Tag Archives: Creating Suspense

The Hangman’s Daughter by Oliver Pötzsch

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Synopsis:
When a child turns up gruesomely murdered, the midwife is accused as a witch, and the local hangman must turn up the real culprit or else torture and execute his innocent friend.

Review:
The Hangman’s Daughter seems to be one of those books that everyone is talking about, probably because the price on Amazon is so low.

I enjoyed the historical detail from 17th Century Germany but the plot really let me down. It became a rather run-of-the mill thriller of the kind that doesn’t particularly interest me. I loved the characters and the world but found myself rushing through the end.

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My Soul to Save by Rachel Vincent

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Synopsis:
Kaylee is a bean sidhe, a soul screamer who thinks she can save lives–until she discovers that some souls–like a talented pop star–are beyond saving because they’ve made a deal with the Netherworld.

Review:
My Soul To Save is a quirky read with an interesting concept, albeit one that never quite came together for me. I had difficulty grasping the worldview behind the notion of soul screamers and grim reapers (all attractive teens, of course), and so it was hard for me to connect with the story. I sometimes couldn’t tell whether a particular action was good or bad, and that moral ambiguity just didn’t sit well with me.

Then again, I probably spend more time than the average person contemplating theology, so if you’re not plagued by that particular blessing/curse, then you’ll probably really enjoy My Soul to Save. It’s a solid YA suspense thriller with all the elements you want. And you can enter to win one of three free copies by leaving a comment here!

Many thanks to Harlequin Teen for the review copy.

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Homework by Margot Livesey

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Synopsis:
Celia’s relationship would be perfect, if it weren’t for her boyfriend’s troublesome young daughter, and when she moves in with them, Celia finds herself caught in the middle.

Review:
Sort of a chick lit version of The Bad Seed, Homework combines splendid prose with a lackluster plot. I could see where it was headed a million miles out, and it didn’t surprise me at all. I was hoping for more, with such strong characterizations and enjoyable writing.

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Just After Sunset by Stephen King

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Synopsis:
A collection of short stories.

Review:
Just After Sunset offers a lackluster selection of short stories, hardly any of which really grabbed me by the collar. Many of them had a fancy twist ending that could be spotted a mile away (“The Mute”), while others were just deadly dull (“The Things They Left Behind”).

I did enjoy “N,” which evoked the same creepy unease that I so loved in Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves. However, once it reached the final section it had no more surprises for me. “The Stationary Bike” was hypnotic, particularly because I listened to it while driving a very long stretch of I87 from Albany back to New York City. However, it just didn’t blow me away. Finally, “A Very Tight Place,” which concerns a man trapped in a tipped-over, locked port-o-potty, managed to gross me out, keep me riveted, and surprise me with some nice character touches. I think it’s the best of a subpar bunch.

Posted in American Literature | Tagged , , , , | 2 Replies

The Unseen by Alexandra Sokoloff

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Synopsis:
Reeling from a betrayal by her fiance, a psychologist finds herself fascinated by Duke University’s research into the paranormal from the early 20th century, and decides to replicate one such experiment that ended in tragedy and closed down the department for good.

Review:
I’m so glad Superfast Toddler took a loooooong nap today because I don’t think I could’ve taken another night trying to read The Unseen in a dark bedroom with only a tiny booklight. I finished in the bright June sunshine and I’m still creeped out.

Duke University really did have a department dedicated to investigating the paranormal, though the Folger Experiment of Sokoloff’s book is fictional. Laurel, the main character, starts delving into the recently released files from the experiments, and when she draws a connection between the the closing of the department, the death of its head, and her Duke alumna uncle’s catatonia, she devises an experiment that will take place in a so-called haunted house.

Sokoloff is unquestionably influenced by Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, though her story is a true original. I was thoroughly sucked in by her storytelling and characterizations. I love a good ghost story, and The Unseen is top notch.

Posted in American Literature | Tagged , , , , | 2 Replies

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill

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Synopsis:
An aging rock star buys an old suit that brings with it a vengeful spirit with a personal vendetta.

Review:
Let’s just get it out of the way. Joe Hill is Stephen King’s son. His debut novel, Heart-Shaped Box, is a work of horror. And not only is it damn good, it’s good enough to stand on its own.

Hill has crafted a simple, elegant, scary little story that manages to delve deep into the nature of regret and repentance. The spectral figure who haunts Judas Coyne is a terrifying creation from the outset, yet as the story progresses it’s Judas’s inner demons who prove to be most menacing. That makes the book sound pat, glibly matching metaphor to meaning, but that simplicity is the key to the power of the book. By keeping things clean, Hill gives himself a lot of room to explore all kinds of complex emotions, and he manages to do so without sacrificing the relentless forward motion of the horror plot.

