Book Review: Ketchup Clouds

Ketchup Clouds by Annabel Pitcher

The blurb: Secrets, romance, murder and lies: Zoe shares a terrible secret in a letter to a stranger on death row in this second novel from the author of the bestselling debut, My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece.

Fifteen-year-old Zoe has a secret—a dark and terrible secret that she can’t confess to anyone she knows. But then one day she hears of a criminal, Stuart Harris, locked up on death row in Texas. Like Zoe, Stuart is no stranger to secrets. Or lies. Or murder.

Full of heartache yet humour, Zoe tells her story in the only way she can—in letters to the man in prison in America. Armed with a pen, Zoe takes a deep breath, eats a jam sandwich, and begins her tale of love and betrayal.

My review: I am probably one of the few people who hasn’t read My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece. I came to this book as a recommendation from a friend, having of course heard of her first book, I was surprised I hadn’t encountered her before.

Ketchup Clouds is an eminently readable book. We are introduced to Zoe, a fifteen year old British girl who is writing letters in her shed. She’s writing to an inmate on death row in Texas as a way of talking to someone who might have something in common with her. She’s harbouring a dark secret, something only one other person knows about in the world. This secret and the guilt she carries connects her with the inmate on death row.

I’m not sure what to say about this book. I read it in a trice, it was good, but it didn’t blow me away. Competently handled, the intensity of young love is handled beautifully and that was one of the parts I loved most about this book. The characters are well drawn, credible and interesting. There were certain plot points that seemed slightly incredulous, misunderstandings that would’ve been cleared up in a real life situation. However this isn’t, we’re talking about fiction here. I’m a weeper at books but this didn’t produce a single tear. Heart-felt and heart-warming but potentially it lost some shock, tension as it went along. So a lovely little book but not one of my favourites.

6 out of 10 stars! ******

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Book Review: Elijah’s Mermaid

Elijah’s Mermaid by Essise Fox

The blurb: Since she was found as a baby, floating in the Thames one foggy night, the web-toed Pearl has been brought up in a brothel known as the House of Mermaids. Cosseted and pampered there, it is only when her fourteenth birthday approaches that Pearl realises she is to be sold to the highest bidder.

Meanwhile, the orphaned twins, Lily and Elijah, have shared an idyllic childhood, raised in a secluded country house with their grandfather, Augustus Lamb. But when Lily and Elijah go on a visit London, a chance meeting with the ethereal Pearl will have repercussions for all of them, binding their fates together in a dark and dangerous way…

In this bewitching, sensual novel, Essie Fox has written another tale of obsessive love and betrayal, moving from the respectable worlds of Victorian art and literature, and into the shadowy demi-monde of brothels, asylums and freak show tents – a world in which nothing and no-one is quite what they seem to be.

My Review: This is a beautiful book inside and out. I had a tricky few moments at the beginning, Essie Fox’s style is like the great writers of the Victorian era, long sentences, intricate words and I had to switch my brain back on to fully appreciate her writing style which was definitely a good thing for me! Her style reminded me of Wilkie Collins, flowing and full of subtleties of meaning.

This is a book to be savoured. A brilliant piece of Victoriana, a Gothic Mystery, deserving of capitalisation, where you follow the threads of Lily, Elijah and Pearl and their intricately woven histories from before they were born to how they struggle to find the truth amidst all the spectacle and lies of the House of the Mermaids.

It’s brilliantly plotted, completely immersive, I very nearly missed my train stop more than once whilst reading this book! The characterisation is flawless from the dark and complicated Osborne Black to the seemingly warm-hearted Uncle Freddie, the mirror twists and intrigue abounds. I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to be taken on a journey by a very clever story-teller.

8 out of 10 stars! ********

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Waiting On Wednesday: The Drop

I am Waiting again on Wednesday! This meme is hosted at Breaking the Spine and is based on a book you can’t wait to read that hasn’t been published yet.

