Category Archives: Books

Louise Doughty: Whatever You Love (2010)

Posted in Books, Novel, Psychological Thriller by

Two police officers knock on Laura’s door and her life changes forever. They tell her that her nine-year old daughter Betty has been hit by a car and killed. When justice is slow to arrive, Laura decides to take her own revenge. 

Whatever You Love is a book of raw emotions. And that from the first moment on when we read about the police knocking on Laura’s door to inform her that her daughter Betty has been killed. Laura is a very emotional woman, she feels everything that happens to her intensely, her reactions are very physical. There are many elements in the book that made me feel uneasy.

The loss of her daughter hits Laura like a cutting knife. The pain is sharp and unbearable. And she is all alone to deal with this as her husband has left her for another woman. After Laura has seen the body of her dead little girl, we go back in time with her to the days when she first met David, Betty’s father.

The early days of their relationship are very passionate, very sexual. David is a strange man, withholding feelings and caring at the same time and also with a love for dangerous behavior like on the day when he holds Laura over a cliff. He might have slipped at any moment or let her fall. Laura is shocked and fascinated at the same time, revolted and attracted.

While  she is pregnant with their second child, David meets Chloe. At the time when Betty is killed, he is married to Chloe and they have a baby boy. The end of David’s and Laura’s marriage is ugly. There are fights and jealous outbreaks by both women. Laura gets anonymous phone calls and letters. She never tells David but she is sure they are from Chloe. Once she threatens Chloe and it stops but when Betty is killed, it starts again.

Struggling to overcome her grief, Laura relives the loss of her husband and when she finally hears that the man who killed her daughter in a hit-and run has been let go by the police, she freaks out and decides to take revenge.

From that moment on I thought I knew what was going to happen but I was quite wrong. Things turned out very different from what I expected.

I read this at super speed. I was very captivated. It is well written and has a nice pace that drags you along. There is a lot to identify with even if you have no children. It makes you think about relationships, the end of infatuation, adultery, family, raw and contradictory feelings and emotions like guilt, loss, jealousy and passion. What I liked best about the novel is the fact that there are no easy answers and the characters are complex with some very contradictory traits.

On Cinderella Ate my Daughter – A French Mother’s Perspective

Posted in Books, Non-fiction by

Last month I read Peggy Orenstein’s book Cinderalla Ate my Daughter (here is the review) and I liked it a lot. It left me with many questions as I have no children and most of my friends either have none or they are too small or simply not girls. The only mother of a girl the age of Orenstein’s daughter I could think of was Emma (Book Around the Corner). We decided to do a double post. While she will post her review of the book on her blog, I post her answers to my questions on mine.

My hunch was that although a very accurate portrayal of some topics, Orenstein also depicted many purely American things. I also wanted to know from a mother how she dealt with all the traps and pitfalls that you encounter when raising kids in our society. I enjoyed reading her answers a lot and hope you will be interested as well.

Foreword about Emma

I was born in the 1970s and raised by a feminist mother who loves clothes and by a progressive father who always shared domestic tasks with his wife. So some things seem obvious to me. I have a daughter and a son who will be ten and seven-and-a-half year old in September. I have many friends and colleagues with children around that age. When I say “I” in the answers, I could have said “We” as my husband and I have very few disagreements on education. I also want to add that I haven’t read any parenting book since the ones for babies focusing on pampering, healing red bottoms, handling tooth aches and high fevers. Our only guide-book is our shared values, our common sense and what we think is important for the development of our children. For the rest, we do our best and we know we’ll make mistakes.

Are the Disney Princesses really as important in France as they seem to be in the US?

Yes and no.

Yes they are as important as far as marketing is concerned. You have glasses, notebooks, T-Shirts, towels, etc, all kind of objects with the Disney Princesses printed on them. But for me they are among other “brands” like Nemo, Lightening Queen, Winx Club and Totally Spies.

