Library Maniac's Book Reviews

On the front cover:  Innocence dies so easily. Evil lives again...and again...and again.

This supernatural thriller is about a little girl, Beth, who was murdered by her father, John Conger, a hundred years ago in Port Arbello, New Hampshire.  After the tragic incident, he threw himself over the embankment to the thrashing sea below. 

The Conger family had been prominent in the small town for centuries.  The present day Jack Conger, his wife Rose, and his two girls, Elizabeth and Sarah had fallen victim the Conger curse.  One day while playing in the field, Jack unconciously had followed Sarah into the woods and severely beat her.  She survived physically, but mentally she was gone.  She was unable to talk or show emotion at all.  Neither Jack or Sarah knew what had taken control of them that day. 

The spirit of the little girl, Beth, who had died so many years ago by her fathers hand, has taken control of Elizabeth's mind.  Leading her to lure children from the town to a cave at the embankment, where she kept them locked up and eventually killed them.  Elizabeth doesn't remember any of it.  But Sarah, in her mute world, knows.  And she, believed to be insane, is blamed for the dissappearances.  She is taken to an asylum to live out her days. 

Meanwhile, ten years after the murders, Jack Conger takes his wife for a boat ride, and neither of them ever return.  Elizabeth is left alone.  Soon, Sarah, who is still in the asylum, regains her voice and is allowed to visit home.  That is the day that the bodies are discovered in the cave.  Sarah is told that she would have to stand trial and is taken back to the asylum.  Sarah starts to remember.  She suddenly remembers following Elizabeth to the cave, she remembers the flash of the knife, she remembers her sister's face as Elizabeth slashes the  children over and over.  Then her mute face returns.  And Elizabeth, back home, remembers too....

I read this book in two days.  On the edge of my seat.  Chewing my nails.  I often find myself wondering, while reading a book, if it could be made into a movie.  This book could never bemade into a movie because it would be too much for the human mind to accept.  Reading about something horrendous, and actually seeing it are two different things.  Like the movie, Pet Cemetary, where the little boy gets hit by the Semi-truck.  I was alright with it reading it, but seeing it on the screen was just too much.  I couldn't watch the rest of the movie. 

This is the third book I have read by John Saul.  I find his style, how should I put it... shocking.  But luring.  I can't resist it. This book was a national best seller and sold more than a million copies.  It was published in 1977 by Dell Publishing. 

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The setting is 1860s Shenandoah, North Carolina at the Rosewood Cotton Plantation.  Sixteen year old Katie Burchard and her half black cousin Mayme, have been keeping a very serious secret.  Both of their families had been killed by marauders after the Civil War.  Katie and Mayme, along with former slave children, have been running Rosewood all by themselves.  Fooling everyone in town to think their families were still alive and well.  Soon, their charade is over when Katie's uncle showed up to find out for himself what was going on and eventually finds out the truth.  But when he tried to make a claim on the plantation and send Katie and her friends away, another uncle showed up with the original deed that had been signed over to him years before.  Apparantly, Katie's parents knew that other uncle would come and try to make a claim. 

This is a story of great human kindness, hatred, and racism.  A time when blacks were very recently freed from slavery, but not by any means free.  A story of determination and dedication to accomplish a sisterhood of love.  This book is part of a series titled:  The Shenandoah Sisters.  I have not read the previous books in the series but plan to soon. 

Michael Phillips is a Christian novelist who has written more than four dozen novels with sales over five million copies.  This book was published in 2004 by Bethany House Publishers.  I believe it was written for young adults but I enjoyed it very much. 

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Just after the Spanish Civil War, Barcelona is in shambles, and Daniel Sempere's mother has been dead so long he can't remember her face.  Daniel is ten years old when his father, the owner of the bookshop, takes him to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books to choose a novel from piles and stacks of books that have been brought there because they were, in essence, forgotten.  This tradition had been passed down for generations by the Sempere family.  Daniel chose a book, The Shadow of the Wind, by Julian Carax.  He is told that the book would be his to keep and protect forever and that he must never tell anyone about the Cemetery of Forgotten Books.  Little did Daniel know that the book he had chosen would alter his future forever.  Little did Daniel know, that the author of the book was involved in scandel and murder, love and tragedy.  His curiousity got the better of him when he decided to find out more about the life of Julian Carax.  And the life of Carax altered the lives of many for better and worse. 

This story is so complex that I cannot even begin to review it in it's entirety here.  Even if I tried, it would give away the ending because the truth doesn't take shape til then.  I can only say that Carlos Ruiz Zafon is a master at his art.  This tale is one that will be etched in my memory for a very long time.  One phrase in particular, gave me goosebumps:  ...so long as we are being remembered, we remain alive...     

