I wrote at the beginning of the month that I hadn’t read many haunting books this year, but I seem to have been able to find several to review. This last “haunting books” post for this year covers two psychological thrillers—the brand new The Witch Elm, by Tana French, and […]
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Haunting Books: Three Historical Novels About the West
Each October I’ve devoted one or more posts to the “haunting books” I’ve read during the past year—books that stay with me long after I’ve read them. This year, I’ve been diligent about keeping a list, so I have more than enough books to discuss. In this post, I’ve decided […]
Continue readingHaunting Book: The Summer Before the War, by Helen Simonson
My last review of a haunting book for 2016 is of The Summer Before the War, by Helen Simonson. Ms. Simonson is the author of one of my favorite books of the last decade, Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, published in 2010. Her second novel, The Summer Before the War, is good, […]
Continue readingHaunting Book: The Lake House, by Kate Morton
The Lake House was another book I read this past year that played with my sense of time and intrigued me from both a writer’s and a reader’s perspective. The story in this novel takes place in three different time periods—in 2003 London detective Sadie Sparrow investigates a cold case […]
Continue readingHaunting Book: Lilac Girls, by Martha Hall Kelly
It’s hard not to be haunted by any book about the Nazi death camps. Lilac Girls, by Martha Hall Kelly, tells the story of World War II from the perspective of three women—Kasia Kusmerick, a Polish teenager who becomes a political prisoner in Ravensbrück because she helps the Polish resistance, […]
Continue readingHaunting Book: A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, by Anthony Marra
I had another novel in mind for my last haunting book review this month, but then I read A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, by Anthony Marra, and it immediately became the most haunting book I’ve read this year. A Constellation of Vital Phenomena is the story of the impact of […]
Continue readingHaunting Books: The Cuckoo’s Calling and The Silkworm, by Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling)
I’ve mentioned before that I wasn’t fond of the Harry Potter books. But I read all seven of them, if only so I could talk to my nieces and improve my crossword puzzle performance. Despite my indifference toward the Harry Potter books, when all the hoopla arose around J.K. Rowling […]
Continue readingHaunting Book: In the Woods, by Tana French
I like well-written murder mysteries and police procedurals, and In the Woods, by Irish author Tana French qualifies. A writer friend of mine told me about Tana French. I have now read her first three books, and her fourth is on my shelf waiting. In the Woods was the first […]
Continue readingHaunting Book: Life After Life, by Kate Atkinson
This week’s haunting book is a novel about a privileged Englishwoman, Ursula Todd, born in 1910. She is born over and over throughout the novel, living a series of lives, each life slightly different from the one before. Life after life poor Ursula lives, some lives happy, others not. This […]
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