What I have been reading
Sep. 3rd, 2015 10:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scripsiStill with some leftovers from my vacation reading.
The Lazarus Prophecy by F. G. Cottham. Another Cottham and the one I have liked best so far. Women are being gruesomely murdered in London in ways that indicates that that the murders are inspired by Jack the Ripper. Slowly clues are assembled to show that this isn’t exactly true- they are actually being murdered by Jack the Ripper himself. And the reason he is still around is that he isn’t human, but Antichrist. If you're a devout Christian I guess you could be disturbed of the theme, but I’m not. I do feel it’s rather a horror cliché, though, so I was pleasantly surprised that it is handled pretty good. likeable characters and not too many of them, nice pacing and an ending that wasn’t just rushed on you.
The House of Bathory by Linda Lafferty. I guess you all know who Elizabeth Bathory was? A Hungarian noblewoman who killed a large number of young women to bathe in their blood, all to look younger. This book has a double timeline, one contemporary where a psychoanalyst tries to connect with a young girl, all while batting her own demons. The other taking place in the early 17th century at Bathory’s palace, focusing on one of Elizabeth’s maids and her master of horses. I can’t say that I thought this book was good, there was a number of small things that irked me, but I liked how this book was set out to be supernatural with vampires galore and ended up not quite that.
Shepherd’s Cross by Mark White. Another horror story, as I like reading horror on my vacation. This one about an isolated English village with a history of witch burning. Now supernatural things are happening again, culminating in murder at the same time as a snow storm cut contact with the rest of the world. It suffered from too many well-known horror tropes and very little originality and much too many POV’s. I actually found it so uninteresting that I almost didn’t finish it.
The House of Susan Lulham by Phil Rickman. A novella about Merrily Watkins, Anglican priest and exorcist. She is Rickman’s heroine in several books. The supernatural element is usually suggested, always with the possibility of a natural explanation. In this story Merrily is called in to expel the ghost of Susan Lulham, the victim of a very messy suicide. The owner of the new house claims to be haunted, but she behaves oddly and suddenly Merrily find herself ridiculed on both Facebook and Youtube. Then a very real murder occur in the house… Rickman’s books, though I like them, can drag on a bit, which was avoided with the novella format. The story was suspenseful and the supernatural not quite as ambiguous as usual.
The Murderer's Daughter by Jonathan Kellerman. I’ve mentioned before that I read Kellerman’s crime novels out of habit and nowadays his usual sleuth, Alex Delaware feels quite tired. As this is the second Kellerman book to be published this year I kind of suspect that he is under contract to produce a Delaware book every year, but would rather write something else. The Murderer's Daughter is a lot better than the previous book. Grace Blades is a psychoanalyst specializing in traumas caused by having a family member being murdered/a murderer or having taken their life. She getäs more than a little surprised when her latest patient turn out to be the man she picked up for sex the night before. A very mutual feeling and after indicating that he is involved into something nasty he leaves, only to turn up very very murdered the next day. And Grace, knowing more than she is willing to share with the police, embarks in her very own investigation in an effort to save her own life.
The story isn’t particularly original and Kellerman uses some of his favourite plot devices, but Grace herself has more personality. She’s not always likeable and she is clearly marked by her upbringing. The story constantly looks back giving a gradual insight into her own traumas and you realise that she may not always act wisely, but she does act in a way which is consistent with her personality and upbringing.
Assorted books in the “Sagan om Isfolket” (the tale of the ice people) series by Margit Sandemo. I don’t think these books are translated to English, so you have probably no idea what I’m talking about unless you live in Scandinavia. This is a books series of 47 books(!) spanning the late 16th century to the 1960’s about a family who every generation has at least one witch or warlock. Sometimes evil, sometimes good, a few more ambiguous. Sandemo has a fantastic imagination and many of these books has plots that are quite compelling, containing elements of romance, supernatural horror and crime novels with a hefty dose of North Europe’s history. Sadly the woman was a lousy author. She is Swedish/Norwegian and wrote the books in Swedish, with a LOT of Norwegian words. It’s annoying but not hard to read as most are smallworld which are easy to understand like switching och with og (both meaning and), but sometimes there are more tricky words. She has no sense for fluid dialogues and falls back on using physical traits as shorthand for character traits so many times that you have no problems spotting the good and bad characters. For example, if a man has full and sensual lips he will be a bad guy. Rather bad books in other words, but I think they would make an outstanding TV series.
I devoured these books in my teens, the imaginations and plots can be very interesting and it also contains a lot of steamy sex which I found blush worthy before I had had any myself. Nowadays I find them dead boring. The whole series lives at our summer cottage so I usually re-read a few every summer. This year I read the first two which is a pretty good version of The Beauty and the Beast with a heroine who wants to be an artist in a time when that was very odd and a side story about the plight of being an unwed mother. And one book that takes place in the 18th century which is a rather effective horror story with a ghost/undead woman who uses her hair to kill people. As in a hair that moves freely as its own entity. It is creepy , even if P. D. James thought about it first.