No they aren’t, as I never witnessed that girls identified with those princesses the way Orenstein describes. There’s one reason for that I think. When I read Orenstein’s book, I noticed that at several occasions she casually mentions that little girls go to school, to a show or to the mall in Disney Princess dresses. I was really shocked. In France, everybody will look at you if your daughter wears such a dress outside when it’s not Carnival. You can’t bring your child to school dressed as a princess or a pirate. Those dresses aren’t regular outfits. They are costumes. I’m not a psychologist but it seems to me it makes the difference between thinking you’re a princess and playing at being a princess. You don’t wear those dresses in your “real” life. The children understand the nuance very well.

Did your daughter go through a phase like this? How did you handle it?

Yes my daughter had a princess phase and she absolutely loved her high heels plastic shoes. I suspect that was because they made noise when she walked just like my high heel shoes do. For me it was more doing like Mom does than imitating a Disney Princess. And I thought it was natural for a girl to identify with her mother. After all, my son sometimes looks at his legs trying to detect if hair is growing so that he can have hairy legs like Dad.

She also had several princess dresses (according to her size) but she never thought she was a princess. It was clearly a game. So we let her play.

Later, a feminist friend of mine got her a pirate costume. She chose to wear it for Carnival at school and she didn’t mention any disagreeable comment from other kids. This year she had a witch costume. I’m not sure but I think I remember a note from school saying something like “Carnival will be on (date). The children can be dressed in costume. Please, no princess dresses”.

Did you think it was harmful as it was focusing too much on beauty and appearance?

I don’t think it was harmful for her. I think it focuses too much on beauty and appearance but let’s be realistic, that’s how our world works. Plus, children’s stories have always focused on beauty for girls. When I was little, I didn’t have Disney Princess dresses but I saw Disney films and heard fairy tales. It’s always about a beautiful princess and the prince never falls for her because she’s smart or funny. It’s always because she’s gorgeous. What I mean is that we don’t need Disney to have that model imposed on us.

How about the Bratz Doll? I’ve never seen one but I’m not regularly in toy shops. Would you let your daughter have one if she really wanted it?

My daughter doesn’t have one and never asked for one. I’ve never seen any in other people’s houses. I’m not sure I’d buy one. If I had to decide, I’d balance between the risk of her being apart and the risk of her being exposed to a very sexist toy.

Where do you draw the line and find a balance between – as Orenstein called it – going Amish on her or being too permissive?

I have my idea of what a little girl should not be doing and wearing:

  • No nail-polish in school but OK during the holidays as long as it is pale.

  • No make-up except for dressing-up and not to go to parties or outside.

  • She has curly hair: there is no way I’m going to buy an straigthening iron and do her hair. She’s too young.

  • No dyed hair

  • No tattoo even if it’s a children friendly one. (anyway they’re forbidden in school)

  • I compromised on earrings: OK for long ones if they aren’t too big or too dangerous. She can’t wear them on PE days in school.

  • No slutty clothes.

The list isn’t exhaustive. So far, it seems that other parents around us have more or less the same rules. So she never had big pressure and never threw a big tantrum. And we’ve never faced major questions. If she asks for a gloss, I say no and that she’s too young. If she wants a T-Shirt I think is vulgar, I say no and explain why. Of course she cries sometimes but that’s life, you can’t have whatever you want.

In the long term, I think that as long as nail polish (for example) is forbidden, it will be transgressive to have some. It will be a victory for her when I eventually say yes, a harmless victory but an important one for her. The more barriers we put now, the more “harmless” barriers she’ll break when she’s a teenager. That’s our bet.

The line is our values. It’s our role to explain our decisions properly so that they don’t appear too unjust. I have to admit we’re lucky we haven’t had problems so far. She seems to choose friends who live by the same kind of rules.

Would you allow sexualized toys and clothes?

Yes for toys because she has two or three Barbies. (She’s not a huge fan) and no for clothes. (no thongs, net stockings, T-shirts showing belly buttons…) Anyway these clothes aren’t allowed in school.

Did you also notice that your son was more reluctant to play with your daughter’s toys than the other way around?

