A new year of reading has begun, but before I review any books from my 2010 reading, I’d like to recommend (or not) some fiction and non-fiction books I’ve read in 2009.
Fiction
This isn’t actually a book, it’s a series of books by Charlaine Harris. Harris is a Southern writer and has several different series (including the Sookie Stackhouse/Southern Vampire series which I’ve reviewed previously). This one is the Harper Connelly series with four books: Grave Sight, Grave Surprise, An Ice Cold Grave, and the book that concludes the series: Grave Secret. Harper Connelly and her brother, Tolliver Lang (through marriage only: his father married Harper’s mother), have a consulting business. Harper has the dubious ability to find dead bodies. Not only that, but she can sense what the deceased died of and also feel the last few moments of the person’s life. Tolliver acts as Harper’s assistant and handles booking consultations and the finances. He is also her closest friend. In the first three books in the series, Harper and Tolliver work for a skeptical police department to solve mass murders and individual families looking for their missing loved ones. Their back story is also revealed in bits and pieces. Harper’s young life was stable and relatively affluent until her parents, both lawyers, began abusing drugs and alcohol. They divorced and Harper’s mother married Tolliver’s father, also a drug user and dealer. As the older children (Tolliver has an older brother, also no blood relation to Harper), they took after-school jobs to earn money and tried to raise their younger siblings. When Harper was a teenager, she was struck by lightning and almost died because her step father didn’t want to call 911. Ever since the lightning strike, Harper has been able to sense dead bodies and is physically weaker and somewhat emotionally needy. The first three books are very entertaining and the mysteries are compelling. Harper’s unusual talent makes her a more complex character because she needs her talent to make money, yet loathes it at times. It is a physically, mentally, and emotionally draining experience to locate the deceased, particularly those who died violently. Along with the cases they deal with, Tolliver and Harper are struggling to define their relationship and the mystery in their own lives: a younger sister who was abducted one day while walking home from school. The last book in the series, Grave Secret, delves into Harper and Tolliver’s past and finally solves the case of their missing sister. Charlaine Harris wrote it to wrap up the series and all loose ends, but absolutely DON’T read it. Or at least don’t buy it. I bought it, read it, and returned it to Barnes and Noble and demanded my money back. That’s how awful it is. It is apparent almost from the first paragraph that Harris did not want to write this book, but felt obligated (to her readers and publisher?) to finish the series. The plot is ridiculous and a series of convenient coincidences help solve the case of the missing sister. Harris injected a lot of unnecessary violence (Tolliver is shot and a police officer murdered while trying to protect Harper) into the book to create tension and action, but it doesn’t work. This book is a mess. The characters, Harper and Tolliver, don’t even seem like the same people from the last three novels. I absolutely hated this novel. I would have preferred she had left the series unfinished rather than to have written such a crappy and unenjoyable novel as Grave Secret. So I don’t recommend Grave Secret, but I do recommend the first three.
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield is a great book. It is a creepy tale of family secrets and madness and mystery. I could not put this book down. Margaret Lea works in her father’s bookshop and is a lover of books and biographies and writes them herself. She unexpectedly receives an invitation from Vida Winter, a popular reclusive writer who has never told the truth about her past or herself, to come to her house to write her biography. Margaret is suspicious of this offer since Vida has never given an accurate account of her biography to any reporter; she often made up different stories every time she was interviewed. However, Vida Winter is now old and dying, and she wants to finally tell the truth of her life, and she picks Margaret to write the tale. Vida Winter lives in Yorkshire (England) and Margaret stays with her in her grand house while writing the biography. Vida tells her story in snippets, beginning with her grandparents. Margaret is soon drawn into this gothic tale about madness and ghosts and because she suspects that Vida is still not telling the truth, she travels to the site of Vida’s childhood home, which is now in ruins. This is an absolutely fabulous book. It is an amazing story; it’s actually a story within a story. Of course Vida is not telling the whole truth, and if you pay attention, you can solve the mystery yourself. This is book written by an author who not only writes a good story, but also loves to read a good story. I recommend this book without reservations. The only bad comment I have to say about it is that it ends. But I bought my own copy so I can read it again.
I read this next book for two reasons: one, I’ve always wanted to read it, and two, reviewers kept comparing it to The Thirteenth Tale. So I picked up the library’s copy of Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier and wow, was I disappointed. Like The Thirteenth Tale, Rebecca is a story of family secrets and madness. But that’s where the comparisons end. Rebecca is rather boring and I don’t really consider it a classic because its story doesn’t hold up over time. The unnamed narrator, the second Mrs. de Winter, is neurotic, annoying, and pathetic. I wanted to strangle her before I was even half way through the novel. She is not an admirable heroine, in fact I would call her the anti-heroine and she is so stupid that I feel she deserves everything that happens to her. Mrs. Danvers is obviously off her head and creepy, but not as evil as I had thought she would be. The plot is not very shocking (at the time of publication in the early 20th century I’m sure it was, but not now) and I was only surprised by one thing, which I won’t reveal. The aura of Rebecca that surrounds the house is creepy and well done, but the book itself is not all that surprising or shocking. If you haven’t read it, go ahead and do so. But don’t be surprised if you want to shove the second Mrs. de Winter off a cliff. She’s a silly little idiot.
