Book Review: NOW YOU SEE ME by S. J. Bolton

Title: Now You See Me
Author: S. J. Bolton
Publisher: Transworld Digital (Kindle edition)
Read: January 25-28, 2013



Synopsis (Goodreads):

One night after interviewing a reluctant witness at a London apartment complex, Lacey Flint, a young detective constable, stumbles onto a woman brutally stabbed just moments before in the building’s darkened parking lot. Within twenty-four hours a reporter receives an anonymous letter that points out alarming similarities between the murder and Jack the Ripper’s first murder—a letter that calls out Lacey by name. If it’s real, and they have a killer bent on re-creating London’s bloody past, history shows they have just five days until the next attempt.

No one believes the connections are anything more than a sadistic killer’s game, not even Lacey, whom the killer seems to be taunting specifically. However, as they investigate the details of the case start reminding her more and more of a part of her past she’d rather keep hidden. And the only way to do that is to catch the killer herself.

Fast paced and completely riveting, S. J. Bolton’s Now You See Me is a modern gothic novel that is nothing less than a masterpiece of suspense fiction.


My thoughts: 

I first fell in love with S J Bolton’s books when reading Awakening earlier this year, and this dark, atmospheric and scary thriller also didn’t disappoint. In fact, I couldn’t put it down!


DC Lacey Flint thought that she had finally left her traumatic past behind when she was accepted into the British police force three years ago. Now a detective based in Southwark, London, Lacey investigates mainly crimes against women and considers herself to be a low profile girl, one who keeps to herself, a person who doesn’t rock the boat or draw attention to herself. One night, after visiting a victim of a gang-rape Lacey is investigating, a woman is brutally stabbed in an alleyway only seconds before Lacey gets there, and dies in her arms. A short while later, a local reporter receives a note which links the woman’s murder to the famous Jack the Ripper killings in late 19th century London. Now an important witness and a bit of an expert when it comes to historic facts about Jack the Ripper, Lacey gets drawn into the murder investigation in an effort to catch the copy-cat killer before any more lives are lost. But more victims soon follow, with the brutality of the crimes escalating. As it becomes obvious that the killer is leaving special personal clues for Lacey, and that the murders may be linked to events in her past she thought she had left behind for good, Lacey not only becomes a target herself but in the eyes of some of her colleagues she may even be a suspect.


With Lacey Flint, Bolton has once more proven her talent for creating a believable, flesh-and-blood protagonist who carries heavy burdens of the past and scars that run deep. Slowly, as layer after layer is peeled away, the reader catches glimpses of the real Lacey – and there are many surprises and twists, with a final revelation which will shock and surprise. Despite her many issues, and the secrecy surrounding Lacey like a dark cloak, I found her plucky and enigmatic, and feared for her safety when she is suddenly thrust into the path of a sadistic killer. Yearning for love, like many of Bolton’s protagonists, Lacey’s past never fully allows her to get close enough to other people to fulfil that need. Her budding attraction to DI Mark Joesbury shows Lacey’s vulnerable side and makes her all the more human – and likeable. As in Awakening, the romance in the novel was just enough to add a bit of hope, but not too much to distract from the main storyline – this is a fine balance which Bolton seems to have mastered very well.


As the body count rises, and the murders become more brutal and graphic, it is impossible not to feel a shiver travel up one’s spine in fear and disgust. This book is not for the faint-hearted! Like a cleverly constructed horror movie Bolton skilfully sets the scene: deserted old Victorian buildings, monsters lurking in the shadows, an eerie tune playing in the background, footsteps in the dark, a horrific scream echoing in the distance – I pulled my doona right up to my nose and refused to go to the bathroom without all the lights on, despite my sleeping husband’s protests. In creating an atmosphere of dread and fear, one can see why Bolton has been named the”high priestess of rural gothic crime” in the past. I still shudder to think of the underground canals Lacey has to traverse in the middle of the night, rats and all – ugh!


What I like most about Bolton’s novels, apart from the spook-factor, are the facts strewn throughout the story which provide a strong foundation for her novels. In Awakening, it was information about snakes and other creepy-crawleys. In this novel the reader learns many historic details about Jack the Ripper and his victims, as well as the different popular theories about his identity. I was thoroughly intrigued. It’s a win-win situation – entertainment plus a history lesson all in one. If only our history lessons at school had been as much fun!


Bolton is in a class of her own, and I intend on reading a lot more from this author. Highly recommended for fans of police procedurals and spooky thrillers, who are looking for that extra chill factor.