No I didn’t notice that. Our daughter has never been interested in dolls. She loves Littlest Pet Shops and her brother plays with her. She has a very vivid imagination, she invents stories and games and he really likes it. She plays with cars too with him. They like Legos and Playmobils. They build houses or cars, it depends of the day.

Did your daughter ever report that others attacked her because she wasn’t following the trend or speaking up for herself?

No I’ve never heard of that but there’s always a risk that she didn’t report it. She complains sometimes that we don’t let her watch TV at nights or that she hasn’t seen Twilight or other films we consider are too “adult” for her.

How did you handle the pink phase? Is it even possible to find toys and clothes in other colours?

We waited for the pink phase to end. It’s over now. I wear a lot of pink myself and my husband has pink shirts. I think we’re safe about this.

It’s not that hard to find non-pink toys for girls. When she was little, she had Little People and big Legos. Now she has Littlest Pet Shops or Playmobils. But sure, a Barbie’s car will be pink.

It can be difficult to find cheap non-pink clothes. But it’s easier as she grows up. However, pink isn’t the worst. The worst are the ones with slutty designs or cuts. It was a big thing a few years ago. It seems to improve now.

Are there beauty pageants for little girls in France like in the US?

Yes, there are some but I don’t think they broadcast them on TV or maybe on some obscure cable TV. That’s the big difference.

Did you find good children’s books with role models that are inspiring?

I never looked for them. They have subscriptions to children’s magazines (Astrapi, Histoires Vraies, I Love English for our daughter and Pirouette for our son). Bayard Presse is very good for children and it’s for boys and girls. We have chosen them because they’re interesting and clever. They’re also neutral. There are really stupid magazines for little girls out there. (with girlie stuff, teaching to girls a model of the woman as a shopping addict, a lover of long chats with friends and also promoting an untimely interest for boys).

Our son has also a subscription to children’s books through school (L’Ecole des Loisirs). They’re of good quality. Otherwise I choose neutral gender books. I refuse to buy Totally Spies or Winx Club or Barbie or Pet Shop Books. These are not books. These are marketing.

About role models. Our daughter is a huge Harry Potter fan. And Hermione Granger is a fantastic model. She’s smart. She befriends with Harry and is not in love with Harry, so friendship with a boy is possible. She’s brave. She doesn’t wonder if what she intends to do will mess up with her hair or not.

Btw, I don’t agree with Orenstein’s analysis of Bella Swan (Twilight)

Do you even buy gender specific toys and how much non-gender toys are available?

My policy has always been: no toy ironing board or vacuum cleaner for her and no guns or cars for him. There’s no way I’m going to buy those stupid girl board games about boyfriends, secrets and supposedly girlie stuff. As far as I know her friends don’t have them either.

An anecdote. My daughter had received a pink car with a small doll in it. She never played with that toy. According to the above mentioned policy, we didn’t rush to buy cars to our son. When he wasn’t even walking, he started to play with the pink car all the time. Then we bought him cars, firemen trucks and “boys” stuff. Not because he was a boy but because he liked to play with them. If he had asked for a doll, he would have had one.

Are there non-gender toys out there? No except for Playmobils, Legos, Kaplas, board games and outside games (balls, bowling) Of course you will find those in gender-marketed colours (pink balls, pink bikes…) but you can find them in neutral colours too.

Did you also notice the Facebook craze and calling 622 girls girlfriends in France?

There’s also a Facebook craze but my daughter is too young. She doesn’t have an account. She never asked for one, her friends don’t have one either. I’m worried about social networks, but I’m not there yet.

A colleague with older children told me he received a guidebook from the collège to explain to parents how to handle Facebook and let the children use it in security. His son can’t accept a new “friend” without his approval. (he has a password). That’s fair.

Someone reported me the kind of bullying Orenstein describes. Mostly gossip that takes huge proportions because it spreads farther and faster. I think it’s really harmful as humiliations during adolescence can leave deep scars.