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So my book for this week is: THE DROP

The blurb: When evidence links a brutal murder in 1989 to a convicted rapist named Clayton Pell, the case should be water-tight. Pell’s DNA was found on the victim – but he was only eight years old at the time.

This not the only mystery Harry Bosch has to solve. A man jumped – or was pushed – from a window. The victim’s father is Councilman Irving, who’s been intent on destroying Harry’s career for years. Now Irving wants Harry to head up the investigation.

Harry uncovers traces of two of the city’s deepest secrets: a killer operating for as many as three decades without being detected, and a conspiracy that goes back into the dark history of the police department …

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I won’t be waiting long for this one as The Drop is published tomorrow!! I read a Michael Connelly a while ago, I will have to review it, and loved it so it’s about time I read another one.

The Drop by Michael Connelly

Published: 8th November 2012, Orion

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Waiting On Wednesday: Ask A Policeman

I am Waiting again on Wednesday! This meme is hosted at Breaking the Spine and is based on a book you can’t wait to read that hasn’t been published yet.

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So my book for this week is: ASK A POLICEMAN, THE DETECTION CLUB

The blurb: This new edition, which is reproduced from a first printing of the book, is introduced by the author Martin Edwards, archivist of the Detection Club, and includes a never-before-published Preface by Agatha Christie, ‘Detective Writers in England’, in which she discusses her fellow writers in the Detection Club.

This classic whodunit adopted a completely new approach: Milward Kennedy proposed the title, John Rhode plotted the murder and provided the suspects, and four of their contemporaries were asked to lend their well-known detectives to the task of providing solutions to the crime. But there was to be another twist: the authors would swap detectives and use the characters in their sections of the book. Thus Gladys Mitchell and Helen Simpson swapped Mrs Bradley and Sir John Saumarez, and Dorothy Sayers and Anthony Berkeley swapped Lord Peter Wimsey and Roger Sheringham, enabling the authors to indulge in skilful and sly parodies of each other.

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I haven’t read nearly as many classic British crime writers as I should have and this sounds brilliant, The Detection Club – genius! Really pleased I’m doing this as it means I keep finding gems that I wasn’t aware of!

Ask A Policeman by The Detection Club

Published: 30th August 2012, Harper Collins

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Waiting On Wednesday: Elijah’s Mermaid

I am trying out another meme – since I enjoy Top Ten Tuesday’s so much (I know there wasn’t one yesterday but Laini Taylor distracted me!) trying in on for size to see how I get on. I didn’t like the logo so I’ve designed my own. This meme is hosted at Breaking the Spine (villainy!) and is based on a book you can’t wait to read that hasn’t been published yet.

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So my book for this week is: ELIJAH’S MERMAID by Essie Fox.

The blurb: Since she was found as a baby, floating in the Thames one foggy night, the web-toed Pearl has been brought up in a brothel known as the House of Mermaids. Cosseted and pampered there, it is only when her fourteenth birthday approaches that Pearl realises she is to be sold to the highest bidder.
Meanwhile, the orphaned twins, Lily and Elijah, have shared an idyllic childhood, raised in a secluded country house with their grandfather, Augustus Lamb. But when Lily and Elijah go on a visit London, a chance meeting with the ethereal Pearl will have repercussions for all of them, binding their fates together in a dark and dangerous way…
In this bewitching, sensual novel, Essie Fox has written another tale of obsessive love and betrayal, moving from the respectable worlds of Victorian art and literature, and into the shadowy demi-monde of brothels, asylums and freak show tents – a world in which nothing and no-one is quite what they seem to be.

I kept meaning to read The Somnabulist but somehow it escaped me, I won’t let that happen to Elijah’s Mermaid!

Elijah’s Mermaid by Essie Fox

Published: 8th November 2012, Orion.

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Book Review: The Winter Ghosts

The Winter Ghosts by Kate Mosse

The blurb: The Great War took much more than lives. It robbed a generation of friends, lovers and futures. In Freddie Watson’s case, it took his beloved brother and, at times, his peace of mind. Unable to cope with his grief, Freddie has spent much of the time since in a sanatorium. In the winter of 1928, still seeking resolution, Freddie is travelling through the French Pyrenees – another region that has seen too much bloodshed over the years.

