Book Review: A Castle in the Air (A Stitch in Time, #4) by Kelley Armstrong

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: A Castle in the Air
Series: A Stitch in Time, #4
Author: Kelley Armstrong
Publisher: Kla Fricke Inc
Publication date: October 31, 2023
Length: 306 pages
Genre: Time slip/ghost story
Source: Purchased
Rating:

Portia Hastings has spent her life rescuing her younger sister from one scrape or another. Now, she has to step through time to do it, following Miranda from the nineteenth century to the eighteenth. Almost immediately, Portia is beset by highwaymen, which might be the most exciting thing to happen to her in a long time, even if she’d never admit it.

When one of the highwaymen is injured, Portia makes the inexcusable mistake of helping him-she is trained as a doctor after all. Her travel companions abandon her, and she’s left at the mercy of a highwayman who demands she continue tending to his compatriot’s wounds.

Portia soon finds herself at a crumbling castle inhabited by the destitute Earl of Ravensford. Benedict Sterling is in desperate need of money, and his solution is a ball, where a wealthy bride will win the title of countess, even if it does come with one thunderously ill-tempered earl.

Portia agrees to a scheme to help Benedict look like a slightly more appealing bridegroom, while she continues to search for Miranda. Then there’s the small matter of the castle, complete with a ghost intent on driving her out. But once Portia sets her mind on something, she’s not going anywhere.

There should be a word for the feeling of being satisfied and happy, yet also experiencing a parallel sense of heartbreak. Because isn’t that all of us at the end of a great book series?

As far as I can tell, A Castle in the Air concludes the 4-book series A Stitch in Time. And I don’t want it to be over! But truly, this has been a terrific reading experience, so I suppose I’ll just have to suck it up and embrace the Seuss motto:

OK, I’m done moping. Let’s talk about A Castle in the Air!

As an introduction, for those unfamiliar with the story so far, the Stitch in Time books comprise a timeslip/romance series, in which a lonely manor house on the Yorkshire moors contains a “stitch” that connects across time. In the first book, we see an unsuspecting 21st century woman cross through the stitch into the Victorian era, with all sorts of romantic and ghostly adventures in store for her.

(And yes, in addition to the timeslip element, these books are also ghost stories! A love story is at the heart of each book, but also… time travel and hauntings!)

The first book also introduces a mystery about a missing woman, Rosalind, who becomes the main character in the second book. Rosalind’s two sisters then take center stage for books three and four.

Which brings us to A Castle in the Air, starring Portia Hastings, the middle sister — unmarried, responsible, and devoted to her profession. She’s a trained physician in everything but title — Victorian women are not permitted to enter medical school, but she’s worked and learned alongside her doctor father all her life, and she’s skilled and knowledgeable in her field. To camouflage herself, she dresses plainly, hides her beauty, and tries to provide care to her patients without attracting too much notice from people who might cause trouble.

As A Castle in the Air opens, Portia’s younger sister Miranda has not returned as scheduled from a time travel quest, and Portia decides to go after her — even though Portia is the only one of the three sisters who’s never crossed through the stitch until this point. She hasn’t even been tempted — her life is just fine without time stitches to complicate things — but worry for Miranda drives her to cross over.

Upon arrival, Portia finds herself one hundred years in her past, and before long, ends up confronted by a pair of highwaymen — who are not quite what they seem. Called upon for her medical skills, she ends up at the falling-to-ruins castle of Ravensford, caring for the earl’s injured brother… and trying not to notice the beautiful eyes of the brusque, moody earl himself.

As you can imagine, underneath the broody exterior there’s a heart of gold, and before long, Portia and Benedict are much more than just reluctant companions. The plot isn’t only about the romance, however: The area is suffering through a terrible drought, dire debts threaten Benedict’s ability to keep his family’s lands intact and protect his tenants, greedy neighboring landowners threaten to swoop in, and a ghostly presence haunts the keep, posing a real threat to Portia’s safety.

Portia and Benedict have terrific chemistry, and the mystery of the ghost is a good one — plus there’s a ball to find Benedict a wealthy wife (yes, really), which is complicated by Portia’s presence, and there’s still the puzzle of the highwaymen to solve.

I loved how the plot ties together so many elements, incorporating Portia’s displacement through time with the adventure story happening in Benedict’s world. It all works very, very well, giving the characters a chance to shine while also keeping the action buzzing along.

As a wrap-up to the series, A Castle in the Air is quite satisfying (although I wish Bronwyn and Rosalind, the leads from books 1 and 2, had made an appearance). It really is bittersweet to finish this book and have no more to look forward to! Still, I’ve enjoyed each and every book in the series, and whole-heartedly recommend them all.

Interested in this series? Check out my reviews of the earlier books:

A Stitch in Time
A Twist of Fate
A Turn of the Tide

8Jun2024

Book Review: A Turn of the Tide (A Stitch in Time, #3) by Kelley Armstrong

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: A Turn of the Tide
Series: A Stitch in Time, #3
Author: Kelley Armstrong
Publisher: Kla Fricke Inc
Publication date: October 4, 2022
Length: 270 pages
Genre: Time slip/ghost story
Source: Purchased
Rating:

In Thorne Manor there is one locked door. Behind it lies a portal to the twenty-first century, and nothing is going to stop Miranda Hastings from stepping through. After all, she is a Victorian writer of risqué pirate adventures—traveling to the future would be the greatest adventure of them all.

