gifford has long forgotten, and a killing of a different almost animalistic kind, a kind that exposed the depravity of man . . . before the storm.

Having finished the author's Langudock series last year I felt a little deflated (I loved Labyrinth and Sepulchre but really didn't get on with book three, Citadel) so I'd left this one on the shelf collecting dust, which was one hell of a mistake.

From page one, and I'm not embellishing here, from page one I was hooked, and who wouldn't be when it starts with a rain-soaked funeral attended by strangers with a certain familiarity and the murder of a young woman?

For Connie Gifford her past is a blank, her first ten years are missing. She lost her memory when she had a fall, or was it a shock, or was she . . . But why can't she remember? Did she really just trip and fall down the stairs, hit her head like her father told her, or was there more to it than that?

A few days after the funeral a young woman's body is found in a stream by Connie's house and Connie thinks she recognises her, but does she? Could it just be that the coat is familiar? The coat she saw someone wearing at the funeral, and so begins the unravelling of the mystery.

There's the strange disappearance of her alcoholic father - no-one seems to know where he is - the arrival of a stranger, Harry Woolston, who professes to be the son of the local doctor, but is he and can he be trusted? And where is his father? Why did he leave for the specialist hospital so quickly and not come back?

There's the ever present threat of the storm as it builds momentum through the book, the inquisitive local bobby (policeman) making his enquires and casting his aspersions, the sudden occupation of Themis Cottage by an unknown single woman (this is 1912 remember) and the continuous and horrific slaughter of the town's menfolk, all as the storm makes land, the tide rises and the solitary blinking light from that cottage pulls Connie, Harry, the policeman and many more besides likes moths in the dark, and makes for one hell of a climax.

You'll have to read the book to find out what happens of course but believe me, it is very well worth your time.

Chilling, spooky, rain soaked town on the south coast of England in the midst of a murder spree in the early 1900's with beautifully written characters, great plot, plenty of blood and intrigue; what's not to like?

Four and a half stars and one of my favourites so far this year, and with winter approaching, what better time to immerse yourselves in the pages of a book like this.

Don't forget to search my blog for your favourite authors and books to see if I have read them yet and if I have not, why not message me with your recommendations.

The Shadow of the Wind, book review. (Carlos Ruiz Zafon)

When Daniel Sempere is ten years old and taken to the Cemetery of Forgotten books by his father and comes away with a copy of, The Shadow of the Wind, by Julian Carax, he is overwhelmed by its brilliance and vows to track down and read all of the authors’ books.

However, the author seems to have disappeared, along with the vast majority of his works, and so, some years later, with what could be the only Carax book left, Daniel begins to investigate.

With the assistance of his beggar friend, de Torres, and with the rather unscrupulous, Inspector Fumero shadowing their every move, Daniel starts to uncover the truth, the story of a young Julian, son of a milliner, and Penelope, daughter of one of Barcelona's richest families, and how they fell in love.

Due to their backgrounds, they kept their relationship a secret, but with just days to go to their planned elopement to Paris (arranged and financed by Julian’s closest friend Miquel) their love affair is discovered, along with Penelope's pregnancy.

Penelope is imprisoned by her father and Julian - his life now in danger - is forced to make the journey alone.

Decades pass before Julian feels he can return, and on learning of Penelope's fate when he does, he starts to destroy all his books, and it is in the dark, foggy, rain-soaked streets of Barcelona, that Daniel too finds the truth and if he’s not careful and doesn’t act quickly, the same fate might well befall him and his beloved, Bea.

The Gothic beauty in which Barcelona is painted here is so enticing you feel the chill on your neck, the hairs prickle on your arm as you read. The characters ooze such depth and quality that I want to meet them, shake their hands, kiss, or run from them. I want to visit the Cemetery of Forgotten Books - just the once of course - walk through its many avenues, climb its many stairs, before finding my copy of, The Shadow of the Wind, and then I'd be its keeper, its custodian, share and protect it.

This book is so wonderfully written in such a superb setting that you feel the danger that Daniel, de Torres and any who cross Fumero (who is now a corrupt police chief) are in, seeping from the page, and of Julian, having lost his one true love, damaged beyond repair, you feel his pain with every breath.

This book is funny, too – de Torres speaks like a poet and acts like the fool but has a heart of gold. Scary - Fumero’s methods of torture are legendary and being a woman or a child is no protection. Mysterious – what happened to Penelope? Who is the burnt man who follows Daniel? Who has burnt all of Julian’s books? And superbly atmospheric.