The Lazarus Prophecy by F. G. Cottham. Another Cottham and the one I have liked best so far. Women are being gruesomely murdered in London in ways that indicates that that the murders are inspired by Jack the Ripper. Slowly clues are assembled to show that this isn’t exactly true- they are actually being murdered by Jack the Ripper himself. And the reason he is still around is that he isn’t human, but Antichrist. If you're a devout Christian I guess you could be disturbed of the theme, but I’m not. I do feel it’s rather a horror cliché, though, so I was pleasantly surprised that it is handled pretty good. likeable characters and not too many of them, nice pacing and an ending that wasn’t just rushed on you.
The House of Bathory by Linda Lafferty. I guess you all know who Elizabeth Bathory was? A Hungarian noblewoman who killed a large number of young women to bathe in their blood, all to look younger. This book has a double timeline, one contemporary where a psychoanalyst tries to connect with a young girl, all while batting her own demons. The other taking place in the early 17th century at Bathory’s palace, focusing on one of Elizabeth’s maids and her master of horses. I can’t say that I thought this book was good, there was a number of small things that irked me, but I liked how this book was set out to be supernatural with vampires galore and ended up not quite that.
Shepherd’s Cross by Mark White. Another horror story, as I like reading horror on my vacation. This one about an isolated English village with a history of witch burning. Now supernatural things are happening again, culminating in murder at the same time as a snow storm cut contact with the rest of the world. It suffered from too many well-known horror tropes and very little originality and much too many POV’s. I actually found it so uninteresting that I almost didn’t finish it.
The House of Susan Lulham by Phil Rickman. A novella about Merrily Watkins, Anglican priest and exorcist. She is Rickman’s heroine in several books. The supernatural element is usually suggested, always with the possibility of a natural explanation. In this story Merrily is called in to expel the ghost of Susan Lulham, the victim of a very messy suicide. The owner of the new house claims to be haunted, but she behaves oddly and suddenly Merrily find herself ridiculed on both Facebook and Youtube. Then a very real murder occur in the house… Rickman’s books, though I like them, can drag on a bit, which was avoided with the novella format. The story was suspenseful and the supernatural not quite as ambiguous as usual.
The Murderer's Daughter by Jonathan Kellerman. I’ve mentioned before that I read Kellerman’s crime novels out of habit and nowadays his usual sleuth, Alex Delaware feels quite tired. As this is the second Kellerman book to be published this year I kind of suspect that he is under contract to produce a Delaware book every year, but would rather write something else. The Murderer's Daughter is a lot better than the previous book. Grace Blades is a psychoanalyst specializing in traumas caused by having a family member being murdered/a murderer or having taken their life. She getäs more than a little surprised when her latest patient turn out to be the man she picked up for sex the night before. A very mutual feeling and after indicating that he is involved into something nasty he leaves, only to turn up very very murdered the next day. And Grace, knowing more than she is willing to share with the police, embarks in her very own investigation in an effort to save her own life.
The story isn’t particularly original and Kellerman uses some of his favourite plot devices, but Grace herself has more personality. She’s not always likeable and she is clearly marked by her upbringing. The story constantly looks back giving a gradual insight into her own traumas and you realise that she may not always act wisely, but she does act in a way which is consistent with her personality and upbringing.
Assorted books in the “Sagan om Isfolket” (the tale of the ice people) series by Margit Sandemo. I don’t think these books are translated to English, so you have probably no idea what I’m talking about unless you live in Scandinavia. This is a books series of 47 books(!) spanning the late 16th century to the 1960’s about a family who every generation has at least one witch or warlock. Sometimes evil, sometimes good, a few more ambiguous. Sandemo has a fantastic imagination and many of these books has plots that are quite compelling, containing elements of romance, supernatural horror and crime novels with a hefty dose of North Europe’s history. Sadly the woman was a lousy author. She is Swedish/Norwegian and wrote the books in Swedish, with a LOT of Norwegian words. It’s annoying but not hard to read as most are smallworld which are easy to understand like switching och with og (both meaning and), but sometimes there are more tricky words. She has no sense for fluid dialogues and falls back on using physical traits as shorthand for character traits so many times that you have no problems spotting the good and bad characters. For example, if a man has full and sensual lips he will be a bad guy. Rather bad books in other words, but I think they would make an outstanding TV series.
I devoured these books in my teens, the imaginations and plots can be very interesting and it also contains a lot of steamy sex which I found blush worthy before I had had any myself. Nowadays I find them dead boring. The whole series lives at our summer cottage so I usually re-read a few every summer. This year I read the first two which is a pretty good version of The Beauty and the Beast with a heroine who wants to be an artist in a time when that was very odd and a side story about the plight of being an unwed mother. And one book that takes place in the 18th century which is a rather effective horror story with a ghost/undead woman who uses her hair to kill people. As in a hair that moves freely as its own entity. It is creepy , even if P. D. James thought about it first.
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Date: 2015-09-03 10:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-09-03 10:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-09-03 10:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-09-03 12:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-09-03 10:11 pm (UTC)Gabrielle
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Date: 2015-09-04 06:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-09-04 09:05 am (UTC)I started reading them when I was thirteen so I wasn't overly concerned about the bad writing then and generally speaking the characterization gets worse the longer the books go on. She's blatantly reusing the same characters over and over, not even bothering to hide it but simply saying A is exactly like B, only nicer. Also, in the last books she inserts herself which is beyond silly.
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Date: 2015-09-04 09:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-09-06 04:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-09-08 05:44 am (UTC)