When Miranda goes through, though, she lands in Georgian England…and in the path of Nicolas Dupuis, a privateer accused of piracy. Sheltered by locals, Nico is repaying their kindness by being their “pirate Robin Hood,” stealing from a corrupt lord and fencing smuggled goods on the village’s behalf.

Miranda embraces Nico’s cause, only to discover there’s more to it than he realizes. Miranda has the second sight, and there are ghosts at play here. The recently deceased former lord is desperate to stop his son from destroying his beloved village. Then there’s the ghost of Nico’s cabin boy, who he thought safe in a neighboring city. Miranda and Nico must solve the mystery of the boy’s death while keeping one step ahead of the hangman.

It may not be the escapade Miranda imagined, but it is about to be the adventure of a lifetime.

A Turn of the Tide is the 3rd book in the A Stitch in Time series, which centers on a “time stitch” located in Thorne Manor on the Yorkshire moors. In each of the previous two books, a woman accidentally travels through the stitch and finds herself in a new world; in the first, Bronwyn travels from the 21st century to the 18th, and in the second, Rosalind does the opposite — a Victorian woman suddenly finding herself trapped in the modern era and unable to get home.

In A Turn of the Tide, Rosalind’s youngest sister Miranda takes center stage. A free-spirited nonconformist who secretly writes pirate adventures under a pen name, Miranda never met a mystery she didn’t want to unravel. When she overhears enough to understand there’s a time passage to be explored in Thorne Manor, she’s eager to try it for herself, dying to learn what life is like 200 years in the future.

Much to Miranda’s surprise, she instead ends up 50 years in the past. She’s traveled to 1790, and immediately encounters a pirate — but he’s not a stranger to her. Miranda has “the sight” and often sees and communicates with ghosts. Over the past few years, Miranda has often seen a sort of echo of this particular pirate, witnessing over and over again his death by ambush on a country road.

Miranda is convinced that this man is not a villain at all, but rather the legendary Robin Hood of the Bay, a pirate known for stealing from the wealthy in order to help the poor and hungry townspeople of York. And once she realizes that this is who she’s encountered, still very much alive, she believes it’s her mission to save him from the death she’s had visions of… whether he wants her interference or not.

A rollicking, swashbuckling adventure ensues, and naturally (or, as the French-speaking Nico would say, naturellement) a romance unfolds as well. Miranda and Nico evade the ambush, but find themselves on the run, pursued by myriad bad guys, and dealing with challenges such as a damaged ship, treasure caves, smuggling tunnels, and even a masquerade ball hosted by their enemy. It’s all quite breathless and dramatic… just as a good pirate story should be!

A Turn of the Tide isn’t quite as emotional as the previous two books — the characters are engaging and have well-drawn personalities, but Miranda’s tale is much less inwardly focused than Bronwyn’s or Rosalind’s.

Beyond the love story, there’s a mystery to solve, as the ghost of the cabin boy haunts Nico’s former ship and clearly died by nefarious means. Miranda and Nico’s goal is to stop the corruption that threatens the locals’ livelihoods, clear Nico’s name and remove the price on his head, and solve the cabin boy’s murder so his soul can move on. It’s all quite fast-paced, full of chases and near-misses and life-or-death scenarios… but given what a spirited romp the story is, it’s clear that all will end well, long before it actually does.

A Turn of the Tide is a very fun read, and as an audiobook, it’s a really enjoyable piece of entertainment. The narrator’s French accent as Nico is pretty awful at times, but after the first few chapters, I got used to it and stopped feeling annoyed.

I’m loving the series as a whole. After each of the three first books, a Christmas-themed companion novella was released — each of which follow up with that books’ main couple while also introducing teeny hints of what’s to come in the next novel.

A Turn of the Tide‘s follow-up novella is Ghosts & Garlands, in which Miranda and Nico spend their first Christmas together in 21st century London. The focus is mainly on their love story and their enjoyment of their ability to slip through time and experience new worlds together… but there’s also a ghost story to solve. It’s warm-hearted and lovely.

Now I have just one book left in the series (unless Kelley Armstrong decides to keep it going!), and I’m looking forward to starting it within the next few weeks.

The A Stitch in Time series is just so good! Highly recommended.

Next in the series:

20Apr2024

Book Review: A Twist of Fate (A Stitch in Time, #2) by Kelley Armstrong

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: A Twist of Fate
Series: A Stitch in Time, #2
Author: Kelley Armstrong
Publisher: Subterranean Press
Publication date: October 5, 2021
Length: 288 pages
Genre: Time slip/ghost story
Source: Purchased
Rating:

Four years ago, Rosalind Courtenay stumbled from the nineteenth century to the twenty-first, where she has been trapped ever since, leaving her husband and infant son behind. Now she’s found her way back.

The problem, of course, is how to explain her absence to her husband. Does he think she abandoned him? Has he remarried? Is he happy in a new life? Rosalind decides to don a disguise in hopes of answering her questions before showing up on his doorstep. Instead, a twist of fate has her mistaken for her young son’s new governess.

