Author Archives: Christie

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About Christie

Book lover. Tea Drinker. Teacher. Writer. Mother. Canadian.

The Spirit Bares Its Teeth – Andrew Joseph White

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Andrew Joseph White (Hell Followed With Us) has written another amazing YA novel that feels especially timely given what is currently happening in the USA.

Sixteen-year-old Silas Bell, the protagonist in The Spirit Bares Its Teeth, wants to escape his future. In this version of 1883 London, the Speakers take what they want and what they want is to be married to violet-eyed girls. Except Silas isn’t a girl. That’s just biology. What he wants is to find a way to trick the system into giving him a spirit-work seal and then he hopes to slink off, and find a way to study medicine and become a doctor like his older brother, George.

But it all goes horribly wrong, and Silas is taken to Braxton’s Finishing School and Sanitorium, where the Headmaster and his wife turn young girls with “veil sickness” into women men will want to marry. Think conversion therapy, with ghosts. Because Braxton is haunted and as girls born with violet eyes have the ability to reach through the veil, it isn’t long before Silas realizes that something really horrible has been happening at the school.

Silas doesn’t have anyone to trust at Braxton’s, until she gets to know Edward Luckenbill, the young man to whom she is engaged. Is it just possible that Edward is not like the other men Silas has encountered?

You really only come to understand yourself by comparing other’s stories to yours; you find where things are the same, and where they’re not. … Its difficult when the story isn’t one the world wants to hear.

Silas is determined to find out what happened to some of the students that have gone missing, but it isn’t going to be easy and it’s definitely going to get bloody.

White has a remarkable imagination, but this book feels especially timely given the way the rights of marginalized people are being eroded. As Silas seeks to learn the truth about Braxton, he also comes into his own power and it is impossible not to root for him. If you haven’t yet discovered this author, I can highly recommend. You won’t read anything else like it.

The Names – Florence Knapp

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Cora has never liked the name Gordon. The way it starts with a splintering sound that makes her think of cracked boiled sweets, and then ends with a thud like someone slamming down a sports bag. Gordon. Bu what disturbs her more is that she must now pour the goodness of her son into its mold, hoping he’ll be strong enough to find his own shape within it.

This is Cora’s dilemma after the birth of her second child. She doesn’t want to name the baby after his father, a prominent, beloved doctor who is also a physically and mentally abusive husband. So, on the day that Cora and her daughter Maia, 9, walk to the registry office to officially register the baby’s name, they imagine other names instead of Gordon. Maia is fond of Bear because “It sounds all soft and cuddling and kind.” Cora is partial to Julian, which means “sky father.”

Florence Knapp’s novel The Names imagines the lives of these characters if the baby had been named Bear, Julian or Gordon – skipping forward at seven year intervals for thirty-five years. Who dos this little boy become and how does his name affect the people in his life?

I loved everything about this book, honestly. Although the author has written books previously, The Names is her debut novel and it’s a corker. I loved the glimpses into Bear/Julian/Gordon’s life, loved seeing what things were similar in each iteration an what things were vastly different.

But the novel is not just concerned with his life. We are also privy to Cora’s story, her early courtship with Gordon, her upbringing in Ireland, and what becomes of her in each of these scenarios. Maia, too, gets her story.

What’s in a name? Turns out, quite a lot. Highly recommended.

Save Me – Mona Kasten

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Not gonna lie, the only reason I read Mona Kasten’s novel Save Me (Maxton Hall #1) was because of this

I watched the series on Prime when it first came out and despite the fact that it’s dubbed (from German) it is a swoon worthy masterpiece of teen angst. Damian Hardung (James Beaufort) says more with his eyes than practically any actor I have ever watched.

At the time the first season of the the series came out, the book was not yet available in English. It finally came out this summer and I just finished reading it.

Ruby Bell (played by Harriet Herbig-Matten, also a terrific actor) is a scholarship student at the prestigious private school Maxton Hall. Her dream is to attend Oxford (the story is set in England), and she is smart enough and driven enough to make this happen. She has spent the last two years keeping her head down; she doesn’t really have much in common with most of the uber rich students that attend Maxton Hall anyway.

James Beaufort and his twin sister, Lydia, are part of the upper upper crust. James is heir to the Beaufort company, which makes exclusive menswear and is worth billions. He’s a really good looking jerk. One day, Ruby sees something she wasn’t meant to see and James tries to bribe her to stay quiet. Thus begins their enemies to lovers journey.

I loved every single second of the series. I enjoyed how buttoned down Ruby was – she colour codes her life and is so determined to achieve her dreams. She is principled and kind. James is, on the surface at least, an egotistical jackass who doesn’t have to work hard for anything because of his parents’ money. But there is much more to him than meets the eye, which is why ultimately you root for these two to get together.

