graham joyce | Bookshelf Fantasies

There’s nothing like a Wednesday for thinking about the books we want to read! My Wishing & Waiting on Wednesday post is linking up with two fabulous book memes, Wishlist Wednesday (hosted by Pen to Paper) and Waiting on Wednesday (hosted by Breaking the Spine).

My pick this week confuses me. Read on to find out why!

The Ghost in the Electric Blue Suit by Graham Joyce
(Release date: August 5, 2014)

Synopsis via Goodreads:

Critically acclaimed author Graham Joyce returns with a sexy, suspenseful,and slightly supernatural novel set 1976 England during the hottest summer in living memory, in a seaside resort where the past still haunts the present.

David, a college student, takes a summer job at a run-down family resort in a dying English resort town. This is against the wishes of his family…because it was at this resort where David’s biological father disappeared fifteen years earlier. But something undeniable has called David there.

A deeper otherworldliness lies beneath the surface of what we see. The characters have a suspicious edge to them…David is haunted by eerie visions of a mysterious man carrying a rope, walking hand-in-hand with a small child…and the resort is under siege by a plague of ladybugs. Something different is happening in this town.

When David gets embroiled in a fiercely torrid love triangle, the stakes turn more and more menacing. And through it all, David feels as though he is getting closer to the secrets of his own past.

This is a darkly magic and sexy book that has a strong suspense line running through it. It’s destined to continue to pull in a wider circle of readers for the exceptionally talented Graham Joyce.

Graham Joyce catapulted right onto my favorite authors list as soon as I read his incredibly haunting and atmospheric novel The Silent Land, which was published in 2010. More recently, I read Some Kind of Fairy Tale, which had some really unique and interesting elements, although it didn’t blow me away the way The Silent Land did.

The Ghost in the Electric Blue Suit sounds like something that will definitely appeal to me, with its mix of nostalgia, suspense, and oddness.

So why am I confused? When I went back to Goodreads today to grab the image for the book, I found another book with a different title listed on the same page. As far as I can tell, the book was published in the UK in 2013 as The Year of the Ladybird — and is simply being given a new title for its US release this summer… but it took me a little bit to figure out that these are in fact the same book. Whatever they call it, though, I’m in!

What are you wishing for this Wednesday?

Looking for some bookish fun on Thursdays and Fridays? Come join me for my regular weekly features, Thursday Quotables and Flashback Friday! You can find out more here — come share the book love!

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Do you host a book blog meme? Do you participate in a meme that you really, really love? I’m building a Book Blog Meme Directory, and need your help! If you know of a great meme to include — or if you host one yourself — please drop me a note on my Contact page and I’ll be sure to add your info!

And now, for this week’s Wishlist Wednesday…

The concept is to post about one book from our wish lists that we can’t wait to read. Want to play? Here’s how:

Follow Pen to Paper as host of the meme.
Please consider adding the blog hop button to your blog somewhere, so others can find it easily and join in too! Help spread the word! The code will be at the bottom of the post under the linky.
Pick a book from your wishlist that you are dying to get to put on your shelves.
Do a post telling your readers about the book and why it’s on your wishlist.
Add your blog to the linky at the bottom of the post at Pen to Paper.
Put a link back to pen to paper (http://vogue-pentopaper.blogspot.com) somewhere in your post.
Visit the other blogs and enjoy!

My Wishlist Wednesday book is:

Some Kind of Fairy Tale by Graham Joyce

From Amazon:

Acclaimed author Graham Joyce’s mesmerizing new novel centers around the disappearance of a young girl from a small town in the heart of England. Her sudden return twenty years later, and the mind-bending tale of where she’s been, will challenge our very perception of truth.

For twenty years after Tara Martin disappeared from her small English town, her parents and her brother, Peter, have lived in denial of the grim fact that she was gone for good. And then suddenly, on Christmas Day, the doorbell rings at her parents’ home and there, disheveled and slightly peculiar looking, Tara stands. It’s a miracle, but alarm bells are ringing for Peter. Tara’s story just does not add up. And, incredibly, she barely looks a day older than when she vanished.

Award-winning author Graham Joyce is a master of exploring new realms of understanding that exist between dreams and reality, between the known and unknown. Some Kind of Fairy Tale is a unique journey every bit as magical as its title implies, and as real and unsentimental as the world around us.

Why do I want to read this?

First off, Graham Joyce’s The Silent Land was one of my favorite reads in 2011. For those who missed it, here’s what I loved about The Silent Land (per my Goodreads review, April 2011):

A couple on a romantic ski getaway in the Pyrenees is caught in a sudden, early morning avalanche on the ski slopes. When they finally manage to dig themselves out and find their way back down the mountain, they find their hotel and its village have been evacuated, and they’re completely alone. Or is there something else going on? “The Silent Land” is simply told, but does a masterful job of evoking the glory of a snowy mountain, the joy of being with a soulmate, and the disquiet of realizing that some things defy explanation, no matter how hard you try to understand it all. It’s hard to go any further without divulging spoilers, which I won’t do. Suffice it to say that “The Silent Land” is both beautiful and ominous, gave me the chills, and kept me intrigued enough that I ended up reading in all in one day. Definitely recommended.

The writing was so phenomenal, and the storytelling so creative and full of unexpected moments, that I swore I’d read whatever the author published next.

Some Kind of Fairy Tale sounds like something I’d love — I don’t know much more about it than what the publicity blurbs have said, but I’m always up for a good fairy story. Especially when the fairies in question are of the devious, changeling-leaving sort, and not of the twinkly Disney variety.

Fortunately, this is one Wishlist Wednesday book that I won’t have to wait long to read. My copy just arrived at the library, and I plan to dig in over the weekend. I’ll be back with my review ASAP!