Rosalind has every intention of revealing herself as soon as August returns home from business. Until then, she’ll get to know her son, a quiet child who has inexplicably been abandoned by an endless stream of governesses. That’s when the hauntings begin. Rosalind has finally come home and something—or someone—doesn’t just want her gone. They want her dead.

I adored A Stitch in Time, the story of a 21st century woman who passes through a time stitch and lands two centuries in the past, where she reunites with the man who was once her secret childhood companion. In A Stitch in Time, we learn that William’s best friend’s wife is believed dead, after she set out riding one night and never returned. Her horse was found dead in the sea below a cliff — clearly, Rosalind had a tragic accident and fell to her death. But August has never accepted this as fact; despite the years that have passed, he’s convinced that she left him and their infant son.

In A Twist of Fate, we get Rosalind’s story, and it’s immediately captivating. Yes, Rosalind went out riding in the middle of the night, to retrieve the wedding ring she’d accidentally left behind in the kitchen of Thorne Manor. But hearing a strange noise from an upstairs room, in what was supposedly an unoccupied house, Rosalind ventures up to investigate, and falls through the time slip. Shocked and scared once she figures out what’s happened, she tries desperately to get back, but the portal seems to have closed. Alone in a strange world, Rosalind has no choice but to figure out how to get by, but she returns month after month to Thorne Manor to see if the way back has finally opened for her.

After four years and a chance encounter with William and Bronwyn in the 21st century, Rosalind realizes that her opportunity may finally have come — and it has. She manages the time passage, and is determined to get to her husband and son as quickly as possible.

On reaching August’s family’s country home, Rosalind is mistaken for the expected new governess. Learning that her husband is away on business, she takes this opportunity to spend time with her son and discover what she can about their lives, intending to tell August the truth as soon as he arrives. But complications arise, and Rosalind’s opportunity to reveal herself is delayed over and over again. Meanwhile, she spends time with her beloved boy Edmund, treasuring every precious moment, but fearing that she may be sent away (or sent to an asylum) if she can’t convince people of her true identity.

At the same time, Courtenay House appears to be haunted, and although Rosalind believes there is a ghost present, she doesn’t believe that the malicious tricks and nighttime scares she experiences are supernatural in origin. There’s a dangerous presence in the house, and it’s very much human in nature.

A Twist of Fate is an utterly engaging and absorbing story. Rosalind’s experiences are quite different that Bronwyn’s — she’s trapped in a strange world, separated from her husband and child, and although she manages to create a sort-of life for herself in the 21st century, she never stops aching for home. A true Victorian woman, Rosalind is also an independent individual, and so it’s quite fun to see her return back to her own time with some new-fangled ideas about motherhood, marriage, raising children, and women’s roles.

She and August truly love one another, but theirs was a marriage plagued by his irrational jealousy before her disappearance. I love that the author doesn’t reunite the two and magically erase all the prior troubles. Yes, they ultimately get a wonderfully romantic second chance at love, but they also have some hard conversations about their shared past, what went wrong, and what needs to change.

The mystery at the heart of the story — who is the ghost? who is the real threat? — is very well done, and had me guessing throughout. The unraveling of secrets and the revelations related to the mystery plotline are surprising and twisty, but fit together perfectly.

I loved seeing Rosalind’s time with Edmund, finding a way to care for and love her son even before he knows who she really is. They have a beautiful relationship, and it was also heartwarming to see what a loving father August became in Rosalind’s absence, definitely breaking with the time period’s societal norms regarding a father’s involvement in his child’s life.

I thoroughly enjoyed A Twist of Fate, and strongly recommend the series as a whole! There are two more novels (which I will absolutely read as soon as I can), and some Christmas-themed novellas that fit in between the main novels.

In fact, immediately upon finishing A Twist of Fate, I started the August and Rosalind novella, Snowstorms and Sleighbells, and will look forward to carrying on with the series. If you enjoy timeslip stories, lovely love stories, and a good mystery, then you must check out the Stitch in Time books.

Next in the series:

2Jun2022

Book Review: The House on Tradd Street by Karen White

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The House on Tradd Street
Author: Karen White
Narrator: Aimée Bruneau
Publisher: Berkley
Publication date: 2008
Print length: 329 pages
Audio length: 13 hours, 10 minute
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Library
Rating:

Practical Melanie Middleton hates to admit she can see ghosts. But she’s going to have to accept it. An old man she recently met has died, leaving her his historic Tradd Street home, complete with housekeeper, dog, and a family of ghosts anxious to tell her their secrets.
Enter Jack Trenholm, a gorgeous writer obsessed with unsolved mysteries. He has reason to believe that diamonds from the Confederate Treasury are hidden in the house. So he turns the charm on with Melanie, only to discover he’s the smitten one…
It turns out Jack’s search has caught the attention of a malevolent ghost. Now, Jack and Melanie must unravel a mystery of passion, heartbreak, and even murder.

This contemporary novel might not have been an obvious choice for me, but since it was my book group’s pick for May, I felt compelled to give it a try. And while it held my attention, there were a few too many eye-rolling moments for me to feel that it was anything more than just an okay read.

In The House on Tradd Street, main character Melanie is a realtor who specializes in Charleston’s historical homes, although she secretly hates them with a passion. She may tell herself it’s because they’re all money pits, but in reality, as a woman who’s spent her whole life seeing and hearing ghosts, these old homes are just too fraught with supernatural encounters for her to ever be able to appreciate them.

