I Remember You: A Ghost Story by Yrsa Sigurdardottir... A Review

This book was such a thrill! Atmospheric, suspenseful, frightening. I was glad I wasn't reading this alone at night because I would have had to have all the lights on and I still would have been aware of every single noise in the house and want to hide under the covers. This book was chilling.

A suicide of an elderly woman, vandalism of a grammar school, the disappearance of two little boys decades apart, and the renovation of a house in a deserted islolated village, all happening within the backdrop of a cold winter in Iceland. All slowly building up tension and purpose, until the storylines collide towards the end. Yrsa Siguroardottir is the queen of crime fiction in her native country of Iceland, and after reading this novel, I can understand why! Right from the start you feel the cold and isolation of Iceland in the winter. The mood gets under your skin as you are reading. The characters are so real and believable. The crime and the investigation seem pretty cut and dry... at first... and then little things start to seem not what they seem to be and the investigation takes a whole new direction that is like a wild rollercoaster ride. There are revelations and plot twists... and secrets. Add things that go bump in the night, or whisper in your ear as you lie alone in the dark, and you have a fantastic ghost story as well.

If you love a good crime novel, Yrsa Siguroardottir will not disappoint you. The investigation of the crimes in I Remember You will keep your attention ( and on the edge of your seat) late into the night. If you love a good scary ghost story, this is defintely the book for you! Your heart will be beating a bit faster as strange things start to happen. The combination makes for an amazing read! I would definitely recommend I Remember You: A Ghost Story by Yrsa Siguroardottir, but read it with all the lights on!

I don't know why I was drawn to this book as my First Book of the Year. Possibly because Connecticut has been cold and desolate like the setting for the book, for the past couple of weeks as winter is settling in. What I do know is that I was hooked from the very first line and could not put this down. 5 stars out of 5 for this one! Published by Minotaur Books in 2014 and available for your KINDLE, or Paperback  now!

First Book of The Year... 2017!

For the past few years I've carefully chosen a book to start the new year with. Sheila over at Book Journey has hosted the First Book of The Year event for the past three years and is doing it again this year! Yay! It's a fun get together with other readers to share what book you're starting your reading year with! Some people submit a photo to show what they're reading, but this year I was a little late in deciding, so no photo this year, but I'm still reading and still sharing my First Book of The Year 2017 here...

I Remember You: A Ghost Story by Yrsa Sigurdardottir ... I Remember You won the Icelandic Crime Fiction Award and also was nominated for The Glass Key Award.

In this terrifying tale, three friends set to work renovating a rundown house in a remote, totally isolated location. But they soon realize they are not as alone as they thought. Something wants them to leave. Meanwhile, in a nearby town, a young doctor investigating the suicide of an elderly woman discovers that she was obsessed with his vanished son. When the two stories collide, the shocking truth becomes horribly clear.

In the vein of Stephen King and John Ajvide Lindqvist partly based on a true story, is the scariest novel yet from Yrsa Sigurdardóttir, who has captivated the attention of readers around the world with her mystery series featuring attorney Thora Gudmundsdottir. Now, Yrsa will stun readers once again with this out-of-this-world ghost story that will leave you shivering.

This book just struck a chord with me... Winter, isolation, a ghost story... I guess that's how Connecticut feels to me these days with winter settling in. I downloaded the Nook Book and started reading it and am glad the lights were on in the room... because it is scary! It's the setting that gives you the creeps. Yrsa Sigurdardottir creates a very eery atmosphere and totally believable. I am enjoying it!

What is the first book you're reading in 2017?

Three Souls by Janie Chang… A Review

What an amazing book Three Souls by Janie Chang is! It's heartbreaking and joyful, and will wrap itself around you and capture your heart. It's the Lovely Bones meets Amy Tan. This book is filled with family and friendship, romance & betrayal. The setting is China 1930's, Pre-WWII, with the Nationalists fighting the Communists, and the fear of Japan invading; and a time when women were treasured for their dowries, and their ability to have sons.

The story centers around the spirit of Leiyin, stuck in-between life and the afterlife due to some unknown actions she must atone for. She needs to figure out what she did and how to correct the situation to move on, but how?! Along to help, but they have no choice either because they are stuck right along with her, are her three souls; her yin soul, her yang soul, and her hun soul. All three souls have their own distinct personalities, which we hear quite often as they chime in during the retelling of Leiyin's story. Her yin soul is her romantic side, her yang soul is her stern, practical & "scholarly" side, and her hun soul is her wise side, and they flood her with the memories of her life to help her figure out what she must atone for. We are whisked back in time to her carefree days as a student, as a number 2 daughter, as a very young, impressionable, and privileged girl surrounded by her large family and the first encounter with the man who will ultimately be the cause for much of the pain through out her short lived life...The story doesn't stop there though, because in order to atone for her actions, she's going to have to make some "afterlife" altering decisions too!

My Thoughts… I loved the main character, Leiyin. She was precocious, spontaneous, and full of life in a time where women were suppose to tow the lines of tradition. She was spunky in her past life, but I also liked Leiyin as she "matures" in the afterlife, which you see while she reflects on her past actions. I absolutely loved that the past and present were equal partners in the story, and Janie Chang did a beautiful job of seamlessly going back and forth between the two. I loved the idea of the three souls, and I enjoyed that they had their say in past events and interacted with Leiyin in some very interesting ways. (which I won't go into any detail about because I don't want to spoil it for you!). Actually I loved everything about this book...