During a snowstorm, his car spins off the mountain road. Shaken, he stumbles into the woods, emerging by a tiny village. There he meets Fabrissa, a beautiful local woman, also mourning a lost generation. Over the course of one night, Fabrissa and Freddie share their stories of remembrance and loss. By the time dawn breaks, he will have stumbled across a tragic mystery that goes back through the centuries. By turns thrilling, poignant and haunting, this is a story of two lives touched by war and transformed by courage.

My review: I have wanted to read this book ever since I spied it at a Wh Smith’s travel in hardback, the cover is beautiful and as it was December and snowing at the time it seemed fated. However having lugged enough hardbacks around in my life I decided to wait for the paperback and it just so happened our book club chose it to read.

The Winter Ghosts is the first Kate Mosse book I have ever read and I thoroughly enjoyed it. What I felt was lacking in Susan Hill’s The Small Hand, was triple fold here, and that is old fashioned terror. Not the gory, ripping your innards out kind, but the more subtle, inferred terror, the kind that makes the hairs on your neck stand on end on a crowded tube on a Monday morning. Carefully crafted tension.

Freddie is the narrator of this wonderfully chilling ghost story, explaining to a French antiques dealer how he has come across a 600 year old letter. His emotional complexities are deeply moving and the tale, for this is definitely a tale, of the villagers of Nulle is handled beautifully. Never giving away too much about the horrors in the mountains until the last possible moment. A lovely book, well worth a read, but preferably somewhere warm and jolly!

8 out of 10 stars! ********

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Book Review: Live to Tell

Live to Tell by Lisa Gardner

The blurb: A savage crime has rocked a working class neighbourhood of Boston; four members of a family have been brutally murdered. The father is lying in an intensive care unit, his survival in doubt. He is the principal suspect. Female police detective DD Warren, however, is not one to take things at face value. At the same time, Danielle Burton is about to have her life thrown into turmoil; a nurse whose life is at the service of her profession, she has tentatively recovered from a devastating family tragedy of decades before – and the investigation by Warren and her partner is about the throw Danielle’s life into chaos once again. There is one more angle to the triangle: the devotion of a mother, Victoria Oliver, to her disturbed son is about to be tested to the limit.

Danielle often thinks about that night when her childhood her ended. The sound of her father shooting her mother and then hunting down her brother, as she cowered under her duvet, trying to drown out the sound. She can remember the sound her brother made as he was killed. And she can remember her father standing in the doorway of her bedroom, saying ‘I’m sorry, Danielle…’ before he turned the gun on himself. Haunting enough for any child, but Danielle has always wondered, why not her too? Why did her father let her go? Years later, Danielle is working in a hospital that deals with the most violent and damaged of children. And someone there knows something about her past, and is prepared to kill to keep it quiet…

My review: Well, there are some quite shocking twists in this book, its not for the faint hearted and it certainly kept me awake at night!

I like to think I’ve read quite a few crime books and there were one or two things I spotted from early on but Lisa Gardner writes in a way that doesnt make you feel you’ve lost out through guessing. This book reads like a movie script. It’s not overly descriptive and the characters, especially the police/detective elements are left worryingly two dimensional. The main detective, DD Warren, seems to only care about food and sex and she grated on my nerves immensley. However by about half way through she’d won me round. Namely because some of the other characters were even more annoying! I’ve since learned that DD Warren is one of Gardner’s regular characters so lets hope the stories are similarily gripping (to get away from the blonde, sexually frustrated detective angle!)

I wasn’t prepared to like this book but I did and I raced through it. This thriller gets under your skin and digs its nails in, the psychological elements are where Gardner shines. The body count is ridiculously high, easily gaining double figures before you’re halfway through the book, but unlike a lot of crime books lately its not filled with gratuitous gore. It does give you plenty to think about though and you wont look at families the same way again! A pleasing thriller.

7 out of 10 stars! *******

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