As the book opens, a man she thinks is a potential seller ends up leaving her his beautiful but utterly decrepit home, as well a letter imploring her to find out the truth about his mother’s disappearance over 70 years earlier. The local gossip would have it that she ran off with another man, but her son never believed the story, and his dying wish is for his mother’s reputation to be cleared.

To complicate matters, a bestselling author who specializes in historical mysteries asks to partner with Melanie, offering to assist with the house restoration project in exchange for access to the house’s attic and stashes of old records. Stuck with an unwanted house and ghosts who don’t want to leave her alone, Melanie reluctantly agrees.

There are multiple mysteries to solve — what really happened to Louisa Vanderhorst? Are there really diamonds hidden somewhere in the house? What does the menacing spirit that haunts the house want from Melanie? And who will she choose in the evolving love triangle?

Sorry, that one’s not actually a mystery… it’s obvious from the start which way the love story piece of the plot is going. As is so much else of the novel, unfortunately.

The answer to Louisa’s disappearance is pretty clear from the get-go, with only the details needing to be spelled out. The writing makes it fairly obvious early on that the commonly accepted explanation isn’t the true answer. It’s amazing to me that anyone buys it, and it certainly takes Melanie long enough to clue into the truth.

I was caught up enough in the story to just go with it most of the time, and the investigation into the house’s mysteries includes some clever clues and interesting answers. Overall, though, the plot is on the hokey/cheesy side, and the book — written in 2008 — hasn’t aged particularly well.

Some of the datedness probably can’t be helped. If an author is going to include references to technology in a novel, chances are that it’ll feel out of date within a few years. Here, between mentioning her IPod and Blackberry and hanging up a call by “closing” her cell phone, as well as the office secretary handing Melanie a stack of message slips, it’s clear that the characters are not living in the same tech world as we are. Again, that’s not usually a problem for me, but maybe because these kind of things happen a lot in this book, it was distracting.

More problematic are some of the social/interpersonal descriptions that are not only dated, but also highly cringe-worthy. Jack, the main love interest, is such an alpha male, asserting his dominance in all sorts of irritating ways, including insisting on using a nickname for Melanie despite being asked repeatedly not too. I think his arrogance is supposed to make him sexy and roguish, but to me, he just comes off as an ass.

There’s also an awful moment where the main character mentions that she’s going to donate some of the proceeds of her inheritance to the Daughters of the Confederacy (because — spoiler!! — the diamonds were originally from Jefferson Davis, and his intent was apparently to use them to support war widows and orphans). I’m sorry, but I don’t care what the intent was… supporting anything connected to the Confederacy just is not a good look. Ick.

On top of this, Melanie is a bad friend. Her best friend is a historical preservation professor at the College of Charleston (convenient!), but in every single scene with her, Melanie thinks about how terribly she dresses or disparages her in other ways. It’s awful. Ick again.

As I said, this was mostly a quick read, and it held my attention — but the annoying and/or problematic and/or predictable aspects of the story keep this from being a great reading experience. There are more books in the series (presumably more stories about haunted houses), but I don’t intend to continue.

26Oct2020

Book Review: A Stitch in Time by Kelley Armstrong

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: A Stitch in Time
Author: Kelley Armstrong
Publisher: Subterranean Press
Publication date: October 31, 2020
Length: 336 pages
Genre: Time slip/ghost story
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

Thorne Manor has always been haunted…and it has always haunted Bronwyn Dale. As a young girl, Bronwyn could pass through a time slip in her great-aunt’s house, where she visited William Thorne, a boy her own age, born two centuries earlier. After a family tragedy, the house was shuttered and Bronwyn was convinced that William existed only in her imagination.
Now, twenty years later Bronwyn inherits Thorne Manor. And when she returns, William is waiting.
William Thorne is no longer the boy she remembers. He’s a difficult and tempestuous man, his own life marred by tragedy and a scandal that had him retreating to self-imposed exile in his beloved moors. He’s also none too pleased with Bronwyn for abandoning him all those years ago.
As their friendship rekindles and sparks into something more, Bronwyn must also deal with ghosts in the present version of the house. Soon she realizes they are linked to William and the secret scandal that drove him back to Thorne Manor. To build a future, Bronwyn must confront the past.

Who doesn’t love a good time-slip/haunted house/ghost story romance? I was ready to love this book from page 1.

At age 38, Bronwyn is an established history professor, a widow of eight years, and the new owner of Thorne Manor, the Yorkshire estate she’s just inherited from her great-aunt. Some of her happiest memories are from her summers at Thorne Manor, but also, some of her worst.

As a small child, Bronwyn finds a time slip, allowing her to travel back in time 200 years to play with William, a boy her age who lives in the house. At age five, her family chalks up her William experiences to having an imaginary friend. After an absence of ten years due to her parents’ divorce, Bronwyn returns at age 15, and once again slips back and forth in time. This time around, William is also 15, and their friendship begins to blossom into love. But a family tragedy occurs in Bronwyn’s time, and she leaves Thorne Manor, seemingly for good.

As the story opens, adult Bronwyn arrives back at the manor once more. She’s convinced herself that her time with William wasn’t real, so she’s startled by a vivid dream where she wakes up in his bed. Soon, she realizes that the time slips are real after all, and she is able to reconnect with William, who is now an adult as well.