Having just read this for a second time (the fourth book coming out prompting me to go back to the beginning) and enjoyed it just as much as the first, it has now cemented its place in my top ten favourites of all time.

Five big gold stars then and on to book two, The Angel's Game.

In celebration of my two hundredth blog post and All Hallows' Eve, a dark tale of woe.

He was fifty minutes in, hot, sweaty, but he was fit. He could run for hours but not today – today he had other things on his mind. Her!

The root was a trip hazard, looping from the ground like an old Victorian boot-scraper. I’ll get you one day, it said. I’ll get you when you’re daydreaming.

He’d run the path a hundred times, maybe more, but the caw of a crow distracted him.

He flew for a second, landing gently, free from injury, but sliding, the wet leaves giving little purchase and the barrier (some old wooden posts) did nothing to arrest him.

The impact was brief, the posts giving way, and his cry rang out shrill like the birds. He was flying, free-falling, branches slapping his face, snapping beneath his weight.

The ground was soft but it broke him all the same. He tasted blood. It hurt to breathe. He couldn’t feel his legs. Something other than the branches had snapped on the way down.

He blinked and his vision blurred.

He wept and there was pain.

Darkness came. In and out of consciousness he fell, dreaming, thinking of her. What she’d said, what he’d done! Would he ever see her again? Hold her, comfort her? Would she ever forgive him?

He called, he shouted, screamed until he was hoarse but no one came: no dog walkers, no search parties, just animals. Nervous at first they crawled, hopped and slithered: a crow with a taste for eyes, a badger, sniffing but bolder over time, and then, as the moon rose and his breath clouded, they feasted.

He felt the tug on his arm, shooed a bird from his face, blew bugs from his lips, but it was no use; it was over. The creatures would gorge, they would have their meal, and as steam rose from exposed flesh, as they buried into him, the pain would take him beyond this life until he was nothing but a memory.

As dawn broke and cast mottled shadow across broken bough, a bird – the crow – the one with a taste for eyes, perched on a root that looped from the ground like an old Victorian boot-scrapper, and having supped, it listened and waited patiently.

Heart-Shaped Box, book review. (Joe Hill)

It's been a while since I read a true horror book, and now I've gone and read two in quick succession.

If the word horror scares you, or you've never read the genre before, don't worry, because unlike the bloodbaths of old, the slasher books of the 70's and 80's, (which made this author's father rather famous), the horror books of today are more subtle; this book being a good case in point.

Set in the US of A, we have an ageing rock star, Judas Coyne, (stage name), his Gothic girlfriend, Georgia, a ghost, and the sister of Coyne's dead girlfriend, who's out for revenge.

Coyne, is not only a rock star, but a collector, a collector of the strange, the weird, the eclectic, so when a ghost is offered for sale on an auction website, he just has to purchase it. When an old suit arrives a few days later, and Jude sees the ghost that he purchased, casually sitting in a chair in his hallway, things begin to fall apart.

You'd think the fact that the ghost was real would be enough, but when the ghost speaks to him, tries to control him, Coyne starts to investigate, and soon finds out that the man in life, was his dead girlfriend's step-father, and then, the journey really begins.

Coyne and Georgia hit the road. They're going in search of the dead girlfriend's sister, (the woman who sold him the ghost), and there's Ouija boards, guns, cars crashes, cut-throat razors, dogs, the constant presence of the spectre and more, and it's all rather good.

There are parts of this book that are genuinely spooky, it has a creepiness that I felt wasn't overdone, and a ghost that felt genuinely scary. There's the mad, full on, all guns blazing, inter-spliced with the cold, dead of night, hairs-on-the-back-of-your-head spooky, and it all balances out rather nicely.

What I didn't like was the fact that all the female characters seemed to have been molested as children, and that Coyne's ex-wife hadn't dispose of his illegal video when she'd found it - and when I say illegal, I mean chuck you in gaol and throw away the key illegal, which surely any rational person would have done.

So, taking all of the above into consideration, Heart-Shaped Box has its ups and its downs but gets a solid three stars; which isn't bad for a debut novel.

The Kiss. (A short story with bite, by yours truly)

It's been a long time since I shared any of my own work on here, which was half the reason for starting this blog in the first place, so for this post I thought I'd share a piece of flash fiction that I wrote last year, which was published in Graffiti magazine.

