A Book A Week

"If you leave the door half open, soon you'll hear the whispers spoken."

One of my biggest challenges as a book blogger has always been balancing the number of new releases I read with the titles that are already on my bookshelf. More often than not, the new releases take precedence. There are just so many exciting books to share each week. During this quarantine time, I've really committed to trying to give more attention to the books that are already on my shelf. The Whisper Man by Alex North is one of those books. I got it as a Christmas gift last year and have been dying to read it ever since.

"If you play outside alone, soon you won't be going home."

Tom has just moved to Featherbank in the hopes of finding healing and closure for his devastated family. Well, at least for him and his young son Jake. After the sudden death of their wife/mother, both of them are eager to start over. Jake is kind of a peculiar child. He carries with him a bag of "special things", memorabilia from his life that he holds close. Jake doesn't really talk to Tom, but Tom has noticed him talking to the empty chairs and spaces around him. Normal, imaginary friend type conversations, Tom hopes. Just as the two are starting to settle in, the town's dark history begins to resurface.

"If your window's left unlatched, you'll hear him tapping at the glass."

Decades ago, Featherbank was haunted by a serial killer who preyed on small boys from the town. He would lure the children from their homes by standing outside of their bedroom windows and whispering to them. Each night he would speak to the children until they trusted him enough to leave with him. At first, the parents thought this Whisper Man was just a childhood superstition. Then the kids started disappearing. The culprit, Frank Carter was eventually brought to justice, forced to remain in a prison cell, unable to harm any more children. At least that's what everyone believed. Now all these years later, another boy has gone missing under frighteningly familiar circumstances. The legend of The Whisper Man is alive and well.

"If you're lonely, sad, and blue, the Whisper Man will come for you."

In his debut novel The Whisper Man, Alex North takes fairly straight forward police procedural and morphs it into the kind of chilling nightmare that will have you turning on all the lights and anxiously checking your surroundings. Much like Thomas Harris's famed Hannibal Lecter, The Whisper Man Frank Carter is a diabolically charismatic villain whose presence permeates the entire novel with a sense of paranoia, even when he isn't directly on the page. North employs a multitude of perspectives to weave his twisted web, enticing the reader to drift ever so slightly forward into his literary labyrinth. The father-son dynamic between Tom and Jake is portrayed in a way that is genuine and heartfelt. It provides some much-needed glimpses of light in this dim narrative. Equally impressive is the way North imbues DI Pete Willis, a grizzled old detective who blames himself for not catching The Whisper Man fast enough the first time, with just enough humanity to avoid him being just another run-of-the-mill detective. The Whisper Man is a stunning debut that will have you reading into the wee hours of the night and haunt your dreams long after you finish. I'm very happy to have this one sitting on my shelf, and I already have an open space for whatever North comes up with next.

For more information visit Amazon and Goodreads.
(2020, 19)

The history of LGBTQ+ people is one that is rich, but frankly, the masses are simply unaware of most of it. Sure, milestones like the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell and the legalization of same-sex marriage in the US are known. There is some general knowledge of the AIDS crisis and terrible hate crimes like the murder of Matthew Shepard.  That being said, there is a more intricate tapestry of progress that mostly goes unacknowledged. I think that is just the nature of oppression. The stories of the oppressed are brushed over in the broader narrative of human history. In their new book The Gay Agenda, power couple Ashley Molesso and Chess Needham attempt to shine a light on the LGBTQ+ community, spreading a story of love, life, and progress.

I received a copy of the new book from the publisher, and I was immediately drawn to the bright cover and illustrations. The authors are a real-life couple who run a stationery company called ASH + CHESS. "They create greeting cards and art prints that are bold with retro color palettes, often using their artwork to make a political statement." With this book, they attempt to take a phrase often used to stoke fear and turn it into a celebration. The Gay Agenda is a bright and fairly comprehensive overview of the history of a remarkable group of people.

The book is divided into two sections, history and informational. The majority of the work is comprised of the history section, a historical timeline that spans from around 600 B.C.E to the present day. The timeline features brief snapshots of influential people, works, places, and events. We see authors like James Baldwin and Radclyffe Hall, activists like Emma Goldman and Miss Major Griffin-Gracey, and important vends like the formation of the Human Rights Campaign and the Stonewall Riots. While each entry is quite brief, I felt that the authors did a great job in highlighting some of the people and events that normally are whitewashed out of history. Specifically, there is a wonderful representation of Bi, Lesbian, Non-binary, and Trans members of the community.