Another compelling and creepy read is Sacrifice by S.J. Bolton. The heroine of this story, Tora Hamilton, is the Energizer Bunny of getting into trouble. Just when you think the mystery is solved and she can stop asking questions and getting bonked on the head, she fools you and swims through cold choppy waters at night to sneak onto a creepy island where bad men (and it is mostly men who are the baddies in this book) are up to no good. Tora is an obstetrician who moved from London to the Shetland Islands when her husband, Duncan Guthrie, got a lucrative and important new position in his business. Tora hasn’t lived there very long when trouble starts. She is digging a hole to bury her beloved horse Jamie when she uncovers the body of a young woman wrapped in linens. Her heart had been cut from her body and three ancient Viking runes were carved into her flesh. And so begins a tale of incredible weirdness that leads Tora to eventually suspect almost everyone she knows, including her boss at the hospital and her husband. This is a novel that is almost impossible to put down. Tora is an unusual character in that she is rude, profane, and stubborn. But her determination to see justice for the woman who was murdered and buried in her yard is admirable and you do end up liking her. This is one of the weirdest mysteries I have read in a long time.
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn is another odd tale of an unhappy and unstable childhood leading to a current mystery. Camille Preaker is a reporter at a small newspaper in Chicago. She is also fresh from an extended stay at a mental institution. Her editor sends her back to her small Southern hometown of Wind Gap to report on the mysterious abduction and death of two young girls. Camille is not happy about the assignment or returning to Wind Gap. While reporting on the story, she stays with her mother and stepfather and teenage half-sister in their Victorian mansion. The key to solving the mystery of the deaths of the girls lies in Camille’s past, a past she does not want to think about. Her family is decidedly odd and repulsive, as is the town itself. While trying to investigate the girls’ deaths, events from Camille’s past resurface and the murderer is revealed. This is a rather short book, under 300 pages, but it is complex and creepy and surprising and I’m glad I don’t live in Wind Gap. It truly sounds hideous.
Non-Fiction
Most of the non-fiction I read last year I did write reviews about, but here are two other books worthy of reading. The first is Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Morality, and the Evolution of a Fairy Tale by Catherine Orenstein. This is an excellent exploration of the history and different themes of the Little Red Riding Hood tale. The theme and “moral of the story” of Little Red Riding Hood changes with the historical period and culture. The heroine of this tale has represented many ideas over the years: submission to male power, modesty, and female sexual aggression. I really enjoyed this book and it is not difficult reading (despite the scholarly title). If you are interested in fairy tales and myths, read this book.
This last book took about a month to get through because it is a very detailed and comprehensive history of the (unfortunate) merging of politics and religion: With God On Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America by William Martin. This is a companion book to a PBS series with the same title. I have not seen the series, but the book is a complete work on its own. The author presents his historical exploration of the merging of religion and politics in a factual, objective way. He is not advocating either for or against, thus letting the reader decide if the mix of politics and religion is a good development or not. I say not. The book begins with a long introduction which begins with the Puritans and the Great Awakening in the 1700s. He explains the term “dispensationalist premillennialism” and why it still matters today. Once the introduction brings you up to the 1940s, the first chapter begins with Billy Graham and subsequent chapters detail significant events in the development of the Religious Right up through 1995, when the book was published. This is an absolutely fascinating, if sometimes exhausting, book. It is not a difficult read, but it is intense and packed with facts. There are also many, many interviews of people involved in the events of time included in the book. I learned a lot reading this book and may have to buy my own copy to have for reference. If you are a proponent of upholding freedom of religion, and fascinated by religion and politics and history, you should read this book. It can be a terrifying read, but it is fascinating and well worth the time.
“Inevitably, when religion allows itself to become the handmaiden of politicians, more damage is done to the church than to the government. Nothing gives more comfort to the hardened skeptic or unbeliever than to have religious leaders chasing around the country invoking God’s name on behalf of what are clearly secular causes” (Jody Powell, Jimmy Carter’s press secretary, from With God On Our Side, page 211).
These books can be found at Baron-Forness Library:
The Thirteenth Tale (McNaughton Collection)
Sacrifice (McNaughton Collection)
Rebecca
Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked
