If there's one way I like to spend an afternoon relaxing it's with a good, and I mean good, book.
So here's my book list recommendation!
* Sepulchre - Kate Mosse
One of the few books I could honestly read over and over again!
Written in a double narrative the book opens in the 1890's and follows 17 year old Parisian Léonie Vernier, who, after a letter arrives out of the blue, she swaps her privileged life in Paris for La Domaine de la Cade in the French town of Carcassonne.
However Léonie's eyes are open to far more than just the tales of an old town, her life becomes riddled with the supernatural, bending back into her own family's history and the shadowy tales that surround the past of La Domaine de la Cade. Tarrot cards, chilling tales and a Sepulchre concealed deep within the trees, Léonie's life takes a drastic, heart stopping turn. But everything happens for a reason...doesn't it...?...
Meanwhile and a few hundred years on Meredith Martin is every bit the modern American academic, on her way around France on the trail of researching the life and lovers of Debussy a "chance" encounter with a girl on the street shows her face pictured on a card from an old Tarrot deck, said to have originated somewhere near the Carcassonne region. Headed there anyway for her scheduled break at the La Domaine de la Cade Medrith takes the fortune foretold to her by the Fortune Teller that her past and present seem to be crossed and confused but with the possibility that she might find out something about her own family and the heirlooms she carries, a piece of music titled "Sepulchre" and the photograph of a Sepia Soldier, Medrith is on the verge of discovering more than she could possibly have dared hope about her family's riddled history, the truth's of La Domaine de la Cade, and the past of a shadowy figure, a young girl who Medrith feels an inexplicable connection to.
Somehow, centuries apart their stories have long since been intertwined.
Full of chilling tales, and atmosphere this is a fantastically written book, suspense, drama, supernatural and tales of love there's scarcely anything this book doesn't have!
* The Passage - Justin Cronin
The book feels impossible to review, sum up or even give it the amount of credit it's due! (Read it and you'll know exactly what I mean!) There are so many plots, sub-plots and sub-sub-plots which somehow, impossibly all make sense and such a range of themes (conspiracies, government, road-trip thrillers, complicated interpersonal relationships, mysteries, ethics, survival, everything!)
The first few chapters waste no time in starting the book, creating the profile of the 'mysterious Amy NLN' her bizarre and dangerous situation, the tormented Wolgast and brutal greed of human nature.
The chapters constantly chop and change so that it is almost impossible to second guess, creating, of course, the perfect method of suspension.
At first the sharp chop and change can seem a little odd and confusing when there's a total character and situation change, it takes a while to adjust to Cronin's writing style but once you have the book seems to fill every corner and space in your mind.
There's a subtle reality that the chilling, spine tingling events that take place are perfectly plausible...give it a decade or so with the technological advances leaping from one thing to the next something about "The Passage" seems very real while you read it and for a while after you put it down again.
Cronin somehow manages to create an entire world inside your head, starting with the world we live in now and transforming into what the world becomes. The characters all seem so real andhuman (none of the 'airy fairy' half believable characters so many of us are guilty of creating,) even The Colony seem completely real, the way in which they have to live is intriguing, the limits, strains and problems they face, but not without the fundamentals of human nature, their need for love, the torments, regrets and happiness.
The main character 'Amy' ,whom the entire novel revolves around, is a fascinating character and one which cannot fail to be different. There is something about her that wills you to find out more, the emotions her character provokes are astounding, you fear her, you fear for her, you feel sympathy, warmth, irritation, happiness, pain, almost everything under the sun which adds to the realistic way in which she is and isn't portrayed. I've never come across another character quite like her. She is so much and yet physically so little that it is almost impossible to find a way in which to define her.
The novel overall is brilliant and worth every page of the 800 pages! There are frustrating twists, sudden breaks and splits in the plot which leave you frantically reading to try and find the other half again, the end of the novel left me stunned, (I had to re-read the last few lines over and over to make sure I'd read it right,) and yet still yearning to read more. ("Dear Mr Cronin....PLEASE write a squeal!") Yet it would be almostimpossible to write one. There is one door which is left open at the end, and many 'un-tied' strings, but maybe that is what is so incredible about it. You, as the reader, are forced to come to your own conclusions about Amy NLN and how her story finally ends and after finishing "The Passage" though your mind is racing it seems somehow impossible to reason that it could ever end. As long as Earth rotates around the sun and humans survive it seems her story will be, in effect, eternal.