The book, sadly, doesn’t add anything to the series. It was nice to picture the characters as they are portrayed on the screen, but I found the book sort of lackluster, tbh. Ruby comes across as sort of ditzy and none of James’s inner turmoil is developed in a meaningful way. The series does a great job of portraying Ruby’s relationship with her family, and that was missing from the book. Some of my favourite scenes in the series are missing from the book.

I didn’t have as many problems with the fact that this is a translation. I often find dialogue stilted, but since this was translated by a British translator, that helped. But where I found so many conversations in the series impossibly angsty and romantic – the book was devoid of this. The one sex scene was kind of insert a into b, whereas on screen it was all the things.

Season 2 comes out on Prime November 7. The second book in the series is out now in English, but I doubt I will be reading it.

Broken – Daniel Clay

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It’s hard to ignore the similarities between Daniel Clay’s 2008 debut, Broken, and Harper Lee’s 1961 Pulitzer winner To Kill a Mockingbird. For example, in Clay’s novel, the residents of a small suburb in the south of England, Hedge End, are people like single-father solicitor, Archie, and his children, Jed and Skunk (aka Atticus Finch and his children, Jem and Scout). Across the square lives single dad Bob Oswald (Bob Ewell), an unemployed thug whose council house backs onto a dump. Rick Buckley (Boo Radley), a shy awkward 19-year-old disappears into his house one day and is never seen again. Then there’s Dillon (Dill), a gypsy, who briefly enters Skunk’s life.

In the notes at the back of Broken Clay says “I don’t think my characters and plot resemble To Kill a Mockingbird [but] I really can’t stress enough that I would never have sat down to write Broken had I not read To Kill a Mockingbird.”

I am not sure I totally agree with Clay’s assertion that his plot and characters don’t resemble Lee’s. It was pretty obvious to me even before I read the notes at the back of the book. Even the structure is similar; the book begins with something horrible having happened to one of the characters and then circles back around to that event, filling in all the details. But plot structure and character similarities aside, Broken more than holds its own.

Skunk and Jed have an okay life with their father. Skunk is a keen observer of the people around her. She watches on the day that 19-year-old gets beaten by Bob Oswald because one of Bob’s daughters told him that Rick had raped her. Rick is never quite right after that and earns the nickname “Broken.” Of course, he is not the only broken character in the book. The Oswalds are broken, too. The other children in the neigbourhood live in fear of the older Oswald girls who steal lunch money and threaten physical violence if their victims don’t comply. Skunk’s teacher, the handsome Mr. Jeffries, is Skunk’s live-in babysitter Cerys’s former boyfriend. Skunk is pretty sure he’s the smartest person on the planet and if nothing else, he makes learning interesting. Then he runs afoul of Bob Oswald, too.

Broken is really about how all these characters’ lives intersect in ways that are often humourous, but also devastating. The writing is fresh and evocative. It is hard not to fall in love with some of them and easy to loathe others. While I wasn’t a huge fan of the ending, I really enjoyed my time in Hedge End.

Count My Lies – Sophie Stava

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Time is running out on my summer break; I head back to my classroom on August 25. So it’s back-to-back thrillers for me.

Sloane Caraway is a compulsive liar. Always has been from the time she was a kid and when her life (single mom, constant moves) didn’t suit her, she just made up a better version for herself. Now she’s in her early 30s living in a two bedroom apartment with her mom in Brooklyn, working as a nail technician. One day in the park, she rushes to the aid of a father whose daughter has been stung by a bee. She starts by telling the father, Jay Lockhart, that she’s a nurse. Then, she adeptly handles the crisis, earning the father’s gratitude. When he asks her name, she lies about that, too.

The first part of Sophie Stava’s debut, Count My Lies, follows Sloane as she finds herself pulled into the Lockhart’s orbit. Jay’s wife, Violet, is perfect and Sloane finds herself wanting to be like her. Their daughter, Harper, it turns out, is in need of a nanny and suddenly Sloane finds herself with a new job and, she hopes, a new friend.

But, of course, things are not as they seem. Sloane outs herself as unreliable from the get go, but about half way through, the book switches perspectives and we find ourselves seeing things from Violet’s point of view. It turns out, Violet is lying, too.

Count My Lies isn’t exactly original, but let’s face it — with so many domestic thrillers on the market these days, you’d be hard pressed to find one that doesn’t remind you of something else. I don’t think my issues with this book have anything to do with the plot, I mostly just didn’t care about the characters. I think we’re supposed to like Sloane and Violet, but I didn’t really understand what motivated either of them. Well, we’re told why Violet makes the choices she does, but none of it felt real. By the time we get to her part in the story, the narrative feels more like plot points being clicked together like Lego pieces.