Published in 2001 in Barcelona and translated to English and published in New York by The Penguin Press in 2004, The Shadow of the Wind spent more than a year on the Spanish bestseller list and is being published in more than twenty countries.  It has been acclaimed internationally. 

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Brad and Caroline Evans lived in a nice little cozy apartment on the East Side of Central Park in New York City which was a better neighborhood than the West Side with their two children 12 year old Laurie and 10 year old Ryan.  Brad had been telling Caroline lately that he felt like he was being watched and followed whenever he went out.  She thought he was just paranoid, until the night he went running late in Central Park.  He never came back.  He had been murdered, his neck snapped from behind. 

After Brad's death Caroline was skeptical of the park but when the kids insisted that they go and play with their friends, she relented, going with them.  Ryan ran to the baseball diamond and she and Laurie sat on a bench to watch.  Suddenly an old woman and a handsome young man sat down with them and started talking to them.  They seemed very nice.  She unwittingly told them all about herself and the next day the old woman showed up at the antique shop where Caroline worked.  She bought a large vase and asked Caroline to deliver it to her at her home which is the huge old spooky mansion called the Rockwell at the edge of the park not far from where Caroline lived with her children.   When she arrived and entered the building she was greeted by the doorman, who seemed like the butler in the haunted mansion at Disney World.  He spoke in monotones.  Suddenly the handsome man was there introducing himself as Anthony Fleming and told her that the old woman was up to her old tricks, trying to find him a wife.  He made her promise to have dinner with him and they decided to play along with the old woman's game.

That was the beginning of the whole nightmare.  Caroline and Anthony married a few months later and she and her children moved into the Rockwell.  Ryan didn't like it from the start recalling ghost and witch stories he had heard from his schoolmates.  They had told him that Rodney, the doorman, was a troll who lived under the bridge in the park.  He also didn't like Anthony Fleming or any of the other tenants in the Rockwell. 

Soon after moving in, both of the children start hearing noises and voices in the night.  Then people were coming into their rooms at night, particularly Laurie's room and hovering over her, poking her, whispering.  The people in her room were the neighbors, even a creepy doctor who lived in the building, started appearing in her room, crooning over her, touching her.  All three of them, Caroline, Laurie and Ryan, were being drugged through the food the neighbors so generously brought them.  But they didn't realize it at the time.  They shrugged it off as fatigue and nightmares. 

Laurie began being strapped to a gurney and taken out of her room every night at midnight, she was inserted with needles and tubes in every part of her body.  These people, the people that lived in the Rockwell, where hooked to the other ends of the tubes and needles, draining her youth out of her body and into theirs.  Then, one day all the old ladies where missing.  In their places where young ladies, who coincidently looked exactly like the older ladies.  Caroline was also being heavily sedated so that all this could take place without her intervening.  She eventually was taken to some creepy old hospital where she would be out of the way, and locked up there.  But Ryan had sensed something wrong about the neighbors from the start.  Locked in his room, he found a hidden door in his closet and found his way out of the house.  He went and found his mother and freed her, then the two went back to the Rockwell and saved Laurie, whose was close to death. 

While I was reading this book one day, in the middle of the afternoon, mind you, my son knocked on my bedroom door, and I just about jumped out of my skin.  I also chewed my nails, which I haven't done in a long time.  Very scary.  An action packed page turner.  It was published in 2002 by Ballantine Books.

Also see ----->Black Creek Crossing  by the same author. 

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by James S. Hirsch

This is a novel of a friendship that became legendary between to fighter pilots in a Northern Vietnamese POW camp- which the inmates called the Zoo.  One prisoner, Fred Cherry, is one of the first black air force fighter pilot officers and the first black officer captured by the Vietnamese.  The other, Porter Halyburton, is a Navy pilot from the south, who at first couldn't believe that the black man could be a fighter pilot.  The Vietnamese put them in the same cell, believing that the racial barrier would torture the two. 

When Halyburton first saw Cherry, he was badly injured.  One arm which was damaged in the plane crash, hung limp from his shoulder socket, he needed badly to bathe, and he could hardly walk.  Cherry was sure he would soon die.  Halyburton was also in bad emotional shape due to the daily interrogations and torture sessions, as well as being isolated from anyone for months.  He was taken to Cherry's cell, and told to "take care of him".  Both men had their doubts about each other.  One believing that other was a typical southern racist and the other not believing that his cell mate could possibly be a superior officer.  Halyburton began taking care of Cherry and helped him to bath, walked him around the cell to try and bring him "back to life", demanded that the guards give him medical attention, and often sacrificed his own meek rations so Cherry might gain weight. 