The second portion of the book is described by the authors as "informational". Think of this as a queer glossary of sorts, a kind of introduction to the community to those who may not be familiar with it. As someone who identifies as a member of the gay community, I found The Gay Agenda to be a wonderful starting point in exploring this side of our family. What a wonderful tool this could be to people who simply don't understand what being LGBTQ+ is like. Even I was being exposed to topics and history that I simply was unaware of. I applaud the authors for using their platform to spotlight such an important group of people. This is the kind of conversation starter that serves to spread facts and promote empathy and understanding. Despite what naysayers and political extremists will have you believe, that is truly what The Gay Agenda is all about.

For more information visit the author's website, Amazon, and Goodreads.
(2020, 18)

"Her secrets were more than burdens. They were vicious, living things with claws and fangs."

This year marks the eighth year for A Book A Week. Over those years, I've counted many of my fellow bloggers as mentors and friends. Luanne at A Bookworm's World has been one of those from the very start. She posts insightful reviews of a variety of genres, hosts unique features, and has some of the best giveaways. In fact, that is how I came to acquire my latest read, A Mother's Lie by Sarah Zettel. At first, the publisher cautioned that it might take a while for me to receive my copy due to the ongoing restrictions from COVID-19. They even forwarded an ebook copy to hold me over while I waited! Out of the blue, my physical copy arrived last week, way earlier than I expected. Book mail is always a sweet surprise, but it is even better to receive it during a quarantine!

Beth Fraser has worked extremely hard to shield her teenage daughter Dana from the harsh realities of the world.  No, she's not one of those crazy mothers who deprive their daughters of the milestones that come with growing up. By all accounts, Dana is well adjusted. She has close friends, a love for cooking, and even has a promising summer internship on the horizon. Dana's father calls to cancel plans with her, attempting to avoid the difficult conversation with her by having Beth relay the message. This isn't really a surprise. He never really wanted anything to do with the girl, and Beth actually prefers it this way. Better for Dana to learn of the disappointments of the world now while her mother is still there to protect her.

The steel facade of Beth's life his built upon the wealth she's acquired with Lumination, a hedge fund company. She helped build the company and her reputation by sniffing out the sour apples, advising against poor investments, or suspicious individuals. Beth has a knack for reading people. Because of this, a situation with Dana's father shocks her. As she begins to deal with the ramifications of him reaching out, a Pandora's box to her past begins to open. Suddenly she is being forced to face her history, the lies, secrets, and yes, even her manipulative parents. With her carefully safeguarded life beginning to crumble, Beth faces the difficult task of attempting to keep everything together while dealing with the blowback of a past life being revealed to her daughter.

Coming off of a rather challenging read, A Mother's Lie by Sarah Zettel was the perfect novel to binge through. Zettel writes a compelling thriller that mixes in a family drama that is as riveting as the action. Chapters alternate between the perspectives of Beth and Dana, allowing the reader to see both sides of the drama as it unfolds. As each character is developed, more secrets are revealed. In the thick of the novel, I really couldn't decide who to believe. This only adds to the suspense and paranoia. There's nothing flashy here, no giant twists or big set pieces. Still, A Mother's Lie page-turner propelled by the intriguing family dynamic and shifting POV's. This is the kind of compulsive read that had me blowing through the pages and staying up way too late. In short, everything I want from a thriller.

For more information visit the author's website, Amazon, and Goodreads.
(2020, 17)

"Slavery is everyday longing, is being born into a world of forbidden victuals and tantalizing untouchables---the land around you, the clothes you hem, the biscuits you bake. You bury the longing, because you know where it must lead."

To say that Ta-Nehisi Coates has a way with words would be an understatement. He is acclaimed for contributing to countless magazines and newspapers, written celebrated collections of non-fiction, and won the National Book Award for his book Between the World and Me. Coates has even been awarded the MacArthur Foundation "Genius Grant" for his writing. I first became aware of the author when a friend shared a clip of Coates speaking about the idea of reparations for enslaved people at a US House committee hearing. The eloquence and thoughtfulness with which he spoke really captured my spirit and inspired me to seek out his writing. An interview with Coates and Oprah for her book club on Apple TV+  narrowed down my selection to The Water Dancer. For anyone who has encountered the words of Coates, it should come as no surprise that his first work of fiction is the kind of transformational, visionary writing that only the greatest authors dare to achieve.