Anyway, another colleague has a very smart and safe policy: no electronic device in rooms after bed time. Laptops, cell phones, DS and so on sleep in the living-room. Sleep is important for kids and teenagers. I think she’s right. (And of course, children don’t have TVs in their rooms)

Is Hannah Montana loved in France as well?

She is known here too but her series is on Disney Channel. It’s a paid TV and not all families have it. We don’t. My daughter said she saw the series once when we had the channel for free. She said it’s stupid as it only talks about boys and singers. (C’est nul! Was the exact phrase. How lovely to my ears!!)

About Hannah Montana and the like singers: don’t forget that children here don’t understand the lyrics and most of the parents aren’t able to translate them. The impact is different.

*****

I’d like to thank Emma for answering my questions. It gives another dimension to my reading of the book and, I think a better understanding of the differences between the US and Europe.

Don’t forget to visit her page and read her thoughts on the books. She also included interesting photos.

Here is the link to her review.

R. I. P. VI

Posted in Books, Challenge by

Autumn is slowly approaching and Carl’s eagerly awaited R.I.P. VI has finally started. Of course I’m joining. Here is what Carl wrote in his post.

Every September 1st through October 31st for the last 5 years I have hosted the R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril Challenge, affectionately known as the R.I.P. Challenge. I began this reader event, I blinked, and now I am hosting this for the 6th time. Wow, that is so hard to believe.

The purpose of the R.I.P. Challenge is to enjoy books that could be classified as:

Mystery
Suspense
Thriller
Dark Fantasy
Gothic
Horror
Supernatural

The emphasis is never on the word challenge, instead it is about coming together as a community and embracing the autumnal mood, whether the weather is cooperative where you live or not.

I am going to aim high this year and want to read 4 books, watch a movie and join the group read for Deborah Lawrenson’s The Lantern.

I am not sure what I am going to read but here are a few ideas:

Daphne Du Maurier’s The House on the Strand

Alice Thomas Ellis The Inn at the Edge of the World

John Harwood’s The Ghost Writer

Jennifer Archer’s Through Her Eyes

Victoria Schwab’s The Near Witch

Stephen King’s Full Dark, No Stars

Neil Gaiman’s Coraline

I wanted to re-watch Interview with the Vampire and the one or the other Vincent Price movie like Dragonwyck or House on Haunted Hill.

As written before, I will join the group read for Deborah Lawrenson’s The Lantern but there are two other possibilities if you’d like to participate.

If you want to join or know more about the details of the event here’s the link to Carl’s post.

Molly Keane: Two Days in Aragon (1941)

Posted in Anglo-Irish, Books, Literature, Novel by

Grania and Sylvia Fox live in the Georgian house of Aragon, with their mother, their Aunt Pidgie and Nan O’Neill, the family nurse. Attending Aragon’s strawberry teas, the British Army Officers can almost forget the reason for their presence in Ireland. But the days of dignified calm at Aragon are numbered.

I first read about Molly Keane’s Two Days in Aragon on Danielle’s blog. Molly Keane or M.J. Farrell, the pseudonym under which she published her books,  is one of Danielle’s reading projects and after having read Two Days in Aragon I can understand why. I’m trying to put into words what type of book this was but nothing I come up with seems to do it justice. Molly Keane captured beautifully the end of an area, portrayed a social system, drew complex character portraits and incorporated such a wide variety of topics that I’m full of admiration.

I love descriptions of big old houses. They seem to have a life of their own and their majestic presence can be felt so strongly, they are almost characters in their own right. Aragon is exactly such a house. The family home of the Fox’s is grand, old and full of history. There are hidden rooms and the ghosts of the ancestors seem to be hovering around. But Aragon is also a symbol. A symbol for a way of life about to end. Aragon also symbolizes oppression as it is the house of an Anglo-Irish family and as such represents everything that the Irish have come to hate and against which they are fighting in 1920, the year in which the novel takes place.