Book Review: BALILICIOUS by Becky Wicks

Title: Balilicious
Author: Becky Wicks
Publisher: Harper Collins
Read: January 22-24, 2013


Synopsis:

From visiting ancient healers with cellphone additions to leaving a shaking ashram intent on extracting her soul, Becky Wicks soon discovered that six months travelling round Bali wasn’t all going to be about finding inner peace and harmony. In fact, the perils of possessed teens, eating raw, yogic headstands, diving shipwrecks and dicing with black magic and demons all took their toll on the Island of the Gods.

And that was before the vaginal steaming.

Becky Wicks lifts the sarong on real life in Bali in a blur of locals, tourists, expats and the others with Julia Roberts Syndrome, who arrive… you know… not really knowing who they are.”

My thoughts:

I won a free copy of Balilicious from the Reading Room, and with perfect timing it arrived in my mailbox two days before I was due to board a plane -to Bali! What better opportunity than to read about Becky Wicks' Bali experiences "on location" so to speak. In fact, I am writing this review whilst gently swinging into a hammock on Gili T, where some of Becky Wicks' memoir is based.

Okay, enough of my travels and back to the book: Balilicious is in no way a travel guide a la Lonely Planet style, but rather reads like Becky's travel blog, complete with photos. Hence the subtitle "The Bali Diaries". Readers of Becky Wicks' earlier book "Burqualicious" will probably be familiar with the style - I haven't read it yet, but was granted a preview of a couple of chapters at the end of this book.

In Balilicious, Becky Wicks tells about her personal experiences and adventures whilst spending six months living on the small Indonesian island of Bali. Mainly based in the beautiful mountain town of Ubud, Wicks also explored other parts of the island (such as Kuta, Legian, Ahmed, Lovina and Padang Bai), as well as Sengiggi and the Gili Islands, which are part of Lombok but only a short two-hour fast boat trip away from Bali. Not being afraid to throw herself into new experiences, Wicks’ travel adventures feature activities most of us may never even contemplate – such as a “shaking workshop” in the mountains, a session of vaginal steaming (the mind boggles) and colonic irrigation (as you surely all do when on holidays?). As you can see, Wicks’ diary explores topics you will never find in your average travel guide, but some that may be very pertinent for the woman traveller – the problem of getting affordable tampax in Bali, for example, or where to find strong, good-looking male divers. For the more adventurous spirit, there is always the hunt for evil spirits on a moonlit night in a cemetery on Gili T – hmmmm, I thought about it, but decided to give it a miss. It was a spooky place even in daylight.

Wicks writes with the sort of wry, often self-deprecating humour which appeals to me immensely. Her observations are astute, her comments often laugh-out-loud funny, and she gives everything and everyone the benefit of the doubt. Wicks tends not to pass any judgment without backing it up with facts – she mentions her contempt for journalists who don’t do their homework and jump to misleading conclusions, and she obviously lives by her principles. A lot of the chapters are full of fascinating background information about Bali and its culture, so even if you’ve never been there yourself, you should get something out of reading this book. For me, of course, the best fun was to visit some of the places Wicks describes so vividly, although I passed on most of the activities she so eagerly participated in (call me a chicken).

By briefly touching on the clash between Western culture, tourism and Balinese spirituality and culture, Wicks shows that the popular tourist locations featured in the book do not typify the whole of Bali – although reading about some of the more extreme places, people and activities described in the book the reader may be lead to believe that Bali is a tourist mecca which has totally lost its way. One should therefore be careful to read this book for its entertainment value rather than viewing it as a travel guide.

All in all, I really enjoyed Wicks’ memoir and couldn’t help wondering which diveshop the “hot” diver belonged to as I casually cycled through the streets of Gili T. If, like myself, you have been to Bali before, you should get a few laughs out of Becky’s exploits and cries of: “Yes, exactly! I saw / felt / experienced that as well!” Such as Wicks’ Ubud Monkey Forest experience, which she introduces with:

“In the movie Eat, Pray, Love, Julia Roberts is shown cycling through a leafy jungle, smiling as the furry little monkeys sit quietly on the sidelines, looking cute. […] I hate to be the one to break the news but now that I’ve done it, I know for sure that Hollywood has lied to us.”

And ends with:

“[…] another group of monkeys had raced out of the forest and formed a threatening circle around me. As they stared at me their lips curled back en-masse to reveal razor sharp teeth. We stood there in a stand-off, like extras from Planet of the Apes.”

Yes, Becky, exactly! We too had to run for our lives, fending a rabid monkey off with our thongs (for the non-Australians, the footwear kind, not the underwear).