William at first is angry and tries to send her away, believing she abandoned him all those years ago. As they spend time together, he’s able to understand why she disappeared from his life, and their reunion quickly becomes passionate as they fall back into the love that started so many years earlier.

There are complications. Bronwyn, in her own time, sees ghosts. She encounters three very distinct ghosts, and all seem to have messages for her. Are they trying to warn her or scare her away?

In William’s time, she learns that he’s retreated to his country home in part because of scandal and rumors. His younger sister has disappeared, his best friend’s wife has disappeared and is presumed dead, and his former fiancée is missing as well. Gossip depicts William as a murderous mad lord, luring victims to their death on the moors. Can any of this be true? Bronwyn doesn’t believe William is capable of murder, but clearly, someone killed the people who haunt her own time, and she’s determined to learn the truth and free the spirits of the dead.

Ah, what a fun, captivating read! Yes, a big suspension of disbelief is required, but that’s to be expected in a novel where the main plot hinges on slipping through time.

I loved that Bronwyn is a mature, professional woman with a clear head on her shoulders. She’s smart and reasonable, and has also suffered in her life. She understands love and loss, and while William was her first love, he wasn’t her only love. It’s also pretty cool to see her enjoy her time in William’s world not just as a romantic interlude, but as an amazing experience as an historian, learning all she can about daily life in that era from first-hand experience.

The mystery is really well constructed and kept me guessing. The author does such a skillful job of sprinkling clues and red herrings that my suspicions really were all over the place, and I definitely went down the wrong path in my mind. I was pleased with the resolution and how well the answers fit together with what we’d learned about the various characters.

William and Bronwyn have great chemistry and mutual respect. I love that even when they’re trying to figure out what a future together might look like, Bronwyn never considers giving up her own world to live in his. She values her career, her independence, and her friends and family — she’ll spend as much time with William as she can, but she won’t make him her entire world. And to his credit, he doesn’t ask that of her.

I did find the time-slipping a little too easy. Bronwyn can basically slip back and forth at will, so that it starts to feel practically ordinary. If William has a busy day ahead, she’ll plan to pop back home to take care of her kitten and return for dinner. It starts to sound as if she’s just going down the road, rather than jumping back and forth across centuries.

Also, I had to laugh that Bronwyn has her smartphone with her when she time-slips, and that William just accepts that she can take photos and play music with her bizarre little device. And, the fact that William has apparently added to his fortune by investing based on what he learned about the future from 15-year-old Bronwyn… ummm, okay.

Still, I will freely admit that my secretly-a-sucker-for-a-good-romance heart really enjoyed the love story, and I got very caught up in the ghosts and murder mystery too.

A Stitch in Time is, plain and simple, a sweep-you-up kind of romantic tale, with great gothic elements to make it so much more.

I’ve never read any books by this author before now, but I understand that she’s a prolific urban fantasy writer and that A Stitch in Time was a big departure for her. Well done! Goodreads lists this book as the first of two, which confuses me a little because the story has a very satisfactory ending.

Still, if the story of Thorne Manor, William and Bronwyn, and time slips continues? I’ll be there for it.

16Sep2020

Book Review: The Remaking by Clay McLeod Chapman

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: The Remaking
Author: Clay McLeod Chapman
Publisher: Quirk
Publication date: October 8, 2019 (paperback publication 9/15/2020)
Length: 320 pages
Genre: Horror
Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Rating:

Inspired by a true story, this supernatural thriller for fans of horror and true crime follows a tale as it evolves every twenty years—with terrifying results.
Ella Louise has lived in the woods surrounding Pilot’s Creek, Virginia, for nearly a decade. Publicly, she and her daughter Jessica are shunned by their upper-crust family and the Pilot’s Creek residents. Privately, desperate townspeople visit her apothecary for a cure to what ails them—until Ella Louise is blamed for the death of a prominent customer. Accused of witchcraft, both mother and daughter are burned at the stake in the middle of the night. Ella Louise’s burial site is never found, but the little girl has the most famous grave in the South: a steel-reinforced coffin surrounded by a fence of interconnected white crosses.
Their story will take the shape of an urban legend as it’s told around a campfire by a man forever marked by his boyhood encounters with Jessica. Decades later, a boy at that campfire will cast Amber Pendleton as Jessica in a ’70s horror movie inspired by the Witch Girl of Pilot’s Creek. Amber’s experiences on that set and its meta-remake in the ’90s will ripple through pop culture, ruining her life and career after she becomes the target of a witch hunt. Amber’s best chance to break the cycle of horror comes when a true-crime investigator tracks her down to interview her for his popular podcast. But will this final act of storytelling redeem her—or will it bring the story full circle, ready to be told once again? And again. And again…

Are you ready for a ghost story? How about a ghost story within a ghost story within a ghost story?

Welcome to the weird and chilling world of The Remaking, now out in paperback, in which an urban legend refuses to die, no matter how many times the story is retold.

In 1931 in the lumber-rich town of Pilot’s Creek, Virginia, a mother and her nine-year-old daughter are burned at the stake by vengeful townspeople (men, of course). For years, it’s been an open secret that Ella Louise Ford can cure what ails you, and her young daughter Jessica appears to be even more gifted. But witches living in the woods can only be tolerated for so long, and when Ella Louise’s treatments are suspected of causing a tragedy, the men of the town want the witches to pay.