"The moment the priest spoke the last prayer and sealed my coffin, I awoke and floated upward in a slow drift of incense smoke, until I could travel no farther. I settled in the rafters of the small temple, a sleepy wraith perched in the roof beams. I had knowledge, but no memory…"

Three Souls is historical fiction,  rich with the sights, sounds, and traditions of 1930's China. It's a coming of age novel. It's a romance. It's thought provoking. It's a novel that took hold of me and did not let me go until the last page and then I just lingered in the moment for days…

My recommendation… READ IT! You'll have to wait until Feb. 25th though, that's when William Morrow releases it. You can pre-order the paperback of Three Souls or The Kindle Edition with these links.

I won this book in a LibraryThing Early Reviewers giveaway! I want to thank William Morrow , a division of Harper Collins, for the opportunity to read this special book with an advance readers copy!

*P.S. This book fulfills a book for The Chunkster Challenge 2014 (it's 468 pages) and a Square (and book) for the 2014 Book Bingo Reading Challenge (one new book).

TLC Book Tour & Review: Dismantled by Jennifer McMahon

Four College Students...

One Deadly Secret...

Dismantled by Jennifer McMahon is a thriller, a murder mystery and a ghost story all wrapped up in one. Four college art students, Henry, Tess, Winnie & Suz, form what they called the "Compassionate Dismantlers". Their manifesto included the first rule, which was,

"To understand the nature of a thing, it must be taken apart"

What this basically means is vandalism, dangerous pranks, and other such things. But something goes wrong one night, and a dangerous prank turns deadly... Suz is dead, and the friends decide to cover it up...

Soon after we open the book, we meet Henry and a very pregnant Tess as they visit "the cabin". The cabin where 8 months before, they and two other college art students, Winnie & Suz, lived and breathed their "dismantler" philosophy. Where they plotted their pranks to prove their point that in order to "understand something, it must be taken apart". They were all idealistic, young, full of life. But when the pranks turned fatal and Suz died, it was last night they all spent in that cabin... But we're not quite sure how Suz died... We're not privy to that bit of information just yet...

The story then shifts to present day, 9 years later. Henry and Tess are leading their "normal" married lives with their 9 year old daughter Emma. We get to know their life as adults, as parents, and we get to know Emma who's a normal, sweet, curious girl, but who also has a secret- her imaginary friend Danner, who seems so much more than imaginary at times. She tells Emma things, things she shouldn't know... Or is Emma just hallucinating? Hmmm I wonder... We find things aren't that sweet between Henry & Tess anymore, as Henry is living out in the barn on his own. But Henry & Tess are held together by Emma and that terrible secret they've both buried in the back of their minds - what happened to Suz... In an attempt to get them back together Mel, Emma's best friend, says they need to investigate and find something they can use towards that purpose... The two find Suz's journal hidden away in the barn, with addresses for the other dismantlers, and decide to send postcards to each of them with only the phrase,

"Dismantlement = Freedom"

When the cryptic postcard arrives in the mail to 3 of the "dismantlers", things take a deadly turn. One of the recipients of the postcard commits suicide, and that leads to an investigation, and questions about what happened 10 years ago... Old wounds are opened up, strange things start to happen. Could Suz really come back from the dead? It sure seems so, and it's fantastic!

What Jennifer McMahon has done is amazing. The story shifts between the present to the past, giving us glimpses into the relationships (and secrets) & life between the four college students, and as Jennifer does this, the story slowly unfolds before our eyes. All the pieces magically fitting together. The characters are so dynamic. Their feelings shift between suspicion and desire and it's exactly how you'd expect people to deal with what is happening. The relationships between the characters are well written and you can feel the idealism they felt as young college students and you can understand the unique relationships that formed between them. Jennifer also did a great job developing Emma, Henry & Tess's little girl. The angst of a 9 year old trying to fit in, find herself, have people like her, and dealing with her best friend, was so well written it really brings her to life. The relationship between Emma and her imaginary friend Danner is downright eerie and wonderfully portrayed. And when strange things start to happen, the story takes on that ghost story kind of feel to it and I loved it!

I found the story quite an addictive page turner! I couldn't put it down, because I just had to know what was going to happen next! This was one of those books I stayed up WAY past my bedtime to keep reading! Filled with twists and turns to keep my attention, and the ending... let's just say I loved that too! I would definitely put it on your TBR list if you enjoy novels that are character driven with plenty of suspense, thrill and a twist of the supernatural!

About the Author:

Jennifer grew up in her grandmother’s house in suburban Connecticut, where she was convinced a ghost named Virgil lived in the attic. She wrote her first short story in third grade, graduated with a BA from Goddard College and then studied poetry for a year in the MFA in Writing Program at Vermont College. A poem turned into a story, which turned into a novel, and she decided to take some time to think about whether she wanted to write poetry or fiction. She quit her last real job in 2000 to work on writing full time. You can learn more about the author and her books at Jennifer McMahon's website. *BTW, my reading group read Jennifer's book, Island of Lost Girls and everyone really enjoyed it.

I read Dismantled as part of TLC Book Tours. And I want to thank Trish of TLC Book Tours for sending along a copy of Dismantle to review and the opportunity to participate in Jennifer McMahon' s Book Tour!

Hey, I'm sharing this book review at Cym Lowell's Book Review Party! You get follow the link to Cym Lowell's Blog to read more great reviews!