Balilicious is the ideal book for a light, fun read and a bit of girlie armchair travel. Better still, do as I did, book a ticket and read it over there – and see for yourself!

Namaste', Becky Wicks! :)

I read this book for the 2013 Eclectic Reader Challenge - category "Memoir".

Book Review: LOLA BENSKY by Lily Brett

Title: Lola Bensky
Author: Lily Brett
Publisher: Penguin Books Australia
Read: October 2012


Synopsis (Goodreads):

Lola Bensky is a nineteen-year-old rock journalist who irons her hair straight and asks a lot of questions. A high-school dropout, she's not sure how she got this job - but she's been sent by her Australian newspaper right to the heart of the London music scene a the most exciting time in music history: 1967.
Drawing on her own experience as a young journalist, the bestselling author of 'Too Many Men' has created an unforgettable character in the unconventional and couragous Lola. Genuinely funny and deeply moving, 'Lola Bensky' shows why Lily Brett is one of Australia's most distinctive and internationally acclaimed authors.

My thoughts:

To think that I might never have picked up this book if I hadn’t received a preview copy through the Reading Room – what a loss that would have been! Lola Bensky is, as Lola herself may have said, a “smashing” book. Insightful, thought provoking and deeply moving, told in Lola’s fresh and innocent voice, it is one of the most original books I have read all year.

Lola Bensky is a young journalist in the 1960’s, travelling the world and interviewing young up-and-coming rock stars for an Australian music magazine. It is a life very different from her childhood, growing up as the only daughter of Jewish holocaust survivors in Melbourne. Forging a daily battle with her weight and trying to combat the guilt she carries as a legacy of her parents’ traumatic past, Lola uses her interviews and her elaborately planned diets to escape a world which often makes little sense to her. Through snippets of conversation with famous people such as Cher, Jimi Hendricks, James Morrison, Mama Cass and Janis Joplin, Lola explores the very human side of people who have since become legendary in their fame. Cher has borrowed Lola’s diamante studded false eyelashes and Lola is too embarrassed to ask her to return them. Jimi Hendricks discusses the use of hair curlers with Lola, who irons her own unruly hair straight every morning. And Mama Cass confides her own battle with her weight, a topic very close to Lola’s heart. Somehow details of Lola’s parents’ stories about life in the camps always make their way into the conversation, despite Lola’s intense efforts to distract herself from their reality.

Lola Bensky is an immensely likeable yet complex character – seeing the world through her eyes is eye-opening and challenges pre-conceived notions about the people she encounters as well as living the life of a displaced person. Growing up in the wake of one of history’s darkest chapters, Lola’s experiences are always tainted by the feelings of loss and shame she has inherited yet cannot ever fully comprehend. Renia, Lola’s mother, is present only in body, her mind still trapped in the past by the losses and suffering she has had to endure. Brett describes this perfectly in the following paragraph:

“Renia, Lola knew, felt she had to atone for not having died. She would never be free of that atonement. It would be as imprisoning as any prison. […]
Renia rarely laughed. She rarely felt joy, she felt fear and shame in abundance. Lola felt that Renia didn’t want her dead mother or father or any of her dead brothers or sisters to think she had a moment’s happiness in being the one who was left alive.”

Lola’s parents’ traumatic past does not fit well into the decade of the sixties, their suffering forgotten in an era advocating love, peace and harmony. Whilst other Jewish people instinctively understand Lola’s background, people who have not grown up in the shadow of the atrocities committed to her parents are shocked and unbelieving when confronted with Lola’s realities. As Lola calmly recounts stories she has grown up with, we reel in horror at the details of suffering revealed. As we follow Lola’s life from the age of 19 to the present moment, her daily struggles to find her own identity and peace of mind are exposed. Still shackled to the past by her parents’ memories and scars, which were never openly discussed with her, Lola must confront the deepest darkest places in her own soul to find the peace she so desperately craves.

Drawing on her own background, Lily Brett has written a novel which is not only extremely readable but also carries a message about life itself. It does so without ever sounding preachy, pretentious or depressing. Lola’s innocence permeates her narrative, her simple truths often shocking to those of us who have led more sheltered lives. Having grown up with grandparents scarred by their wartime experiences, a lot of Lola’s thoughts rang true for myself as well – especially her escapes into a fantasy world in an effort to escape the past.

Lola Bensky has earned its place on my favourite list for 2012. I can recommend it to anyone who not only likes an interesting and unusual read, but one that is thought provoking on many levels – and interesting. Brett’s own experiences as a young journalist bring people to life who have become inaccessible and untouchable because of their fame – to see such a human side to them is very touching and grounding. A wonderful book, highly recommended!

