The Child Thief

The Child Thief by Brom

Paperback: 496 pages
Publisher: Eos; Reprint (August 17, 2010)
ISBN-10: 0061671347

(my 3rd read for RIP. and no, it was not on my original list)

From Publishers Weekly

Chesley-winning illustrator Brom (The Plucker) weaves together gloomy prose and horrifying adventures in this macabre fairy tale inspired by J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan. Born of faerie blood, Peter hunts abandoned children, runaways and the hopeless, recruiting for his Devils in Avalon and promising them a place where you never have to grow up. He conveniently fails to mention that Avalon's monsters are very real, and the Devils must practice their war games or risk being tortured to death, eaten or worse. While early chapters are promising, this gothic fantasy stumbles on its own darkness. The devilishly amusing flashbacks to Peter's origins don't make up for the heavy-handed bloodshed, rampant violence and two-dimensional characters. It's all fiendish monsters and desperate battles in this twisted, dark Neverland; the Disney Peter's mirth and good humor are nowhere to be found.

This is a perfect read for RIP... and nothing (nothing!) that you'd read to small children ready for bed!

Having read the first 50 pages I thought to myself.. ummm nope, this isn't for me.  First off I don't like "retold fairytales" , secondly I don't like books written in "now time".. I want to escape to somewhere else!

But there was something that made me keep reading. (This certainly is not the Peter Pan that I knew about!) I think I kept expecting some big change to happen.. It didn't.  But it did get bloody and the "F" word was in "overkill"..but the story... the story was keeping me hooked. The lost boys were lost in more ways than one. I wondered where this story was to go?  Boy did I ever find out!  Not only was I hooked on this book, but it kept me reading every minute that my butt was in the chair!  My mind was in overdrive.  But.. I don't want to give anything away! I think I enjoyed this because I knew nothing about it.

I can see where many people would even enjoy this more than I did. The the whole book, to me, was a "love/ hate" relationship.  But it did win out in the end.  The book is a keeper for the art alone, but to be honest I have to say I know Brom was trying to stay faithful to modern day "gangs" with the language.  I just had a hard time because I left hearing that in "real life" not that long ago and had already had my fill. 

It was a definite.. right book.. for RIP!!  It was DARK. 

It was Gruesome.

It was NOT a dream come true! 

But it was a read I never expected to enjoy... but I did, yes indeed I did!

The Somnambulist

 The Somnambulist by Jonathan Barnes.  (RIP # 2)

Paperback: 384 pages
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks;(January 6, 2009)
ISBN-10: 006137539X

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Set in Victorian London, this superb debut from British author Barnes raises the bar for historical thrillers, starting with its curious opening line: Be warned. This book has no literary merit whatsoever. A page-turner, it's full of peculiar characters, notably Edward Moon, a highly unorthodox detective, and Moon's bizarre sidekick, known only as the Somnambulist. Moon, a conjuror by profession whose act has fallen on hard times, has cracked some of the city's most notorious murders. Now, he's leading the investigation into a shadowy religious group aiming to overtake London and do away with its oppressive, bourgeois tendencies. Moon is a remarkable invention, a master of logic and harborer of all sorts of unnatural habits and mannerisms. The Somnambulist—a giant, milk-swigging mute—doesn't appear to be human at all, yet serves as Moon's moral as well as intellectual compass. Together, they wend their way through a London rich in period detail. Barnes saves his best surprise for the story's homestretch, when he reveals the identity of his narrator, who's been cleverly pulling strings since the opening.

This was an interesting book.  Not the greatest mind you but it wasn't terribly bad either.  My judgement on how much I enjoy a book seems to be how fast I read it .  If I pick it up several times a day or only once.

This one finds it's way about in the middle.

I am not quite sure why they named the book The Somnambulist .  He was far from the main character (though I would have liked to know a lot more about him) and he wasn't any sort of "sleep walker", which is what a Somnambulist is.  And to be honest I would have like the Somnambulist in the book a whole lot more then he was.

True to the Amazon review it starts right off with a weird type murder followed by meeting Mr Moon and the Somnambulist.  Many of the books characters were weird and even "freaks".  It really wasn't what I expected at all.

I don't know if I would tell anyone to read it or not... might be a good book from the library instead of buying it.  I will say there were some parts that got pretty good.. and once near the ending when all things were concluding it was a page turner.

This book becomes the second book I've read for RIP, which means any I read from now on is all icing on the cake!

The Dracula Dossier

The Dracula Dossier: A Novel of Suspense by James Reese

Paperback: 368 pages
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks(September 8, 2009)
ISBN-10: 0061233552

 

 From Publishers Weekly

In Reese's scrupulously imagined thriller, told largely through entries from a lost journal kept by the author of Dracula in 1888, Bram Stoker attends an indoctrination ceremony of the Order of the Golden Dawn, at the behest of Oscar Wilde's mum and a young William Butler Yeats. The ceremony goes horribly awry, resulting in one participant—Francis Tumblety, a patent medicine salesman newly arrived from America—becoming a vessel for the evil Egyptian god Set and applying his surgical skills to the slaughter of Whitechapel prostitutes in order to draw Stoker out for a supernatural showdown. Bestseller Reese (The Witchery) so perfectly pastiches the journal format that initially his story reads as dry and boringly as most private diaries. With Tumblety's malignant conversion, though, the novel turns into a rip-roaring penny dreadful that compels reading to the end. Dracula fans will appreciate the nods to well-known works that Stoker wrote supposedly following this confrontation.

Hooray, I finished my first book for RIP!

I"m not sure where I got this book but it has the black mark on the bottom pages and it only cost me 5.00 ! 

I think I can safely say that I do like books that are written as "letters" and or "journal entries" as this book is, and others I have read.  Also I have found that I do like books using historical names I know in a fictional story.  I like it because although the story is fictional, the historical parts are not and I learn much as well as enjoy the story.  It's a good combination.

I did enjoy this read.  It started off well but eventually it hit a point where things seemed to drag somewhat.. but that didn't last long!  As in most good suspense stories the more you read, the faster you begin to read to know what's next, and this book was no exception.

The story takes place well before Stoker writes Dracula, and harbors names such as Yeats and Oscar Wilde, just to name a few, and of course brings in Jack the Ripper.  I think this qualified well for the RIP Challenge don't you?! 

I am not a good review person and don't like to give away much of the book... the Amazon Review will suffice in that.

Did I enjoy it? Oh,  yes.  ..however, I am still waiting for books that come up to the likes of The Thirteenth Tale and Drood !