Books: The Fate of Mercy Alban by Wendy Webb

Chalk this one up to being a fairly interesting, if predictable, story but the writing style didn't impress me.

On the day Adele Alban agrees to meet with a reporter, she dies abruptly before the meeting can take place. Her daughter Grace comes home to Alban House for the first time in some 20 years, her own daughter Amity in tow. From there, family secrets begin to unravel.

I have a love of gothic stories and ghost stories, so when I read the description for this book, I was excited to try it. Alas, I didn't find Grace a very engaging main character (excepting the first chapter, the novel is written in first person from Grace's point of view), and there was none of the delicacy of prose I expect with this kind of story. It was all a little bland for my taste.

Added to this was a romance with a local minister—so color me surprised when he was okay sleeping with Grace even though they weren't married? Yes, I know it happens, but to have this character spouting his faith constantly (I really did wonder if the book was being marketed as "inspirational" at some points) and then act against the tenets that faith felt hypocritical.

As for the plot, there were no particularly amazing twists. I had most of it figured out early on. But the base story line was at least interesting. Too bad we were living it through such a dull character.

Oh, and the epilogue was just . . . The book would have been better without it, I think.

There is just something so matter-of-fact about Webb's style that I couldn't really immerse myself in it. And for a book like this, that's what I really want to do.

Ah, well. It's not a terrible book. I just didn't enjoy it as much as I'd hoped to.

Books: The Art of the English Murder by Lucy Worsley

It probably requires someone who both likes history and literature—particularly detective stories—to really appreciate this book, but as I am such a person . . . I really enjoyed it.

Worsley works her way through the literary history of crime stories from the kinds of pamphlets and broadsides that came out with news of murders and hangings, on through Gothic literature, the "Golden Age" of detective stories (i.e., Agatha Christie), and finally touching on the decline of same in favor of the rise in thrillers. At the same time, Worsley parallels all this with true crime stories that inspired the kinds of writings that were popular at any given time. She reflects on the draw of Madame Tussaud's Chamber of Horrors and the general psychology behind why we love death (and the more gruesome the better).

Engagingly written and filled with interesting tidbits, I sailed through this book, often choosing to read rather than get any of my own work done. Now I'm only sorry that I've finished it and so don't have an excuse to procrastinate any longer.

Books: The Supernatural Enhancements by Edgar Cantero

One of the best books I've read this year.

It's a haunted house story told via a collection of diary entries, dream journal entries, transcribed notes and audio recordings, security camera footage, and video recordings. Think of it as a kind of Paranormal Activity in writing. Only the main characters aren't completely stupid, so aside from thinking they should probably change bedrooms, you don't get exasperated with them. Well, though A. (we're never given his full name) can be a bit pompous.

Without giving anything away, I can tell you A. and his mute friend Niamh leave the UK to take possession of a [very old] house in Virginia. It is supposedly haunted, and what's more the man who lived there before jumped to his death from the same window his own father had also committed suicide from. Both had died at the age of fifty.

And so A. and Niamh move in and weird things begin to happen. Meanwhile, as they begin going through papers and such, they piece together a puzzle. Several puzzles, actually. Cyphers and such.

All of this is set in 1995, with many references to The X-Files.

I can't do the book justice, and I don't want to give anything away. I can only say I do highly recommend it.

Books: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

They say there is a "moment" for bibliophiles and authors . . . Something—a book, usually—sparks something within them, and it is a moment they always remember, a kind of literary turning point, I suppose. What it accomplishes is a personal matter; some say, "That was when I knew I wanted to be a writer" and some say, "That was when my world view changed" or something of that ilk. For me, it's very difficult to articulate—and that's saying something given my job is to articulate. I'm not sure what exactly shifted, but something did.

I've been reading and writing since I was three. I taught myself out of sheer boredom. My parents are both avid readers themselves, and I'm an only child; there simply wasn't much to do besides read or write and draw. Well, and listen to the stereo. I did a lot of that, too.

And I loved to read, and I loved to write. I don't know that I thought I would be "a writer," but I was pretty sure I would always write, even just for my own amusement or to share stories with my friends.

But anyway, my sophomore year of high school I got very, very ill. This was right before the mid-term break. And I was home in bed, drifting in and out of drug-induced delirium. Seriously, I was pretty damn sick. (That's me; I'm healthy as a horse until I'm not, but when I'm sick, I'm really sick.)

I was determined to try and keep up with some of my schoolwork though. Exams were coming and I didn't want to have to make up a bunch of stuff. And for Lit class we had a reading list; we could choose books from it and then we'd take a test on whichever book we'd chosen to read. Rebecca was on that list.

I'd enjoyed a lot of Victoria Holt's gothic stuff, and reading the description of Rebecca, I thought it was much the same kind of thing. I'm not even sure where I got the copy of the book I ended up reading; it was a yellowed paperback with a pinkish cover. It might have come from the used bookstore my mother and I frequented, or maybe from the library—they had a section in the back corner filled with donated old paperbacks that were free for people to just take, no need to return them. A kind of lending library or swap or something. Many of my paperbacks came from there.

If you don't know the story of Rebecca, well, there are lots of sites that can summarize it for you. In short, it's a gothic novel about a woman who becomes Maxim de Winter's second wife and is haunted by his first wife, the titular Rebecca, who died tragically. It's a fantastic book in its own right, but read it while very ill and hopped up on goofballs, and it's amazing.

So while I can't say Rebecca made me want to become a writer or anything . . . It left a definite impression on me. Maybe because of my age at the time (I was 15), maybe because I was semi-delusional and living on crackers and Sprite (toast when I was feeling adventurous), maybe just the weird cycle of reading a bit, falling asleep, waking up and reading some more . . . The fog in my head matched the fog in the protagonist's mind, and in some strange way it was like living in the book.

I now own a really nice hardbound copy of Rebecca, but I do still wonder where that tattered old paperback ever got to. And I never did read it again, either. I've wanted to, but something in me refuses to taint my original experience. So when in a Gothic Lit class at uni we were required to read Rebecca, I did not. I simply worked to remember what I could of the story and that served.

It's a great book, though. For anyone who hasn't read it, I highly recommend it.