Book Review: THE WHITE SPACE BETWEEN by Ami Sands Brodoff

Title: The White Space Between
Author: Ami Sands Brodoff
Publisher: Second Story Press
Read: January 17-19, 2013


Synopsis (Goodreads): 

A family's story of the Holocaust lies buried in the soil of a graveyard in Prague, in the old neighborhoods of Montreal, in the serenity of a small New Jersey town, and in the memory of Jana - a woman finally asked to bear witnessFar from the landscapes of her earlier life, Jana raised her daughter, Willow, on the beautiful scrapbooks she kept of her own childhood in Prague before World War II. But her stories end with the beginning of the Holocaust, and Willow knows little of her mother's life during the war and its aftermath. Jana's memories of this time are so guarded that Willow is uncertain who her father is - the answer left behind in Montreal, the city where Jana first settled after the war.When both Willow and Jana find themselves back in Montreal, the past can no longer be hidden. New loves are found and lost loves rekindled, and mother and daughter decide to journey to Prague to unearth the stories that can no longer stay buried.

My thoughts:

The only one of her family to survive the Holocaust and internment in a concentration camp, Jana Ivanova flees post-war Germany to start a new life in Canada. Now in her eighties, Jana has almost succeeded in leaving her past behind – she has adopted a new name – Jane Ives – raised a daughter to adulthood and kept her wartime experiences secret even from those closest to her. Only the number tattooed on her forearm and the nightmares she still regularly suffers are niggling reminders of her past and her losses.

Willow, Jane’s daughter, has grown up in New Jersey with stories and photos of her mother’s childhood years growing up in Prague and her early years in Montreal, but she knows very little about her mother’s suffering during the war, nor Willow’s father, a man shrouded in mystery who died before Willow was born. Despite Willow’s curiosity, Jane has never confided in her in an effort to protect her from the suffering she had to endure. Now in nearly forty, Willow is a loner, more comfortable with the puppets she makes than flesh-and-blood people. When she is invited to Montreal as an artist in residence and puppeteer teacher she accepts – and is reminded of some of her mother’s stories about her life as a new immigrant in the city.

“Willow thinks of a lifetime of questions, empty spaces, the eerie feeling of not being able to ask questions when she was – is still – full to bursting with them.”

So when Jane visits Willow in Montreal and tells her that she has decided to tell her story to the “Witness Foundation”, an organisation collecting and documenting testimonies of the Holocaust, Willow is surprised. Together the two women embark on a journey of discovery of past secrets, which will give Willow some of the answers she has craved for so long.

The title, The White Space Between, refers to the spaces between the letters, the silences, the unsaid things. There are many unspoken things between Jane and Willow, secrets which have shaped their relationship and Willow’s future. In the little snippets of memories Jane recalls throughout the story, the reader learns a little bit about her past, but many unanswered questions still remain. Through past and present conversations between mother and daughter, Willow slowly gains an insight into some of the memories her mother has tried to protect her from.

I have read many different books about how the experiences of the Holocaust have shaped not only the survivors’ lives, but also that of their children. I have also experienced the effects of hidden secrets and suppressed suffering on families through past encounters with Holocaust survivors who have shred their stories with me. It is a subject which is close to my heart, and I welcomed the opportunity to read Brodoff’s novel. Unfortunately I found both Jane and Willow quite remote and hard to connect with, apart from a few snippets where Jane shares Jana’s memories of the war with the reader, which were very touching and sad. But overall, I felt like an outsider looking in, instead of being a part of the story, seeing the scenery, feeling the emotion. Even when Jane and Willow return to Prague to put the past at rest, I found it hard to engage, to share their emotion – Relief? Sadness? Joy? I am still puzzled as to how Jane’s past has really affected Willow, how knowing may have changed her, shaped her differently.

All in all, the novel left me longing for more – more information, more emotional connection and more insight. Maybe I needed to read more between the lines ….

For people interested in novels addressing the topic of Holocaust survivors and the effect of their past on their family and children, I can also recommend:

Lola Bensky by Lily Brett REVIEW
Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah
The Imposter Bride by Nancy Richler
Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum



I read this book as part of the 2013 Monthly Keyword Reading Challenge - and it contained the key word chosen for January: "white".