More than anything, however, I was taken by the love story. I don’t expect romance from books like these, not the real kind, anyway. So I was surprised to find myself captivated by the relationship between Judas and the ex-stripper he calls Georgia. As the story begins, he’s tired of her, doing all sorts of passive aggressive things to make her leave him. Of course she won’t–and of course this is a worn out story. I would’ve forgiven Hill for leaving it at that, so when he started to tease out an evolution in their relationship I got really excited, and ultimately bought the love story whole. What an unexpected treat.

Posted in On Reading | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Replies

The Tremor of Forgery by Patricia Highsmith

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Synopsis:
While working on a novel in Tunisia, a writer encounters his own heart of darkness.

Review:
I had written a truly brilliant review of Patricia Highsmith’s The Tremor of Forgery, but it got eaten. Fie! The salient points were:

  1. Patricia Highsmith plays cat and mouse with the reader just like her most famous creation Tom Ripley played cat and mouse with anyone he encountered
  2. She is a master of nuance characterization
  3. The final third of the novel is a tour-de-force of subtle character dynamics
  4. This is one of my favorites of hers

I should also add that at times, Highsmith is scathingly funny, though this will come as no surprise to those of you who are familiar with her work. My absolute favorite remains Edith’s Diary, but I’ll be recommending The Tremor of Forgery a lot.

Come Along With Me by Shirley Jackson

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Synopsis:
Short stories, essays, and an unfinished novel by Shirley Jackson, queen of American Gothic and author of “The Lottery.”

Review:
My love for Shirley Jackson has been well documented in this blog, so I was delighted when my husband got me Come Along With Me for my birthday.

The collection opens with “Come Along With Me,” the novel that Jackson was working on when she died at the untimely age of 44. At about 33 pages, there isn’t much of a narrative, just a character study of an eccentric woman, drawn with Jackson’s signature idiosyncratic touch. It’s disappointing that she never completed the novel, because this fragment shows signs of being as complex and rich a work as the puzzling Hangsaman, my favorite of Jackson’s novels.

The stories that follow aren’t, in my opinion, as masterful as those found in The Lottery and Other Stories, but they’re still worth reading. My favorite was “The Bus,” where an elderly woman takes a bus ride into “Twilight Zone” territory. It’s terse and terrifying without being overstated.

Closing the collection are two lectures on writing and an essay on “The Lottery,” Jackson’s most famous short story, in which she discusses the spectrum of reactions to the story. The essays on writing are inspirational in a folksy sort of way, and offer great practical advice on story construction and harnessing the creative process. I will absolutely be rereading these.

Magic Study by Maria V. Snyder

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Synopsis:
After finally returning to her homeland, having been kidnapped as a child, Yelena must tame the magic she never knew she had even as she’s suspected of being a spy and embroiled in the hunt to catch a nefarious serial killer.

Review:
It’s been a little exciting up in here lately, with new baby being WAY more interesting than any book in the world. Strangely enough I was between books when she made her arrival, having just finished Red Seas Under Red Skies. I don’t know when I picked up Magic Study, but it was at some point after the birth. Of course, I haven’t been totally word-deprived. I’ve been obsessively reading & rereading the Sears Breastfeeding Book, and Baby Book, as well as Aviva Jill Romm’s Naturally Healthy Babies and Children and Natural Health After Birth.

I really enjoyed Maria V. Snyder’s Poison Study, which offered a really fun blend of action-adventure, romance, and a dollop of the epic fantasy aesthetic. Magic Study, book 2 in a trilogy to be completed this spring with Fire Study, is just as good, developing Yelena’s story in a page-turning manner while keeping the same level of action and suspense. Snyder uses a serial killer plotline to keep things moving forward, successfully borrowing elements from the police procedural genre.

I think that’s all I can give you for now… hopefully as my energy returns and as Bea gets bigger and life gets more manageable I’ll be able to write longer posts. But for now, I’m exhausted! (In a good way.)

The Summer Tree by Guy Gavriel Kay (The Fionavar Tapestry, Book One)

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Synopsis:
Five Toronto college students are pulled into an alternate world where they discover their true destinies at the outset of a war that could affect all worlds, including their own.

Review:
Yep, another hard-to-synopsize epic fantasy book. The Summer Tree by Guy Gavriel Kay employs one of the standard fantasy templates–ordinary people drawn into an extraordinary world–making the book “execution dependent.” That means that Kay has to work twice as hard to make the story feel fresh and exciting. Continue reading →