Sunday Aug 28

Summer is coming to a end fall is in the air, cool nights, warm days.  In a nutshell perfect unless you like very warm water to swim.

The tale of Halcyon Crane

Good book. Halcyon Crane finds out that the mother she thought was dead has been alive the hole time.
Father faked there death to get her away from haunted house where a murder took place.  She comes back and inherates the house and the mystery. I loved it

A young woman travels alone to a remote island to uncover a past she never knew was hers in this thrilling modern ghost story.

When a mysterious letter lands in Hallie James’s mailbox, her life is upended. Hallie was raised by her loving father, having been told her mother died in a fire decades earlier. But it turns out that her mother, Madlyn, was alive until very recently. Why would Hallie’s father have taken her away from Madlyn? What really happened to her family thirty years ago?
In search of answers, Hallie travels to the place where her mother lived, a remote island in the middle of the Great Lakes. The stiff islanders fix her first with icy stares and then unabashed amazement as they recognize why she looks so familiar, and Hallie quickly realizes her family’s dark secrets are enmeshed in the history of this strange place. But not everyone greets her with such a chilly reception—a coffee-shop owner and the family’s lawyer both warm to Hallie, and the possibility of romance blooms. And then there’s the grand Victorian house bequeathed to her—maybe it’s the eerie atmosphere or maybe it’s the prim, elderly maid who used to work for her mother, but Hallie just can’t shake the feeling that strange things are starting to happen . . .
In The Tale of Halcyon Crane, Wendy Webb has created a haunting story full of delicious thrills, vibrant characters, and family secrets.

1. Hallie’s father talks about seeing Madlyn at the nursing home the day before he died. Do you think he really saw her spirit, coming for him? Why or why not? Do you believe the veil between the liv­ing and the dead is lifted as a person passes from one life to the next?
2. Hallie has twice been sidelined by men she loved: her husband and her father both were different men than she knew them to be. How did their deception—nonmalicious though it was—affect her? Did she do the right thing by ultimately trusting Will?
3. Each child born of the spell from the Witch of Summer Glen has a special otherworldly ability or gift. With Hallie, her gift develops the longer she stays on the island. Do you think Hallie simply grew more aware of her innate talent, or did being on the island somehow change and enhance her abilities?
4. What is the significance of mirrors with respect to Hallie’s ability to “see”?
5. Why couldn’t Madlyn understand the danger the island posed to her young daughter Hallie? Was Madlyn a good mother?
6. Was Hallie’s father justified in taking his child away from his wife and their home? Did you think he could have handled that situation differently—perhaps more openly and truthfully?
7. Mira befriends Hallie, but she also harbors a great secret that isn’t revealed until the end of the book. Did you understand Mira’s decision to keep the truth to herself for so long, given that she barely knew Hallie, or should she have revealed it sooner? What secrets would you keep from a friend?
8. Did you enjoy the way Hallie’s “tale” is slowly revealed to her? Are there storytellers in your fam­ily who have kept family lore alive?
9. Forgiveness is one of the themes in this novel. Who most needed to be able to forgive? Who most needed to be forgiven?
10. Have you ever seen a ghost? Do you know anyone who has? What are some of the best ghost sto­ries you know?

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There I found an enormous main room with a fireplace tucked into one corner. On the wall across from the king sized bed cherry wood headboard antique I assumed hung a flat screen television a nice mix of old and new it was in a word awesome and I don't use that word lightly it was a perfect place for me and Eden I didn't need any other part of the house. I could've lived right there.  Books were piled on the nightstand a couple of recent  best sellers a big bay window bigger than the one at the manitou inn looked out onto the lake it seemed to be a feature of many of the houses here next i poled my head into the bathroom i was delighted to see a hug claw foot tub under one of the windows and a tiled shower in one corer  the bedroom opened up to another room a study book shelves lined the walls and other fireplace stood in a corner. big overstuffed leather chairs with ottomans stood in front of the fireplace with a comfy chaise on the opposite walls back in the bedroom I opened a door to find a walk=in closet  with clothers hanging from long reach on both walls


This is what I want by bedroom to be like if I ever get to build it.

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© Wendy Webb. All Rights Reserved. Author Web Development by

THE KING OF LIES by John Hart

Starred Review. Hart's stunning debut, an exceptionally deep and complex mystery thriller, compares favorably to the best of Scott Turow. Jackson Workman Pickens, whom most people call "Work," is a struggling North Carolina criminal defense attorney. Work has wrestled with inner demons for most of his life, especially after the death of his mother and the disappearance of his wealthy father, Ezra Pickens, a highly successful lawyer who took him into his practice. Trapped in a loveless marriage and haunted by poor emotional choices and his sister's psychological trauma, Work finds himself under suspicion when his father's corpse surfaces more than a year after Ezra was last seen alive. Work's quest for the truth behind his father's demise opens old wounds and forces him to face the consequences of his own decisions. Few readers will be able to resist devouring this tour-de-force in one or two sittings—or clamoring for more John Hart.

