The Disappeared was published in UK, and is now available to readers in the USA. Scruton shines a spot light on victims of domestic violence, trafficking, and rape. It’s a timely issue, and no one can read his story and walk away unmoved. Thanks go to Bloomsbury Reader for inviting me to read and review the DRC free in exchange for an honest review. This book is available to the public tomorrow, February 26.
The stories evolve around three women’s stories; we have Sharon, Muhibbah, and the reader is the third, with the narrative switching to the second person, a woman being abducted and raped on board a ship: “…you are nothing but female meat.”
The default for the second-person character is female, which I found gutsy and laudable. Unfortunately, positive treatment of women in this novel begins and ends here…and the second-person character is going to be raped right away.
Justin and Stephen are the two goodhearted men that are trying to assist Muhibbah and Sharon, both of whom are being cruelly abused at home. In each case, it is an immigrant that is doing the abusing. And here I winced.
On the one hand, I can see that Scruton is letting us know that the cultural mores of Islam should not be considered a legitimate excuse for domestic abuse. He clearly can’t do that without including a Muslim woman. Yet if we could have some positive depiction of a Muslim individual somewhere within the text to cut across the stereotype that is so widespread, and which this novel tends to embrace, it would make for better literature and a fairer accounting. Because not all Muslim families hurt their women. I have taught Muslim girls in Seattle that are well educated and whose parents permit them to choose what their futures will hold. Scruton’s depiction of only sneaky, violent, and abusive Muslims makes for a two dimensional telling, which is a shame, because his academic background and word-smithery indicate he is capable of better things.
The central part of the novel slows, and here the plot drags when the writer tries to do too much with a single story. Justin lapses into philosophical musing, which would perhaps work for mainstream fiction or romance genres, but not as much for a suspenseful, missing-woman mystery or thriller. The character worries about the environment, and a lot of detail is given to wind farms and solar panels that not only fails to move the plot forward, but brings all action to a halt. He loses himself in heavy metal music, and several pages are suddenly devoted to hard rock. What? Why? Scruton is by trade a philosopher above all else, but to write a strong thriller, the message has to be driven home through story only. A drifting inner narrative in the midst of what has been action, action, and more action leaves the reader feeling cheated.
Toward the end of the novel, the pace quickens once more, and ultimately the three narratives are braided together at the story’s end in a way that is masterful.
Spoiler: don’t read past this point if you want the ending to be a complete surprise.
I find myself perturbed at the gender stereotypes that seem to belong to another era. Women here are either victims, sex objects, or both. The only female professional is one that steps in as a bureaucrat and foils the rescue effort one of our two male heroes is attempting. In addition, I found myself wondering why neither man can use his position and authority to lend comfort and aid without either becoming sexually involved with the girl or woman he is trying to help, or wanting to do so. The 16 year old girl that can’t get over her crush on the older male teacher and immediately drops her clothes for him despite his reticence sounds like something out of a men’s magazine. No, no, and no.
Scruton is an experienced writer, and is eloquent in painting a portrait of abused women hidden in plain view in the major urban centers of Western, developed nations. If he can cut across stereotypes and introduce greater complexity as he develops his characters, the next novel will be even better.
Try Not to Breathe is the sort of book that steals into your senses and takes over your life until it is done.I was invited to read and review this title by Net Galley and Random House Ballantine. My thanks go to both. I fed it to myself into intentionally small bites at first, because I read several hours before I go to sleep, and under no circumstances did I want this story anywhere in my dreams. On Friday I hit the halfway mark, and immediately realized that Seddon’s novel would occupy my Saturday, period.
Brash Books has a new release, and it’s exactly the kind of novel you’d want to take to a warm sandy beach, or perhaps just to curl up with while the snow falls. I was permitted an advance glimpse, courtesy of Brash Books Priority Reviewers Circle. It was originally published in 1997, but due to be released again February 23, 2016. You’re in for a good time with this one.
Sarah and Jack Quinlan are called to his family’s home in Penny Gate, Iowa when Jack’s aunt is in a serious accident. Julia is not just any aunt; she has been his surrogate mother following the death of both his parents in a car accident. At least, that’s what he tells Sarah. But as she soon finds out, she has been misled about Jack’s early life; in fact, she’s been lied to. What she has to find out on her own is where the lies end and the truth begins.
I read this book at the invitation of Open Road Integrated Media and Net Galley. Thank you to both parties. This title is one of several in a series that I had not encountered before. The pot in question is the ancient artifact sort, not the type that people grow and smoke. The author manages to work several disparate and esoteric topics into a single novel, but not necessarily to its benefit. My own viewpoint is that a high profile editor might be of great use here.
I was already a Barbara Neely fan when I received this DRC, courtesy of the Brash Priority Reviewers Circle, in exchange for an honest review. I’ve been reviewing books for Brash Books and others for the past couple of years, and had read three other Blanche White mysteries out of order, so when I saw that the first in the series—which I think was the only one I hadn’t read yet—was up for grabs, I nailed it right away. It’s available for purchase now.
Here’s the short version: she’s done it again! Janet Evanovich’s latest Stephanie Plum novel was one of only three titles on my Christmas wish list. I get most of my books free prior to publication, and the rest I can generally find at the library. But I wanted this one hard, and my eldest son came through. And for the first 36 pages, I thought our writer had lost her magic. Turns out she was just warming up; my first laugh was on page 37, but most of the fall-down-funny moments take place during the last third of the book.
AM Rosenthal was a journalist, but in the 1960’s he was moved to write this relatively brief book—if fictional it would be considered a novella—about the failure of neighboring New Yorkers to come to the aid of Kitty Genovese, a woman that was murdered in 1964. I received this DRC free of charge from Net Galley and Open Road Integrated Media in exchange for an honest review.
I suspect just about everyone in the USA, or who frequently has to travel to the USA, is heartily sick of the extreme security measures that raise our taxes through the roof and cause so many delays, inconveniences, and even the confiscation of ordinary products that cost us a fair amount of money, on those occasions that we foolishly forget not to take them with us on the plane. The racial profiling makes it even worse. And so I requested this DRC from Net Galley and Oxford University Press with the expectation that I would agree with it wholeheartedly and immediately form the virtual simpatico with its writers that readers form with their favorite authors. Alas, not so much.
As a rule, I am not fond of British fiction; I prefer working class protagonists to the silver-spoon variety; and I like urban settings more than pastoral ones. But The Lake House is written by the author that produced The Forgotten Garden, and so when I had the chance to grab the galley, I went for it. And once more, experience proves that a brilliant writer can sell any story, in the setting of her choice, with the protagonists of her choice, and she can make it flow smooth as warm butter.
Seattle Book Mama 