Book Review: THE KITCHEN DAUGHTER by Jael McHenry

Title: The Kitchen Daughter
Author:  Jael McHenry
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Read: January 16, 2013


Synopsis (Goodreads):

After the unexpected death of her parents, painfully shy and sheltered 26-year-old Ginny Selvaggio seeks comfort in cooking from family recipes. But the rich, peppery scent of her Nonna’s soup draws an unexpected visitor into the kitchen: the ghost of Nonna herself, dead for twenty years, who appears with a cryptic warning (“do no let her…”) before vanishing like steam from a cooling dish.

A haunted kitchen isn’t Ginny’s only challenge. Her domineering sister, Amanda, (aka “Demanda”) insists on selling their parents’ house, the only home Ginny has ever known. As she packs up her parents’ belongings, Ginny finds evidence of family secrets she isn’t sure how to unravel. She knows how to turn milk into cheese and cream into butter, but she doesn’t know why her mother hid a letter in the bedroom chimney, or the identity of the woman in her father’s photographs. The more she learns, the more she realizes the keys to these riddles lie with the dead, and there’s only one way to get answers: cook from dead people’s recipes, raise their ghosts, and ask them.

My thoughts:

Ginny Selvaggio has had a sheltered upbringing. At 26 years of age she is still living in her childhood home with her parents, hiding from a world which is confusing for her. Many things other people take for granted are frightening for Ginny: loud noises, for example, or people’s touch, metaphors and interpreting emotions. When Ginny’s parents die suddenly, she copes with her feelings of loss and grief the only way she knows, by cooking. Following in the footsteps of her mother, who was an excellent cook and has taught Ginny all about food from a young age, cooking is the one thing Ginny is good at and which helps her cope with unexpected situations. On the day of her parents’ funeral, overwhelmed by grief and the crowd of mourners in her house, Ginny retreats to the kitchen to cook her late grandmother’s recipe of bread soup – and is visited by the ghost of her Nonna, giving her a cryptic warning.

In the days that follow, Ginny discovers that she can evoke the ghosts of the dead by cooking recipes written in their own hand. When Ginny’s sister Amanda threatens to sell the family home, and Ginny discovers some photos of a mysterious stranger and a letter of apology and regret written by her father to her mother, Ginny resorts to her newly discovered gift to get some answers – with some unexpected results.

With The Kitchen Daughter McHenry has created a heart-warming coming-of age story from the perspective of a person living with Asperger’s Syndrome. Although Ginny has never been officially diagnosed, many of her reactions and the way she interprets the world around her are characteristic of someone living with the syndrome. From the outset, Ginny’s voice seemed genuine to me, as the reader is invited to look at the world through Ginny’s eyes. With her mother having consistently refused to have Ginny examined and diagnosed, she is aware of being different from other people but has had to develop her own explanations and coping skills. It instantly raised the question for me whether her mother was doing Ginny any favours by sheltering her from the world and refusing to acknowledge her differences out of fear of having her child “labelled”. As Ginny makes a startling discovery about her parents, her mother’s motives make a bit more sense.

With describing Ginny and her sister’s individual journeys of trying to cope with the loss of loved ones, as well as those of supporting characters, the author has created an insightful novel about the different types and stages of grief. Even in Amanda, Ginny’s overbearing and controlling younger sister, her deep hurt shines clearly through, showing how different people cope with emotions too strong to bear at the time. Another interesting aspect discussed in the novel is the concept of “normal”. As Ginny says: “There are so many flavours of normal, it doesn’t matter which one I am. […] There really is no normal.”

Ginny’s ghostly visitors add a subtle touch of magic and whimsy to the story, without overdoing it, very much like another novel I recently revisited, Blackberry Wine by Joanne Harris. I found the idea of being able to conjure the ghosts of loved ones through the smell of their own food very comforting – thinking that I still have many handwritten recipes from my own grandmother (who was an excellent cook), and how lovely it would be to be able to reconnect for a few precious moments to say the things that have remained unsaid. It is interesting to see Ginny’s motivations for inviting the ghosts of her relatives, and the things she chooses to discuss with them. Her encounter with her dead father was especially touching, for various reasons I will not spoil for readers here. One question, however, is still nagging me: what did Nonna really mean? Did I miss something?

I really enjoyed reading The Kitchen Daughter, and it left a warm fuzzy feeling despite much sadness contained in the novel. It is one of those books which make for a nice cosy read in front of the fire, with a fragrant stew simmering in the background – or one which would offer many pertinent discussion points for a bookclub read.

Readers who enjoyed this story may also like reading Addition by Australian author  Toni Jordan, an insightful novel told through the eyes of a person living with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

I read this book as part of the 2013 What's In A Name Reading Challenge - read a book with something you'd find in your kitchen in the title.