What immediately struck me as I began reading the book was Coates's powerful use of language and description to transport the reader to a specific time and place. To borrow from his own writing, he used, "...words with their own shape, rhythm, and color, words that were pictures themselves." Be warned, this kind of highly pictorial prose takes a bit of getting used to. The first paragraph alone is but one long sentence that establishes time, place, character, and mood. This is not the kind of writing that you casually pick up during brief breaks while working from home. I found that I had to commit to reading for hours at a time, letting myself become immersed in the words, falling into the rhythm of the syntax. Don't let this deter you from giving The Water Dancer a chance. Once I was fully immersed in the language, I was entranced by the spell that it cast upon me.

The novel focuses on Hiram "Hi" Walker, a young man enslaved at the Lockless plantation in Elm County, Virginia. The boy has a gift with memory, a skill that first earns the delight of the fellow enslaved and later that of the white people who own the land. Hi remembers everything. He can recall in perfect detail the exact words of an overheard conversation. This gift soon sees him invited to join a higher rank of enslaved people within the main house. Hi's father is the White owner of the Lockless estate. He is impressed when Hi's memory entertains some of the Quality (white slave owners) at a dinner party, distracting them from their barbaric desires toward the other Tasked (enslaved people).

Despite Hi's gift of memory, there is one important recollection that evades him. His mother was sold by his father when Hi was just a young boy. He knows how the other Tasked speak of her with revere to both her beauty and kindness, but Hi does not remember her himself. Gone is the tone that she spoke to him with, the subtlety of her physical features a blur of uncertainty. "She'd gone from that warm quilt of memory to the cold library of fact."

As he grows, Hi becomes disillusioned with the fate that he is sure to encounter. He is tasked with caring for his older half-brother Maynard, the unintelligent, but the correct skin-toned heir to Lockless. Times are changing for the worse. After years of thriving tobacco output, the land of Elm County is starting to dry up. The writing is already on the wall, and the Quality is starting to panic, selling off their Tasked for whatever value will keep their withering estates afloat. A tragic event and unexplainable transportation leave Hi eager to move beyond his enslaved state. That combined with a boyhood crush that is blossoming into love leaves him with the resolution that many other enslaved people dare not seek. Hi is going to try to run.

The Water Dancer sees Ta-Nehisi Coates write about memory and the weight of memory with thoughtfulness and imagination that has kept me reeling with emotion and reflection long after turning the final page. His writing envelops you with each word, transporting you into the mind of Hiram and the world that he inhabits. Coates worked on this novel for ten years, researching and visiting the places of this history, never discounting the importance of the story he strived to tell. As such, The Water Dancer strikes a perfect balance between the historical accuracy that gives it a sense of realism with the development of its layered characters and plot. As I became engrossed in the history, I found myself unable to put the book down.

There are countless allegories layered into the novel, calling on the themes of family, racism, and systems that are put into place that disproportionately benefit one person while harming the other. Coates introduces an element of magical realism that elevates the novel's themes while not detracting from the carefully established history of the setting. Like Colson Whitehead's physical Underground Railroad in his novel of the same name, Coates uses the idea of Conduction to provide both physical and metaphorical bridges between the physical places and the memories of his characters. The description of Conduction in the novel perfectly captures my own reaction to The Water Dancer: "The jump is done by the power of the story. It pulls from our particular histories, from all our loves and all of our losses. All of that feeling is called up, and on the strength of our remembrances, we are moved."

For more information visit the author's website, Amazon, and Goodreads.
(2020, 16)

While I certainly wish I could be going to work and going about my life as normal, I do enjoy some of the perks of staying at home. At the start of the year, I resolved to work through a backlog of reviews from the year previous. Like most good-intentioned resolutions, this one quickly fell to the wayside. Lucky for me, I've been gifted a rare second chance to make good on that goal. I'm still maintaining my 2020 goal of reading and reviewing at least one book a week, but I now have a bit of extra time to devote to some of the books that I didn't get to feature in 2019. The first backlogged review couldn't be more timely.

In Cold Storage, author David Koepp writes of the attempted containment of a highly mutative organism that, if left unchecked, has the potential to take over the earth. This thing is nothing to mess with. The novel opens with a Pentagon official Roberto Diaz investigating what is believed to be some sort of bioterrorism attack. What he discovers is the thing nightmares are made of. No, this isn't a monster or an evil terrorist. In a world that is facing the realities of a novel virus, the threat of this little fungal organism seems even more devastating. One touch of this organism and you're done for. Diaz wastes no time containing the fungus and burying it deep in an underground Kansas facility.