As for Jay, he gets his own section of the book too, but generally he is a non-entity – just a dude who is “handsome in an obvious, teenage heartthrob sort of way.”

Look – if you don’t read a ton of thrillers, you would probably have a good time with this book. It was just okay for me.

Don’t Let Him In – Lisa Jewell

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Pretty much any book by British author Lisa Jewell is a guaranteed slump buster. While I haven’t always loved every book I’ve read (and I’ve read several: None of This is True, The Family Remains, The Night She Disappeared, Invisible Girl, The Family Upstairs, Watching You, I Found You, The Girls in the Garden), every single one of them has been an entertaining, fast-paced read. Jewell’s latest novel, Don’t Let Him In, is no exception.

Ash Swann’s life has taken a bit of a turn. Her father has recently died, she’s had a bit of trouble at work, and she’s moved back home to recover from both of these traumatic events. That’s when Nick Radcliffe enters her life– well, her mother’s life. He reaches out to the Swanns after her father’s death and before you can say “to good to be true” he has insinuated himself into their lives.

Martha and her husband Alistair live a quiet life with their three children. Martha has a thriving florist business, and Al has a busy job in the hospitality industry where “Sometimes he’s home all the time, other times they call him in at the last minute and he’s away for days.” Martha forgives him time and again because she never imagined that as a forty-four-year-old divorcee she’d meet someone like Al.

There’s a third voice in the book, this one belonging to a male character and set four years in the past. He’s very forthcoming about his marriage to an older woman, Tara, whose adult children disapproved of the union. Tara’s daughter, Emma,

doesn’t like me at all. Neither of Tara’s children does. I don’t care too much about that. I can’t say I particularly like them either. I don’t need to like them, and they don’t need to like me. The most important thing, the key to everything, is that my wife trusts me. And she does. Implicitly.

Careful readers will have no trouble figuring out how these three separate narratives and timelines connect. The fun in this story is really in watching women band together – spearheaded by Ash – to out a snake in the grass. Does it strain credulity? Yes. Did that matter? No. Don’t Let Him In is a fun time and I gobbled it up in just a couple sittings.

The Outside of August – Joanna Hershon

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Plucked from my TBR shelf, Joanna Hershon’s 2003 novel The Outside of August concerns siblings Alice and August and their fraught relationship with their seemingly free-spirited mother, Charlotte. The story starts when Alice is a kid, Gus a couple years older. Alice spends all her time waiting for her mother to come home, or if she is home, to acknowledge her in any way.

Alice was ten years old and she still couldn’t figure out what her mother did with her days. Charlotte hadn’t gone anywhere since mid-January, when she’d left for a month while the children were at school, having said good-bye only in passing, as they were headed out the door.

The novel propels us through the siblings’ adolescence until an event separates them, only bringing them back together many years later before separating them again. Alice feels that Gus knows something that he isn’t telling her, and after a late-night call from his wife, Cady, Alice hops a plane and heads to Mexico where Gus is squatting and surfing.

Sadly, I do not have unlimited shelf space, so when I finish a book I have to make the decision of where to house it. Will it go on my finished shelf or will I give it away? It used to be that I gave nothing away – even the books I didn’t really like. Even books that don’t really float my boat have something to offer, and if I actually finish it then that’s something, right? I am way better at DNFing now than I used to be. That might have something to do with the mountain of books in my physical tbr pile.

I didn’t actively dislike The Outside of August. I thought a lot of the writing was really lovely, but I also thought that the story was slow and meandering and when Alice arrived in Mexico the narrative felt disjointed and feverish – although maybe that was the point. The “secret” Alice felt August was keeping from her was revealed via a letter from their mother and it felt a little bit like a cheat – also unexamined, really, by either sibling. I know, life sometimes happens that way, but I didn’t feel emotionally satisfied when I finally finished my time with these characters.

This one will go in the donate pile.

The House of Ashes – Stuart Neville

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When Sara and her husband Damien move into their new house in Northern Ireland, she almost immediately begins to feel uneasy. For one thing, there’s a stain on the flagstone in the kitchen that no amount of scrubbing seems to remedy. For another, a strange woman shows up one morning and yells at Sara to get out of her house. As if this weren’t disconcerting enough, Damien is clearly controlling and emotionally abusive and it’s clear that he’s gaslighting Sara.

Stuart Neville’s novel The House of Ashes unspools the story of the horrific history of “The Ashes” (as the house is called) in several different voices. There’s Sara’s, of course, but there are other voices too, including Mary, a little girl who lived at the house sixty years ago, and Esther, another girl who comes to The Ashes. It is clear early on that The Ashes is not a happy place. Mary says

I always lived in the house. I never knew any different. Underneath, in the room down the stairs. In the dark. That’s what I remember most, when we were telt to put the lamps out. They locked the door at the top of the stairs and that was that. Dark until they opened it again. I still don’t like the dark.