Meanwhile, on the home front, Cherry's wife had moved on with another man, had a new baby, and told Cherry's children that he was dead even though she knew he was alive.  Also, she squandered away almost all of his pay from the air force, $122,098.13 of the $147,184.00 that he had earned. 

Halyburton's wife and child remained faithful although he was thought dead and even had a memorial service in his absence.  After six years, she finds out he is alive and we share her mixed emotions, happiness and fear for husband.  She also plays a huge role in the American battle to bring the POWs home. 

In the end the two men tearfully admit that they had saved each other's lives.

Just a really really awesome, well researched book.  Hats off to James S. Hirsch for this story.  He has shown us how racial diversity can be overcome by sheer human kindness.  The book was published in 2004 by the HoughtonMifflin Company.

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Black Creek Crossing by John Saul

Thirteen-year-old Angel Sullivan has always been shunned by other kids, teased and taunted because of her appearance and strange ways.  Then Angel's family moves to Roundtree, Massachusetts.  They are told from the beginning that all kinds of wierd things have happened in the little old house on Black Creek Road, but the lure of a new start for Angel's family beckons and they make the move anyway.  But when Angel is shunned even by her new classmates, she falls deeper into depression.  Until she meets Seth Baker, a fellow outcast.  The two become fast friends, but are constantly harrassed by the other kids as well as their own parents.  The two begin to  research the house and discover that a man had murdered his wife and daughter there.  And every other family who moved into the house hear voices, see visions, and many murders had taken place.  Angel and Seth are led to the basement of the house by a mysterious black cat where they find a very old book of witchcraft and begin to make potions against their enemies.  But once they had begun, there was no turning back.  The spirits of Black Creek Crossing had a hold on them.  And the day of reckoning comes. 

John Saul is the author of the national bestseller Midnight Voices, which I will definitely have to read after having read Black Creek Crossing.  This book was a fast paced page turner and actually gave me a nightmare on the first night that I was reading it!  My nightmare was totally unrelated but I'm positive that it was stemmed from the book.  It has all the classic haunts such as the black cat, the old cemetery with the mysterious big oak tree, witchcraft, and ghosts.  The book was published in 2004 and is a Ballantine Book by the Random House Publishing Group.  Go get it right away, you won't be sorry!

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Having just finished off Maid Marian by Elsa Watson, a novel of Sherwood Forest with all the old beloved characters such as Robin Hood, Little John, Friar Tuck, Will Scarlett, Clym O' the wood, Queen Eleanor of Aquitane, King Richard the Lionheart, and the Sheriff of Nottingham, I have a To Be Read pile in the works that I think are appropriate for the new season:   

The Haunted Abbot by Peter Tremayne   -    a tale of Ancient Ireland                   

Black Creek Crossing by John Saul         -     Supernatural Suspense    

Blood Kin by Henry Chapell              -     A haunting novel of early Texas

I'm excited about these autumn reads and will review each book soon!  Often, I get on theme kicks with my reading and lately it has been 18th and 19th centuries, such as westerns(Larry McMurtry is one of my favorites), early English History(The Dress Lodger), Civil War era(Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier), as well as American Indian novels.  But since the new season has arrived, I have more drawn to the supernatural and the new bestsellers.  Happy Reading.

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Maid Marian by Elsa Watson

As an infant, Marian is orphaned and heiress to great lands and fortunes.  She is married off at the age of five to a young nobleman, Lord Hugh of Sencaster.  The marriage joins her inheritance to his and vastly enriches his family.  When she is seventeen, Lord Hugh, whom she hasn't seen in years, mysteriously dies.  Now an unmarried widow, she becomes a ward of the King, who is off on crusade and cannot be bothered with such matters at home.  The Queen, Eleanor of Aquitane, takes it upon herself to marry Marian off, therefore the new husband would pledge his loyalty and silver to King Richard.  Marian knows she is irrelevant in the decision and is determined to stop this marriage.  She seeks out the help of the famous Robin Hood, Saxon outlaw of Sherwood Forest.  Of course, the outlaw, turns out to be not a bad person, but likeable, noble, and handsome.  She devises a plan for Robin and his merry men to intercept a letter from the Queen, which tells Lord Hugh's mother, Lady Pernelle, that Marian is to marry Hugh's younger brother Stephen.  Once married, her land becomes theirs and she could be easily disposed of.  Just before the wedding, during her pre-wedding confessional, Robin dressed as a priest, whisks her out of the castle lands and back to Sherwood Forest, where she begins an outlaw life and the two fall deeply in love.  Queen Eleanor believes Marian to be dead and Robin Hood and his outlaws help her regain her fortune and expose the treachery of her enemies. 