In 1951, an old man tells ghost stories around a campfire, always coming back to the story of Jessica Ford, the Little Witch Girl. Ella Louise was buried in an unmarked grave somewhere deep in the woods, but little Jessica was buried in hallowed ground, in a reinforced coffin with cement filling in the grave and a fence of crucifixes to keep her in. Now, legend has it that the Little Witch Girl wants out, and she just needs someone to help her find her mother.

In 1971, a man who heard the ghost story as a child is determined to make a movie about Jessica — a shlocky horror film called Don’t Tread on Jessica’s Grave, filled with standard horror movie tropes, and starring an eerily perfect young actress named Amber. But something happens on set, and it’s the legend behind the movie that makes this a story that becomes a horror cult classic.

In 1995, Amber is a drug-dependent has-been who never had a career after her early disaster, but who instead has found fame of sorts on the horror convention circuit. When an up-and-coming director decides to make a remake of Jessica’s story, Amber seems like the perfect choice to play Ella Louise — until on-set tragedy strikes again.

And finally, in 2016, a podcaster who debunks urban legends decides to tackle the story of the Little Witch Girl and prove it’s a hoax once and for all… but is he ready for what he’ll find in the woods?

I realize I’ve just outlined the entire book, but trust me, you have to read it to get the full creepy experience. The story of Ella Louise and Jessica starts with tragedy. Ella Louise is different, a disgrace to her society parents, and it’s implied but never explained that she became pregnant with Jessica as the result of a sexual assault on the night of her debutante ball. But rather than being supported as a crime victim, she’s shunned by her parents and the town, and makes a new life for herself and her daughter, out in the woods where no one can harm them.

I had a hard time getting over the origin story of Ella Louise and Jessica, because it’s so harrowing and awful. But from there, we see how the tale takes on a life of its own… and how something that may be just a story has doomed the town and everyone connected with it. Is it truly a witch’s curse, or is it the story that haunts the town and brings destruction to everyone who encounters it?

Amber’s tale is chilling in very different ways. Forced into pursuing her big break by a mother who never realized her own dream of stardom, Amber is way too young to be able to handle the horror of shooting Don’t Tread on Jessica’s Grave. From the movie’s storyline to seeing herself transformed through makeup and prosthetics into a burned corpse, this is clearly something that will scar her forever — and that’s before she has a nearly deadly encounter in the woods.

Jessica had become a cinematic ouroboros. A serpent devouring its own tail, coiling round and round for an eternity. The longer I imagined that snake infinitely spinning, the more its scales slowly took on the shape of celluloid frames. The sprocket holes along either side of the film strip formed scales. When this snake shed its skin, the translucent husk would be fed through the projector. The images trapped within each scale caught the projector’s light and made their way to the big screen. Jessica filled that vast canvas, reaching her hand out to me.
This film would never end. It continued to play on its own endless loop. Jessica’s story would be told over and over, forever now. She found a new audience.
Fresh blood.
That was exactly what Jessica wanted.
To find new blood.

A ghost story, a consideration of urban legends, a look at the need to endlessly remake movies into something new for each generation — The Remaking provides so much to think about, even while being a chilling, creepy, intensely haunting read.

Much like the endless remakings and retellings of Jessica’s story, The Remaking will be sticking with me for a long time!

And now, if only someone would make a movie version of The Remaking, so Jessica’s story could live on…

The Remaking was released in paperback this week. Check out this perfect cover:

Also, be sure to listen to this interview with the author for insights into the origin of the Little Witch Girl:

NPR: The Remaking interview

14May2020

Book Review: If It Bleeds by Stephen King

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Title: If It Bleeds
Author: Stephen King
Publisher: Scribner
Publication date: April 21, 2020
Length: 447 pages
Genre: Horror
Source: Library
Rating:

From #1 New York Times bestselling author, legendary storyteller, and master of short fiction Stephen King comes an extraordinary collection of four new and compelling novellas —Mr. Harrigan’s Phone, The Life of Chuck, Rat, and the title story If It Bleeds— each pulling readers into intriguing and frightening places.
A collection of four uniquely wonderful long stories, including a stand-alone sequel to the No. 1 bestseller The Outsider.
News people have a saying: ‘If it bleeds, it leads’. And a bomb at Albert Macready Middle School is guaranteed to lead any bulletin.
Holly Gibney of the Finders Keepers detective agency is working on the case of a missing dog – and on her own need to be more assertive – when she sees the footage on TV. But when she tunes in again, to the late-night report, she realizes there is something not quite right about the correspondent who was first on the scene. So begins ‘If It Bleeds’ , a stand-alone sequel to the No. 1 bestselling The Outsider featuring the incomparable Holly on her first solo case – and also the riveting title story in Stephen King’s brilliant new collection.
Dancing alongside are three more wonderful long stories from this ‘formidably versatile author’ (The Sunday Times) – ‘Mr Harrigan’s Phone’, ‘The Life of Chuck’ and ‘Rat’ . All four display the richness of King’s storytelling with grace, humor, horror and breathtaking suspense. A fascinating Author’s Note gives us a wonderful insight into the origin of each story and the writer’s unparalleled imagination.
The novella is a form King has returned to over and over again in the course of his amazing career, and many have been made into iconic films, If It Bleeds is a uniquely satisfying collection of longer short fiction by an incomparably gifted writer.