Decades later, the front desk attendant at a self-storage facility notices the faint beeping of some kind of alarm. None of the controls within the facility point to anything out of the ordinary, but the alarm persists. Miles away, Roberto Diaz is called out of retirement to investigate an urgent matter that only he can address. Somehow the alarm that is alerting the US government and the minimal wage storage unit are one and the same. That deadly parasitic fungus has sat 300 feet below what has now become a storage facility, forgotten by time and the complicated web of government bureaucracy. After all these years something has changed. It will take the unlikely heroes of storage facility employees and long-retired government agents to stop what could potentially be the most catastrophic breach in human history.

David Koepp is probably best known for being the screenwriter for blockbuster films like Jurassic Park, Spider-Man, and Mission Impossible. It should come as no surprise then that Cold Storage is an action-packed novel that is easily read in one breathless sitting. There are obvious echos of the literary style of Michael Crichton, all very welcome in this case. I would argue that Koepp takes a bit more liberty for the sake of action and pace, leaving believability behind. Still, there's no denying this is a page-turner. Cold Storage doesn't have much in terms of character development. The protagonists all fall into neat little tropes that are serviceable to the story, but a bit predictable. In fact, some of the most convincing character work is actually for the parasitic fungus itself. There's one deliciously devilish description in particular written from the perspective of our fungal villain as it spreads into its unsuspecting victim. Overall, Cold Storage is a diversional "outbreak type" thriller that never truly rises beyond its inventive opening. This may be one case where a movie version penned by Koepp might be more successful.

For more information visit Amazon and Goodreads.
(2019, 37)

Week 6 of our stay at home order began yesterday, and it is safe to say that I am getting tired of staying home. Now don't get me wrong, I completely understand the need to do my part in flattening the curve. Still, the monotony of self-isolation is getting to me. I've taken comfort in the familiar. I've made some of my favorite recipes, rewatched favorite movies, and have stayed fairly consistent in reading mystery/thriller novels. This week, I chose a random title from my library's selection of ebooks Perfect Little Children by Sophie Hannah. With a premise that quickly caught my attention, I settled in for what promised to be an easy but satisfying read.

Remember that friend that you used to be so close to? Think of that person who you effortlessly melded with, the kind of person who could look at you and instantly discern your mood and thoughts. I'm talking best friend, kids call you aunt or uncle despite no blood relation, kind of friendship. Odds are you can probably relate that description to someone in your own life. That same description would perfectly apply to Beth and Flora. They went on family vacations together, raised their children together, and were pretty much as close as you can be to someone outside of your own family. But that was twelve years ago. The two have not seen each other in that period of time. Cold turkey cut each other off. Just like that.

As Beth drives her now teenage son to football practice, she notices Flora's house sitting as it always had along the route. Curiosity is getting the better of her, so she drops her son off and circles back to the house. Beth doesn't even know if her ex-friend still lives there, but something is drawing her to the place. She steps out of her car and waits. From across the street, she sees Flora step out from her car, a little older but still the same friend Beth remembers. Twelve years ago, Flora's two children were five and six years old. Beth is startled to watch Flora remove the same children as if frozen in time, from the vehicle. They are unmistakably the same kids, but they have not aged a day since Beth last saw them. What has happened to these children!?

In Perfect Little Children, author Sophie Hannah wastes no time in setting up a perplexing mystery that instantly establishes the obsession of both her main character and her reader. As Beth delves deeper into her infatuation with her friend's life, the suspense only deepens. Hannah writes with an urgency that makes it impossible to stop reading for fear of missing out on whatever wild reveal lies on the next page.  I was reminded of The Girl on the Train or The Woman in Cabin 10. Like the women in those novels, Beth takes her investigation to a truly unhealthy level in which it completely consumes her and isolates her from her family. I'll admit, the obsession is not necessarily the most believable thing. I'd probably have just left well enough alone, but I'm also not the protagonist in a thriller novel. I was pleasantly surprised by the way Perfect Little Children managed to capture my attention. From the stellar set up to the non-stop twists and turns, it made for a wild and entertaining ride.

For more information visit the author's website, Amazon, and Goodreads.
(2020, 15)