I have read many versions of Robin Hood and Lady Marian, and I found this particular version to be as good if not better than the others. I love to read of the middle ages and cultures of peoples of those times.  This book was published by Crown Publishers in New York and copyrighted in 2004.   I've written a review of other versions of Maid Marian in my archives.  See---->Lady of the Forest and its sequel Lady of Sherwood. 

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The Long Journey Home by Don Coldsmith

John Buffalo, a Lakota Sioux, is taken from his family and his home as a young boy and forced into the hostile world of the white man.  His is first sent to a school for Indian boys where he learns the customs and ways of whites.  It is at this school where it is soon discovered that John has an extraordinary talent in sports.  He is then sponsored by a famous Senator to go to a college in Pennsylvania to study and participate in sports there, particulary football and track and field, to possibly be in the Olympics.  He then falls in love with the Senators white daughter and upon discovery of the love affair, the Senator sends him back West to a lesser school and the daughter is sent to Europe to dissaude the couple.  After the two are broken apart, he is heartbroken and throws himself into his studies and sports, as well as his love of horses.  John decides to pursue a career of coaching but because of the prejudice of the times, is unable to find a job in that field.  He then goes to work for a German farmer breaking horses and has a real talent in that and is soon asked to go to work for The Miller Brothers 101 Ranch Circus as a horse trainer.  It is during this time that he meets a young cowgirl whom he instantly falls in love with, but knowing that the union of the two would be frowned upon, they must hide their love and never marry.  While touring with 101 Show, an old coach from the University hunts him down and asks him to go to the Olympics in Stockholm in 1912 as an assistant coach.  He would be working with the famous Jim Thorpe.  After his stint at the Olympics, John decides to go back to the 101 to see his girl, only to find her gone.  Heartbroken again, John continues his work with the Wild West Show as a cowboy or an Indian, or a horse trainer, whatever is needed.  Eventually the 101 gang is broken up and John moves on to work at various ranches and playing poker in small town saloons.  This is when World War I breaks out, and John joins the cavalry as an Indian Volunteer.  At the end of the war, John discovers that his cowgirl love has died and has had a son by him, who also died in New Mexico of tuberculosis.  Finally, John can take no more of the white mans ways and "bad medicine" and travels West to the Indian Reservation where he was originally from. 

You'll have to read the book tofind out what happens in the end, but I absolutely loved it and I really learned a lot.  The book was published by Tom Doherty Associates in New York in the year of 2001.  Check it out!

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The Dress Lodger by Sheri Holman

The setting is 19th Century Sunderland England.  A young girl is destitute and without a decent family.  By day, a potter's assistant, hauling mud and clay to the potters wheel.  By night, a dress lodger, or a prositute, owned by a man with a fancy dress.  Watched by an old woman, "The Eye",  who dresses her nightly in the "blue dress", and follows her around the foggy streets to be sure she is earning her rent.  At home in a filthy lodge, her only relative, her tiny bastard baby who was born with his heart on the outside of his body, is being tended to by a small girl who can barely take care of herself.  On one of her nightly rounds, she meets Dr. Henry Chiver, who steels bodies from the streets to perform and teach his students of the human anatomy.  Once the Doctor learns of her deformed child, he decides that his days of body thieving are over, obsessed by the wonders of this child with the blue heart.  He must have it, he must study it, and decides to take the child from her.  But before he gets the child in his clutches, the baby dies of the cholera morbus.  A deadly disease that has been ravaging the continents and killing mostly the poor.  He steals the body of the child from the graveyard, takes the childs heart, and buries the rest of the body in his backyard.  The dress lodger knows because she has been to the graveyard daily to mourn her child.  Immediately upon discovering the missing body, she goes to the doctors study to accuse him and retrieve her child.  But the townspeople have figured him out also.  They know that he has taken their loved ones bodies also.  They come in a mob to exact revenge.  Bodies of people, old and young alike are retrieved from the doctors soil.  This is a time when people would not let their bodies be studied.  Doctors had no other way to discover cures and learn of the diseases.  They had to resort to murder and thievery.  "Grave: A place where the dead are laid to await the coming of the medical student."-Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

I found this book intriguing in a Dickenson sort of way.  We learn of the culture of the people of England during a time of death, we learn of medical history and we see how we have come a long way in studying disease and finding cures, and we learn of those who were sacrificed so thatmedicine might advance.  This book was published by the Atlantic Monthly Press in New York and was copyrighted in 2000.

Also, I find it interesting that the story seems to be told by the ghost of a lodger who lives in the same house as the dress lodger and has died from the cholera. 

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