Call me crazy, but Stephen King books are my version of comfort food. When I need distraction from the drama of daily life, I know I can sink into a King book and get carried away from everything weighing me down.

So getting a library e-book download of If It Bleeds this week was just perfect timing! Also very surprising, as I’d expected to be on the hold list for months… so thank you, San Francisco Public Library!

I approached If It Bleeds a little hesitantly, as short stories are really not my thing. Still, there was the book, just waiting for me on my Kindle, so how could I resist?

I’m so glad I dove right in! If It Bleeds consists of four novella-length stories, all unrelated, and all very different in content and tone. And each was a treat!

The story that garnered the most pre-publication buzz is the title story, If It Bleeds (which appears 3rd in this collection). If It Bleeds stars Holly Gibney, whom even Stephen King refers to as a favorite character! Holly was first introduced in the Bill Hodges trilogy, and then was a key character in The Outsider (the adaptation of which aired on HBO recently).

Here, Holly is the lead in her own story. She is horrified by news of a terrible mass murder by bombing at an elementary school — and then is hooked by a discrepancy she notices in the appearance of the local newscaster who was first on the scene. Holly is never one to let go of details, and as she investigates, she becomes personally involved in tracking down and stopping a monster.

It’s a good story, very suspenseful, although I’m not sure how much sense it’ll make to someone not familiar with The Outsider. It’s not an exact sequel, but the earlier novel definitely informs the way Holly’s case unfolds and what she knows.

As for the other stories… well, I loved them!

In order of preference, my least favorite would be the final story in the book — although don’t get me wrong, I still really liked it! Rat is the story of a writer who’s never been able to finish a novel, although he has published some highly regarded short stories and is an English professor. When a new story idea appears to him, he’s sure it’s his novel at last, and decides to retreat to his family’s remote backwoods cabin to work on it in isolation before the inspiration disappears.

Rat is an interesting look at creativity, the writing process, a writer’s fear, and the superstitions and bargaining that may accompany a fickle gift. Stephen King does love to feature writers as main characters, and then put them in dangerous, awful situations. Is the writer here really experiencing the disturbing things he thinks are happening, or is he losing his grip on his sanity? Read the story and decide!

Mr. Harrigan’s Phone is the first story in the collection, and feels like classic Stephen King. It combines his patented nostalgic look back at childhood with a small-town setting, the loss of loved ones, and a piece of technology that changes everything. It’s a story about growing up and saying good-bye, but also just a good, spooky, odd ghost story. Very cool.

Finally, the 2nd story in the book, which was my favorite of the bunch. The Life of Chuck is weird and wonderful, and I adored it. Told in three sections that move backward chronologically, this story is surprising and captivating, and strangely moving too. I don’t want to give away a single thing about it! Definitely check it out!

All in all, a terrific collection! As I mentioned, I don’t typically seek out story collections, even from my favorite authors, so I’m really grateful that I happened to be able to get this from the library.

And true confession time: I loved it so much that I ended up using an Amazon gift card to treat myself to my very own hard copy!

If It Bleeds is a great addition to Stephen King’s huge body of work. If you thought he might possibly run out of original stories to tell… this book shows that that’s not at all likely to happen. A must-read for King fans!

6Nov2019

Shelf Control #190: Haunting Bombay by Shilpa Agarwal

Posted in Shelf Control by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Welcome to Shelf Control — an original feature created and hosted by Bookshelf Fantasies.

Shelf Control is a weekly celebration of the unread books on our shelves. Pick a book you own but haven’t read, write a post about it (suggestions: include what it’s about, why you want to read it, and when you got it), and link up! For more info on what Shelf Control is all about, check out my introductory post, here.

Want to join in? Shelf Control posts go up every Wednesday. See the guidelines at the bottom of the post, and jump on board!

Title: Haunting Bombay
Author: Shilpa Agarwal
Published: 2009
Length: 362 pages

What it’s about (synopsis via Goodreads):

After her mother’s death crossing the border from Pakistan to India during Partition, baby Pinky was taken in by her grandmother, Maji, the matriarch of the powerful Mittal family. Now thirteen years old, Pinky lives with her grandmother and her uncle’s family in a bungalow on the Malabar Heights in Bombay. While she has never really been accepted by her uncle’s family, she has always had Maji’s love.

One day, as monsoons engulf the city, Pinky opens a mysteriously bolted door, unleashing the ghosts of an infant who drowned shortly before Pinky’s arrival and of the nursemaid who cared for the child. Three generations of the Mittal family must struggle to come to terms with their secrets amidst hidden shame, forbidden love, and a call for absolute sacrifice.

How and when I got it:

When my book group did a secret book swap a few years ago, this was one of the books in my super-fun package. Thank you, book-giver friend of mine!

Why I want to read it:

Well, first of all, it was a gift, and I always feel terrible when I don’t get around to reading gift books. And on top of that, I think it sounds terrific! Between the ghost story and the family saga and the Bombay setting, it seems to have a lot going for it. I really do need to get to this one soon.

What do you think? Would you read this book?

Please share your thoughts!