The end of an era can be brought by many things but war, rebellion, change of government are among the most frequent. All over the world when the colonized stand up against the colonists this signifies the end of a life in beauty and ease for the formerly advantaged. Molly Keane knew very well what she wrote about as she came from such a rich Anglo-Irish family who lived in privilege and never had to work. They loved their horses and hunting and eating well. All this was incorporated into the novel. The descriptions of these two days make one long to have been there, to have experienced the rituals, seen the beauty.

Molly Keane offers more than the description of a house and a way of life about to end. One thing I liked a lot in the novel were the characters. None of them likable, maybe with one exception (Sylvia), but all of them are drawn so vividly and in all their complexity that I was glued to the page.

Grania and Sylvia Fox live in the grand old house together with their mother and Aunt Pidgie. Their father has died after a hunting accident. Grania and Sylvia are very different which is also shown in their choice of men. Grania has an affair with Foley O’Neill, a socially unacceptable choice, while Sylvia is secretly in love with a British officer. One girl is described as a slutty, fat, blond and the other as a neat, groomed and very poised young lady. The mother has a bit of both of them but seems to like her passionate, wilder and slutty daughter far more.

Aunt Pidgie and Nan O’Neill, the house nurse, form a duo. Aunt Pidgie is an unwelcome elderly relative that is kept, far away, in the nursery. This reminded me of the first Mrs Rochester in Jane Eyre. The unwanted, especially women, were often locked away. Aunt Pidgie is a bit crazy but inoffensive. In the beginning we know nothing of her sufferings but when we learn more about Nan O’Neill and her well-hidden side of aggression and cruelty we start to pity this poor bird-like little woman. Nan O’Neill is the most complex and fascinating character. She loves Aragon and everything in it with a fierceness and as if it did belong to her. This has a reason. She is an impressive woman, commanding, extremely good-looking and adept at everything. She is especially good at hiding her true nature. Disappointment and lack of love have made her cruel and pitiless. In her role as nurse she is one of the most powerful characters in the novel. She knows about unwanted pregnancies and how to end them, about subtle ways how to torture someone in keeping them alive but constantly uncomfortable. A very chilling character.

I have read a lot of novels about the end of an era, many have houses in their center. I loved Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited as much as E.M.Forster’s Howard’s End and of course,  Bassani’s The Garden of the Finzi Contini. They are often nostalgic and melancholic books. This isn’t the case here, Two Days in Aragon is completely different in tone and although tragedy strikes all of them I wasn’t sad after reading it but rather full of admiration for Molly Keane and her very unique voice and fascinating approach to tell her story.  And I felt exhausted. She is such a vivid storyteller, I lived in those pages, I almost felt as if I had experienced two very intense days.

Peter Temple: Bad Debts (1996) A Jack Irish Mystery

Posted in Australian, Books, Crime, Novel by

Meet Jack Irish: some-time lawyer, part-time private eye, spare-time cabinet maker and full-time lover of strong coffee, swift horses and spirited women.

Bad Debts is the first in Australian crime writer Peter Temple’s Jack Irish series. Temple has won a lot of Australian prizes for his crime and thriller writing. I think it is the first time I read an Australian crime writer. I was very curious and looking forward to the novel and for a total of 50 pages I really enjoyed it.

It’s starts off well enough, quite sarcastic and humorous. Jack Irish seems a typical hardboiled private eye and debt collector. He used to be a lawyer but when his wife is killed he starts drinking and spends a year in total limbo. Sometime during that year he has to defend Danny McKillop, a drunk-driver, who killed a woman. The woman he killed, Anne Jeppeson, was an activist and pain in the neck for many people. The driver had no memory of either driving a car or hitting someone.

Ten years have gone by and all of a sudden Danny McKillop leaves messages on Jack’s answering machine. By the time Jack hears them McKillop has been shot by the police. Jack feels guilty. It seems to him as if he had let down McKillop a second time and he starts to investigate not only his death but also Anne Jeppeson’s death.

After interviewing a few people he finds out that there were and are a lot of strange things going on. People in high places are doing things they don’t want anyone to find out about. His investigation leads Jack deep into corruption and conspiracy and the farther he gets into these things, the more he endangers himself. The last third of the novel is very action-packed.