Neville’s book is about abuse. Sara’s husband is abusive – the kind of domestic abuse that might be familiar to modern day audiences, abuse that is couched as a love so deep the person just can’t help themselves. The abuse at The Ashes in Mary’s story is something completely different. Mary and Mummy Joy and Mummy Noreen are at the mercy of the Daddies: Ivan, Tam, and George. Although many of the details are spared, your imagination will have no trouble filling in the blanks.

As Sara digs deeper into the dark secrets of The Ashes, she also finds her own voice, and it all makes for a compelling read.

This Book Will Bury Me – Ashley Winstead

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On the plus side, Ashley Winstead’s latest novel This Book will Bury Me is a page turner. On the negative side, the book doesn’t hang together and I didn’t finish it feeling satisfied. This is the fourth book I have read by this author. I had similar feelings about her debut, In My Dreams I Hold a Knife, and then I really liked The Last Housewife and Midnight is the Darkest Hour.

Janeway Sharp, a college student, receives horrible news: her father has died. She returns home to be with her mother and try to process this unexpected and devastating loss. She doesn’t quite know how to manage her grief and then one night she stumbles upon an online group of armchair true crime detectives and gets sucked down the rabbit hole.

Soon she is helping a small group of people (Mistress, Citizen, Lightly, and Goku) solve a murder, an activity that provides both satisfaction and distraction. Jane earns the title of “savant” because she can apparently see things/details that others miss. That’s lucky for her, I guess.

When a terrible crime takes place in Idaho, the group immediately jumps on it, eventually deciding to meet up there so they can be boots on the ground. Lightly, a former cop, has a connection in the FBI and suddenly they find themselves special consultants. If Idaho seems like a very specific place for a murder, that’s because this case is essentially the Idaho college murders which took the lives of four students and for which Bryan Kohberger was recently sentenced to life without parole.

Suddenly Jane finds herself sharing a house with people she had only known online and they become a family of sorts — just a family with a shared true crime obsession. They follow the clues, turn over rocks, and insinuate themselves into the lives of people connected to the case. All of this is ethically grey, of course, but Jane isn’t so naive as to not realize it is. Still, she’s determined to find out what happened.

The book is not without its controversy because of its similarity to the Idaho murders. All of this makes for a quick narrative and I didn’t really have a problem with it. My issues had more to do with the subplot of Jane’s father. Jane decides to do some digging, to find out about the person she felt the closest to, but whom she doesn’t feel she knows anything about. There were some things about her father that were revealed that didn’t really go anywhere and felt more like a distraction than a meaningful part of the novel’s narrative.

I also questioned some of the things that happened at the end of the book, as the narrative wrapped up. It seemed sort of implausible to me and left me feeling sort of meh about the whole thing when all was said and done.

Still, for anyone who has ever found a community online, or true crime junkies – you’d probably enjoy this book.

I Have Some Questions For You – Rebecca Makkai

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It took me forever to read Rebecca Makkai’s novel I Have Some Questions For You, but that does not speak to the book’s subject matter or quality – both of which are terrific, and should have been right up my alley.

Bodie Kane, a film professor and podcaster, is offered the opportunity to teach a mini-semester (two weeks) on podcasting at Granby School, the private New England high school she spent four not altogether happy years of her life. Her feelings about Granby are further complicated by her memories of Thalia Keith, her roommate who was murdered during their senior year. Omar Evans, the school’s athletic trainer, is currently serving life in prison for the crime, despite maintaining his innocence. Bodie is somewhat reluctant to return but, she “wanted to see if I could do it–if, despite my nerves, my almost adolescent panic, I was ready to measure myself against the girl who’d slouched her way through Granby.”

One of the students in her class wants to re-examine the crime, and Bodie finds herself sucked back into the past. As her student, Britt, takes another look at the scant evidence used to convict Omar, Bodie begins to consider the crime and the people involved from the distance of the 23 years which have passed since she graduated.

I Have Some Questions for You is not a thriller in the commercial sense of the word. It is written in the first person, almost like a letter to one of Bodie’s former teachers, a person she becomes increasing suspicious of as time goes on. It’s slow moving, especially in part one. There are also other things going on in Bodie’s life, an ex-husband who is accused of inappropriate sexual advances and the Twitter fallout which wraps its ugly arms around Bodie, Covid, and a stalled relationship with a handsome lawyer. The second half definitely picks up.

I think I found it slow going just because of the way I read it–a pause in the middle while I visited my kids–and so it’s definitely not a question of the book’s pedigree. I finished feeling wholly satisfied. It’s a compelling, well-written mystery with lots to say about our fascination with true crime, the fetishization of victims and how, sometimes, justice just isn’t served.