Enjoy.

The Kiss

Fever gripped me.

I had all the symptoms. Vomiting, which I put down to the drink - Shellie, Beth and I had been clubbing the night I fell ill - I had the sweats: I got so hot one night that my step-mother phoned the doctor, I got so cold the next that I couldn’t move for all the duvets blankets and clothes piled upon me. Then, there was the pain. It had started as a dull ache but got progressively worse.
My temperature rose from a rather unassuming 100.3 to a hyperpyrexian 103.4. I was delirious, I didn’t know what day it was, who my friends were.

My mother bathed me with a flannel and a bowl of cool water, but it didn’t work, so she placed me in a cold bath, but still the fever raged.

Then, on the fifth day, everything changed.

I woke with a hunger beyond any comprehension, in more pain than I could bear. I tried to eat, I wanted to eat, but everything felt coarse, alien in my mouth. Danny, my darling brother, he even bought me my favourite cake, but I didn’t want it. All I wanted was for the pain to stop.

I pushed Danny away; I pushed him with strength untold, and when I did the truth began to unravel.

An image appeared before me, the image of a face. I was lost, trapped in its beauty – just as I had been in the club that night - and I remembered now. The touch of those lips as they pressed upon mine, the cool of a tongue as we’d started to kiss, that faint metallic taste in my mouth, and with that recollection everything fell into place.

I looked at my brother all crumpled on the floor. He’d cut his hand on the shattered plate, his blood flowed freely and the smell was intoxicating. I was completely overwhelmed, there was nothing I could do to resist; the temptation was just too great. All I wanted, needed, to satisfy the hunger, to nullify the pain, was right in front of me.

In the blink of an eye I was sucking his fingers, feasting on his life, gorging on that rich delicious nectar. A second later and I had a hold of his head, tipping it back, exposing his neck, and as much as he wanted to struggle, he couldn’t; he was powerless, lost in my beauty.

The fear and wonder on his innocent face, his last gasp for breath, the smell and taste of his warm blood on my tongue, were all so enticing.

As my cold lips caressed his neck, I heard the pounding of his heart fill the room like a drum, and then, as a shudder of dread rippled through him, I sank my teeth into his exposed flesh, and we kissed!

The Shadow of the Wind, book review. (Carlos Ruiz Zafon)

When Daniel Sempere is taken to the Cemetery of Forgotten books by his father and comes away with a copy of, The Shadow of the Wind, by Julian Carax, he is overwhelmed by its brilliance and vows to track down and read all the authors’ books.

However, the author seems to have disappeared, along with the vast majority of his works, and so, with what could be the only Julian Carax book left in existence, Daniel begins to investigate.

With the assistance of his beggar friend, de Torres, and with the rather unscrupulous, Inspector Fumero, shadowing their every move, Daniel starts to uncover the truth; the story of a young Julian, son of a milliner, and Penelope, daughter of one of Barcelona's richest families, and how they fell in love.

Due to their backgrounds, their relationship was kept a secret, but with just days to go to their planned elopement to Paris, their love affair is discovered, along with Penelope's pregnancy.
Before she can make her escape, Penelope is imprisoned by her father, and so, Julian - his life now in danger - is forced to make the journey alone.

Decades pass before Julian feels it is safe to return, and on learning Penelope's fate, start to destroy all his books, and it is in the dark, foggy, rain-soaked streets of Barcelona, that Daniel too, finds the truth.

The Gothic beauty in which Barcelona is painted here is so enticing. You feel the chill on your neck, the hairs prickle on your arms, and half expect to see Daniel, de Torres or Julian, running down the street the next time you go out in the dark.

The characters ooze such depth and quality that I want to meet them, shake their hands, kiss, or run from them. I want to visit the Cemetery of Forgotten Books - just the once of course - walk through its many avenues, climb its many stairs, probe its depth, before finding my copy of, The Shadow of the Wind, and then I'd be its keeper, its custodian; share and protect it.

This book is so wonderfully written, in such a superb setting, that you feel the very danger Daniel's in, seeping from the page, and of Julian, having lost his one true love, damaged beyond repair, you feel his pain with every breath.

This book is such a solid five stars I can recommend it to all, and having read the second book first - I know, what an idiot - and the fourth book being out, I thought I would go back to the very beginning and start my journey again.