The beginning of the novel was humorous and I thought it might be one of the series I would like to explore further but after 20-50 pages, there were far too many things I didn’t like. Jack isn’t a lawyer anymore, he tries to make a living collecting debts, betting on horses and doing cabinets. All these different occupations take up time and pages which is very disruptive. On top of that I hate horse-racing stories. Not only do I despise horse-racing I also find it outrageously boring to read about it.

Another problem I had was the language. A large part of the novel consists of dialogue. Australian spoken language seems much closer to British English than to American English. I certainly didn’t mind that. But I did mind that most of the dialogue was composed of swearing and foul language. It was somewhat tiring after a while. And there is the love story. Maybe Jack has been mourning for ten years, but for us, who just got to know him, it’s odd to see him mourn on one page and jump at full speed into a love affair on the next one. And how do I have to picture a woman who is not good-looking but handsome?

I realized that I have a few first and occasionally second books in series at hand and decided to start to read my way through them. Peter Temple’s book was one of them. I’m sure the Jack Irish series has its merits, only I couldn’t find them.

Does anyone know the series? Or any other Australian crime novels/series?

Elsa Morante: La Storia – History (1974) Literature and War Readalong August 2011

Posted in Books, Italy, Novel by

History was written nearly 3 decades after Morante spent a year hiding from the Germans in remote farming villages in the mountains south of Rome. There she witnessed the full impact of the war and first formed the ambition to write an account of what history does when it reaches the realm of ordinary people struggling for life and bread.

La Storia aka History is the last WWII centered book of this readalong. It’s also the most ambitious, starting before the war and ending just a few years after. It describes in minute details how the schoolteacher Ida Mancuso, her two sons and the people to whom they are connected are affected by the war. La Storia looks in great detail into the impact of war on civilians. In telling this ordinary woman’s daily life we see how precariously civilians live during a war. The constant bombing, the fear, the loss of the houses or apartments, of friends and the jobs, the lack of food and clothes, rape and brutality, fear of being transpotred to a camp, all this together is part of everyday life. What civilians endure is no less harrowing than what happens on the battlefields.

Summarizing this vast canvas of a novel that is driven forward by ebullient storytelling would be quite a challenge, that is why I decided to highlight a few points.

History starts in 19** and ends …. 19**, but the core chapters focus on the years from 1941 to 1947. Before each chapter we find detailed accounts of all the important historical facts of those years. Reading this overpowered me and that was probably the aim. One horrible event follows after another and each and every single country participated in one awful event or the other. It’s a mad circle, a maelstrom that sweeps along everything and everyone and whose impact shapes, distorts and changes the life of normal people who are unable to escape this crazy frenzy.

Following the accounts of History’s furious rage, we read about the simple, childlike Ida, whose mother was Jewish. This fact fills her with constant anxiety all through the novel and even pushes her to do crazy and dangerous things. Ida is a widowed schoolteacher, the older of her boys, Nino, is a foolhardy opportunist, while the other one, Useppe, is the child she conceived when she was raped by a German soldier at the beginning of the war. In the early chapters of the novel Ida lives in modest circumstances but she has an apartment and enough food. When the war breaks out and finally comes to Rome, their house is bombed and she must flee to the countryside where she and Useppe, the little one, live in one room together with numerous other people.

Ida’s older son Nino first joins the fascist forces, later changes over to the partisans and finally becomes a criminal after the war. His “career” seems somewhat typical and I found that in creating a character like this Morante managed to capture a lot that is wrong in Italy. Opportunism and corruption are everywhere.

Focusing on Ida, we witness the ordeal of the “ordinary people”, how much they had to endure. The hunger is unspeakable. What they have to eat is hardly imaginable. Grass, cats, rats, anything. Being homeless and having no clothes is horrible. Having to fight or steal for just a little bit of bread is hard to imagine. It’s a truly harrowing account.