Four and twenty blackbirds by Cherie Priest An Eden Moore Story

   Southern gothic my favorite.
old southern mansion and graveyard





The classic Southern gothic gets an edgy modern makeover in Priest's debut novel about a young woman's investigation into the truth of her origins. What Eden Moore digs up in the roots of her diseased family tree takes her across the South, from the ruins of the Pine Breeze sanitarium in Tennessee to a corpse-filled swamp in Florida, and back in time to the Civil War, when the taint in her family bloodline sets in motion events building only now to a supernatural crescendo. Priest adds little new to the gothic canon, but makes neo-goth chick Eden spunky enough to deal with a variety of cliché menaces—a scheming family matriarch, a brooding Poe-esque mansion and a genealogy greatly confused with inbreeding—that would have sent the genre's traditional wilting violets into hysterics. Eden is a heroine for the aging Buffy crowd, and her adventures will play best to postadolescent horror

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lthough she was orphaned at birth, Eden Moore is never alone. Three dead women watch from the shadows, bound to protect her from harm. But in the woods a gunman waits, convinced that Eden is destined to follow her wicked great-grandfather--an African magician with the power to curse the living and raise the dead.

Now Eden must decipher the secret of the ghostly trio before a new enemy more dangerous than the fanatical assassin destroys what is left of her family. She will sift through lies in a Georgian ante-bellum mansion and climb through the haunted ruins of a 19th century hospital, desperately seeking the truth that will save her beloved aunt from the curse that threatens her life.

The Tattooed Map

"I'm beside myself, I can barely write this the design on my left hand is now extended up my wrist ..."

So deepens the enigma of The Tattooed Map, a richly illustrated and thoroughly captivating first novel by Barbara Hodgson. Somewhere in Northern Africa, an intrepid traveler awakens with a mysterious mark on her hand that soon develops into a detailed, macabre map spreading across her skin. As Lydia's private journal entries unfold complete with fold-out maps, photographs, drawings, and handwritten notes the reader becomes as drawn into the conundrum of the tattooed map as Lydia herself. When Lydia disappears and her friend Christopher takes up her journal to record his search for her, the situation becomes even more puzzling until the book's haunting resolution. In this unique novel, as engrossing to look at as it is to read, Hodgson has crafted a spine-tingling mystery that will make armchair adventurers want to embark upon their own journeys




Barbara Hodgson's novel, The Tattooed Map must have been as fun to write/compile as it was to read.  I suppose you would consider it a novel, but it almost seems more of an 'entertainment' as the story can easily be read in one sitting.  Much of the enjoyment comes from perusing the ephemera and marginalia that illustrate the novel.  I wrote about it briefly here, but I don't think I ever described the story. 
Told in a series of journal entries, The Tattooed Map, is a mysterious, almost dreamlike tale of two former lovers who embark on a journey to Morocco, but it becomes an entirely different kind of journey.  Where it ends is left up to your own imagination.  Lydia and Chris are good friends but even more so, good travel companions.  They can't seem to live together, but they do travel well together.  Their trip to Morroco is a combination of pleasure, adventure and work. 
Lydia is the sort of traveler who likes to immerse herself in the people and culture of a country even before she sets foot on the plane.  Once there she is happy meandering about, meeting people and exploring.  Chris is more indifferent when it comes to travel.  He's an assured traveler, but there is little planning.  Lydia is sure it is all luck.  Chris would rather hide behind a newspaper than interact with strangers, but he is successful in his business, which is dealing in antiques--finding just the right thing for the right client.   

Shortly after they arrive, Lydia notices what she believes are a cluster of flea bites on her left hand, the result of sleeping in a strange bed in less than hygienic circumstances.  As the days pass what appears to be a tattoo of a map begin emerging on her arm, which she keeps covered with her shirt.  She's confused and unsure of what seems to be happening and not comfortable telling Chris about this strange occurrence. 
Part of the mystery and part of the explanation of the mystery is a strange Morrocan man who seems to be at every café Chris and Lydia visit.  Lydia wonders if he's following them.  As she awaits the arrival of Chris one afternoon he approaches her table.