__________________________________

Want to participate in Shelf Control? Here’s how:

Write a blog post about a book that you own that you haven’t read yet.
Add your link in the comments!
If you’d be so kind, I’d appreciate a link back from your own post.
Check out other posts, and…

Have fun!

8May2019

Shelf Control #165: Yesternight by Cat Winters

Posted in Shelf Control by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Welcome to Shelf Control — an original feature created and hosted by Bookshelf Fantasies.

Want to join in? Shelf Control posts go up every Wednesday. See the guidelines at the bottom of the post, and jump on board!

Title: Yesternight
Author: Cat Winters
Published: 2016
Length: 374 pages

What it’s about (synopsis via Goodreads):

From the author of The Uninvited comes a haunting historical novel with a compelling mystery at its core. A young child psychologist steps off a train, her destination a foggy seaside town. There, she begins a journey causing her to question everything she believes about life, death, memories, and reincarnation.

In 1925, Alice Lind steps off a train in the rain-soaked coastal hamlet of Gordon Bay, Oregon. There, she expects to do nothing more difficult than administer IQ tests to a group of rural schoolchildren. A trained psychologist, Alice believes mysteries of the mind can be unlocked scientifically, but now her views are about to be challenged by one curious child.

Seven-year-old Janie O’Daire is a mathematical genius, which is surprising. But what is disturbing are the stories she tells: that her name was once Violet, she grew up in Kansas decades earlier, and she drowned at age nineteen. Alice delves into these stories, at first believing they’re no more than the product of the girl’s vast imagination. But, slowly, Alice comes to the realization that Janie might indeed be telling a strange truth.

Alice knows the investigation may endanger her already shaky professional reputation, and as a woman in a field dominated by men she has no room for mistakes. But she is unprepared for the ways it will illuminate terrifying mysteries within her own past, and in the process, irrevocably change her life.

How and when I got it:

I bought it, brand new, as soon as it came out.

Why I want to read it:

I love Cat Winters, and this is the only one of her books I haven’t read yet! I believe this is an adult novel, rather than YA (like most of her other books). The first book I ever read by Cat Winters was The Uninvited, also adult fiction, and I thought it was amazing. I love the sound of the plot of Yesternight, and can’t believe I haven’t gotten to it yet. No excuses, no reasons why — there are just always way more books in my house than I’ll ever have time to read. Bumping this one back up to the top of my teetering to-read stack!

What do you think? Would you read this book?

Please share your thoughts!

__________________________________

Want to participate in Shelf Control? Here’s how:

Write a blog post about a book that you own that you haven’t read yet.
Add your link in the comments!
If you’d be so kind, I’d appreciate a link back from your own post.
Check out other posts, and…

Have fun!

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24Nov2018

Take A Peek Book Review: The Agony House by Cherie Priest

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

“Take a Peek” book reviews are short and (possibly) sweet, keeping the commentary brief and providing a little peek at what the book’s about and what I thought.

Synopsis:

(via Goodreads)

Denise Farber has just moved back to New Orleans with her mom and step-dad. They left in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and have finally returned, wagering the last of their family’s money on fixing up an old, rundown house and converting it to a bed and breakfast. Nothing seems to work around the place, which doesn’t seem too weird to Denise. The unexplained noises are a little more out of the ordinary, but again, nothing too unusual. But when floors collapse, deadly objects rain down, and she hears creepy voices, it’s clear to Denise that something more sinister lurks hidden here. Answers may lie in an old comic book Denise finds concealed in the attic: the lost, final project of a famous artist who disappeared in the 1950s. Denise isn’t budging from her new home, so she must unravel the mystery-on the pages and off-if she and her family are to survive…

My Thoughts:

Similarly to her work in the terrific I Am Princess X, in The Agony House author Cherie Priest tells a gripping story with comic book illustrations mixed in to tell a piece of the tale. When Denise discovers the hidden comic book in the creepy attic of her new house (which she bluntly refers to as a “craphole” at all times), the book seems to be a clue to the unexplainable events happening to the family as they try to make the old place livable once again.

Denise is a great main character — clearly very smart, devoted to her family, but unhappy with being dragged away from her friends back in Houston and forced to live in this awful house. As she settles in and gets to know some of the teens in her neighborhood, we get a picture of the devastation left by the Storm (as they refer to it), even after so many years. The book deals with issues around economic hardship, gentrification, and privilege, not in a preachy way, but by showing the struggles and resentments of the characters and the new understandings they need to reach in order to get along. The social lessons here feel organic and important to the story, and I appreciated seeing the characters come to terms with one another in all sorts of interesting ways.

I’d place The Agony House somewhere between middle grade and young adult fiction. The main characters are high school seniors, but the events and the narrative would be fine for younger readers, middle school or above, so long as they’re okay with ghosts and spookiness. I really enjoyed the comic book pages and how they relate to the main story, and thought it was all very cleverly put together. As an adult reader, I saw the plot resolution twist coming pretty early on, but that didn’t lessen the satisfaction of seeing it all work out, and I think it’ll be a great surprise for readers in the target audience.

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The details:

Title: The Agony House
Author: Cherie Priest
Illustrator: Tara O’Connor
Publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books
Publication date: September 25, 2018
Length: 272 pages
Genre: Young adult fiction
Source: Library

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