One of the most interesting details is the narrator. Who tells this story? To whom belongs this voice that is audible at any time, that speaks to us directly and from the heart of this novel?  Is it History speaking to us? It seems to be, as the way Morante describes people, animals and things seems to signify that everything is animated. So why not History itself? History is such a force, it seems as if it has become a being driven to destroy.

What I loved about this novel is that everyone has a voice. Useppe is as much a person as are his dogs Blitz or Bella. Their thoughts and feelings are rendered in great detail. I think in doing so she manages to emphasize that in a war everyone is equal, everyone is threatened. I also liked the detailed in the descriptions, the exuberant storytelling.

Despite all the positive aspects I also had a few problems with the novel, especially at the beginning. I didn’t like Ida. I know, it will sound mean, but she was too simple for me. She isn’t very introspective, she is almost a simpleton, still she is touching and the tragedies she endures moved me. I understand Morante’s choice for a character like this but I didn’t always enjoy it.

While reading this novel I found myself smiling a lot. Useppe’s and his dog’s thoughts are so charming in their naivety. The end of this novel moved me a lot. Without giving away too much, I can tell that it showed that there are far more victims in wars than winners, that wars still impact people long after they have ended and that history doesn’t spare anyone. There is no escaping this force that wreaks havoc in human lives.

Before closing I would like to ask a question of anyone who might have read this novel, now or at another point in time: Isn’t it dangerous to treat History like a being? Isn’t this blurring the fact that History isn’t an undefined, independent force but, in the end, it is people who harm other people?

Other reviews:

*****

History was the eight book in the Literature and War Readalong. The next one will be Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. Discussion starts on Friday September 30, 2011 .

Karen Marie Moning: Darkfever ( 2006) Fever Series I

Posted in Books, Crime, Novel, Urban Fantasy by

My philosophy is pretty simple: any day nobody’s trying to kill me is a good day in my book. I haven’t had many good days lately.’ When her sister is murdered, leaving a single clue to her death – a cryptic message on Mac’s cell phone – Mac journeys to Ireland in search of answers. 

What a romp. This was so much fun. If anyone has been looking for a Dark Fantasy version of Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series, there is good news, Darkfever is exactly what you have been looking for. This is the first in the series of this urban fantasy goes crime of Karen Marie Moning who is better known as a romance writer. Don’t get alarmed, this is not a romance novel although there is a certain undercurrent in it, no, this is a real whodunit, spiced up by some nasty supernatural happenings. There are also some explicit sex scenes and judging from Book Rain’s review, the series is getting steamier from book to book. I’m grateful I read her review because now I know that not only the series ends, but that it is rather like a whole novel in five parts. Although part one has some sort of denouement, the end is a cliffhanger.

Mac (short for Mackayla) is a very naive character. She is also clumsy which is a common cliché in paranormal crime. And she was definitely into the Disney Princesses as a child and still loves pink more than anything else. But having a character like that encounter dark and malevolent beings makes for slapsticky fun.

Trying to overcome the grief over her sister’s murder and in attempt to urge the police to solve the crime, Mac decides to take things into her own hands and flies from the US to Dublin where her sister studied. Before her sister died she left a cryptic message on Mac’s cell phone saying that she had been wrong about someone and something needed to be found. All this is very strange and as soon as Mac arrives in Dublin things get even more mysterious. Despite an intense aversion she befriends Barrons, the handsome but moody owner of a book shop.He agrees to help her find the murderer of her sister but only because Mac can help him find an old and very dangerous book.

Mac, as she soon finds out, is what is called a Sidhe-Seer, someone who can see faeries and other supernatural creatures. This helps her to avoid that some encounters end deadly but it also exposes her. The moment faeries know she can see them she is a threat to them and they hunt her. Additionally she can spot magic objects and since absolutely everyone in this novel seems to hunt for the same magical book Barrons is after, they are all threats to her.

This is a fast-paced novel in which a lot of the action takes place in unlit streets roamed by dark creatures. It’s a decent crime story too and there are a lot of other riddles to be solved and characters who have a hidden side which makes it well worth reading.

In any case, this was a true guilty pleasure and I will definitely read the next in the series.