"He unravelled a story, slowly, like reluctant insomnia.  The steady, monotonous voice so much like my own thoughts--repetitious, relentless, unforgiving.  I panicked as his finger traced round and round the tender skin of my wrist and tried to pull my hand away.  His grip tightened and I heard him say, 'Only your skin and your tears will allow you this journey'."

And then Lydia disappears.  Leaving everything behind except her passport and money, Chris has no idea what has happened to her and is mystified by what she has written in her journal.  He must overcome his indifference before he can understand what has happened to Lydia.

The story is a puzzle, both for Chris and the reader.  Perhaps part of the solution is knowing that Lydia is an inveterate traveler and that is she had her way, she would never stop.  Hodgson leaves much up to the reader's imagination--particularly with the ending, but somehow it seems fitting with such a story that is in it's own way as labyrinthine as Morrocco's ancient cities. 
if only they could be sure of their return

A Treasury of Victorian murder vol 1

I liked this book I love illustrated books and hope to find more. This was alittle to expensive for its sizeill

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Thankfully NBM have made available once again the first of the excellent "Treasury of Victorian Murder" series which has been out of print for a while now. Included in this short 72 page book are 3 cases:

The Ryan Tragedy
The Dr Pritchard Case
The Mrs Pearcey Murders

The Ryan Tragedy featured a brother and sister who were found stabbed to death in their small New York room. No murderer was ever convicted nor any real motive discovered though they did find out in the autopsy that the sister was pregnant and so the gossipy theories began.

The Dr Pritchard Case, the longest in this book, features a strange, possibly mad, certainly deluded, doctor who poisoned his wife and her mother. It seems he wanted to get rid of the two in order to marry his 15 year old maid with whom he had been carrying on an affair with. He was convicted and was the last man to be publicly hanged in Scotland.

The Mrs Pearcey Murders were the murder of a young mother and her baby. Mrs Pearcey was having an affair with the husband of the murdered woman and the father of the baby, and she had been unable to forget the affair once it was over. She lived in solitude in a house near the family and became consumed with jealousy until one day her loneliness and anger boiled over and she murdered the wife and child.

All the stories are interesting and well told, as well as drawn in Geary's signature style. It's great that it's been brought back so that fans can have access to this book once again. Fans of the series will enjoy it although the book is over too quickly and the stories aren't as satisfying as other book length stories like the Lincoln murder or the Jack the Ripper killings. Good read at any rate. cv     r

Picture the Dead by Adele Griffin and Lisa Brown

This was a really good book a illustrated novel. They took old pictures and changed them into illustrated pictures to tell the story of two brothers. One who did not come home from the civil war and is trying to warn his fiance' not to get involved with his brother who survived. 



























ALMOST EVERY CHARACTER in Picture the Dead has a real-life 19th century counterpart, unearthed from the archives of the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress. Here are some of my models and their correspondant illustrated selves.
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And here a little side note regarding dear Aunt Clara. I honestly had trouble finding a model who was detestable enough to represent Clara in all her vile-ness. I was particularly keen to portray Adele’s incredible description of a “chin that wobbled like aspic.” Nobody during the Civil War era seemed to have such a chin. I tried concocting a composite from several existing portraits, but, in the end, I had to invent Clara out of whole cloth, sketching her out by hand. I gave her the requisite double chin, little girly ringlets, and an air of entitlement. Voila. Aunt Clara.
Here, at least, is an example of a model for her dress, expanded:




Our book takes place 150 years ago, but their language is spare and the images are modern,” says Adele Griffin. “While set in another time, we wanted to speak to our own.” Lisa Brown’s fanciful daguerreotype reconstructions accompany the spookily ethereal story, cunningly providing clues to the puzzle… through a bramble of lies, humiliations, yearnings and ghosts, readers are introduced to such historical riches as the lifestyle of Boston Brahmins, the wiles of spiritualist photography and the awful reality of Andersonville prison.




A ghost will find his way home.
Jennie Lovell's life is the very picture of love and loss. First she is orphaned and forced to live at the mercy of her stingy, indifferent relatives. Then her fiancé falls on the battlefield, leaving her heartbroken and alone. Jennie struggles to pick up the pieces of her shattered life, but is haunted by a mysterious figure that refuses to let her bury the past.
When Jennie forms an unlikely alliance with a spirit photographer, she begins to uncover secrets about the man she thought she loved. With her sanity on edge and her life in the balance, can Jennie expose the chilling truth before someone-or something-stops her?
Against the brutal, vivid backdrop of the American Civil War, Adele Griffin and Lisa Brown have created a spellbinding mystery where the living cannot always be trusted and death is not always the end.