The Red House Mystery by A.A. Milne

288 pages

Publisher: Pushkin Press

First published: 1922

Re-release Date: September 3, 2024

 

Blurb

In a quaint English country house, the exuberant Mark Ablett has been entertaining a house party, but the festivities are rudely interrupted by the arrival of Mark's wayward brother, Robert, home from Australia. Even worse, not long after his arrival the long-lost brother is found dead, shot through the head, and Mark is nowhere to be found. It is up to amateur detective Tony Gillingham and his pal Bill to investigate.

Between games of billiards and bowls, the taking of tea and other genteel pursuits, Tony and Bill attempt to crack the perplexing case of their host’s disappearance and its connection to the mysterious shooting. Can the pair of sleuths solve the Red House mystery in time for their afternoon game of croquet?

The Red House Mystery marked Milne’s first and final venture into the detective genre, despite the book’s immediate success. Praised by Raymond Chandler and renowned critic Alexander Woolcott, this gem of classic Golden Age crime sparkles with witty dialogue, an intriguing cast of characters, and a brilliant plot.

 

Review

“…an acknowledged masterpiece of the art of fooling the reader without cheating him.”

Raymond Chandler in The Simple Art of Murder.

As Anthony Gillingham approaches the country house where his friend, Bill Beverley is staying he walks straight into a mystery. A man who turns out to be Matthew Cayley and who is obviously distressed needs help getting into a locked room in the house. Cayley has heard a gunshot and is very worried about his uncle and employer, Mark Ablett. After they force their way into the room, Cayley and Gillingham discover a body. It is not Mark Ablett who is dead though but, much to Cayley’s relief, Ablett’s ne’er-do-well brother Robert. Of Mark, who was seen entering the office to meet with his brother there is no sign. While the local police is on the case, Anthony Gillingham and Bill Beverley decide to conduct an investigation of their own with Bill Beverley playing Watson to Gillingham’s Sherlock Holmes.

This is the most British of stories. In fact, if it had been written one or two decades later, I would have called it a spoof version of a Golden Age of Mystery story. This is by no means a criticism. In fact, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and the picture it painted of Edwardian Britain. I figured out part of the solution to this locked-room-mystery early on but that didn’t lessen my enjoyment of the rest of the story. It was a joy to follow Anthony and Bill as they followed the clues and Gillingham’s intuition until they found the answers.

This was A.A. Milne’s only mystery despite the fact that the last paragraph of the book seems to imply there might be more to come. I for one would have happily read more stories featuring Anthony Gillingham and Bill Beverley.

The Good Liars by Anita Frank

400 pages

Publisher: HQ

Publishing Date: August 17, 2023

Netgalley

 

Blurb

In the hot summer of 1914 a boy vanishes, never to be seen again.

Now, in 1920, the once esteemed Stilwell family of Darkacre Hall find their already troubled lives thrown into disarray when new evidence leads to the boy’s case being reopened – and this time they themselves are under police scrutiny.

As the dead return to haunt the living, old resentments resurface and loyalties are tested, while secrets risk being unearthed that could destroy them all.

 

Review

If you take the blurb to suggest a dark tale, you would be right. This story is very atmospheric, as Darkacre, the name of the manor where the action takes place implies. Doom, gloom, secrecy, and shellshock all add to the undercurrent of evil. As the story progresses, that suggestion gets stronger until, in the end, it turns out not to be a suggestion at all.

I’m not sure how to label this book. It’s not quite a mystery, although there certainly are quite a few puzzles to resolve. And despite the haunting atmosphere, it’s also not quite a gothic thriller. And while there are hints of supernatural goings on and the departed certainly haunt those still alive, The Good Liars isn’t a ghost story either. This is however a fascinating and memorable tale; one that may well leave you wondering what you would do under similar circumstances.

Darkacre is a large manor house occupied by a cast of four. There’s Ida Stilwell, the mistress of Darkacre and the wife of Maurice Stilwell who two years after the end of WWI still suffers from shell shock. Leonard Stilwell is the younger brother who is an invalid, having lost the will to live after losing three of his limbs during the war. Finally, there’s Victor Monroe, a friend of the Stilwell brothers who has more or less been adopted into the family. Sarah Hove is a nurse/housekeeper who joins the family to look after Leonard and take care of some household duties. Eventually, this group will be joined by Detective Sergeant Verity, who ends up stranded there when bad weather makes leaving Darkacre impossible.

From the beginning, it’s clear that all is not happy and well with this family. And the tension increases when the police arrive to tell them that they will reopen an old investigation into the disappearance of a young boy in 1914. What’s more, they will be searching the estate’s woods.

Told from shifting perspectives, we watch as the situation in the house slowly moves from mildly uncomfortable to outright horrifying. But, as the title implies, we are dealing with a group of good liars. I mean, you have unreliable narrators, and then you have this lot.

And that’s probably all I should say about the plot. There are a lot of layers to this story, just as there is a lot of evil in it. It’s a fascinating tale though of the unravelling of a family who thought themselves to be untouchable and it asks some interesting questions about guilt, innocence, and justice.

The story is very well written and told. The descriptions of the house, the atrocious weather, and the surroundings add at least as much menace to the tale as the actions of the characters do. The words flow smoothly, pulling the reader along and the further I got into the book, the harder it became to take a break from reading. I did manage to figure out one or two plot twists before they were revealed on the page, but that didn’t diminish the story for me.

Overall, The Good Liars is a fascinating and thought-provoking book.

The Housekeepers by Alex Hay

  

320 pages

Publisher: Headline Review

Publishing Date: July 6, 2023

NetGalley

 

Blurb

The night of London's grandest ball, a bold group of women downstairs launch a daring revenge heist against Mayfair society in this dazzling historical novel about power, gender, and class.

Mrs. King is no ordinary housekeeper. Born into a world of con artists and thieves, she’s made herself respectable, running the grandest home in Mayfair. The place is packed with treasures, a glittering symbol of wealth and power, but dark secrets lurk in the shadows.

When Mrs. King is suddenly dismissed from her position, she recruits an eclectic group of women to join her in revenge: A black market queen out to settle her scores. An actress desperate for a magnificent part. A seamstress dreaming of a better life. And Mrs. King’s predecessor, with her own desire for vengeance.

Their plan? On the night of the house’s highly anticipated costume ball—set to be the most illustrious of the year—they will rob it of its every possession, right under the noses of the distinguished guests and their elusive heiress host. But there’s one thing Mrs. King wants even more than money: the truth. And she’ll run any risk to get it…

After all, one should never underestimate the women downstairs.

 

Review

I saw this book described as Downton Abbey meets Oceans 11 and that feels about right. What we have here is a clear case of ‘never underestimate the help’. The help has had it with the system and is planning to get their own back in what looks like an intriguing yet probably impossible heist.

The book starts with Mrs. King being fired from her job as a housekeeper in an opulent house on Park Lane, London. Rather than fall into despair or panic, Mrs. King has a plan and in order to execute it she needs help. Enter a varied group of women, some of whom have also worked in The House of de Vries and others who will find themselves working there while they work out the logistics of the planned heist.

And so begins a story that is about a lot more than ‘just’ the 'biggest heist of the century’ taking place during the ‘biggest costumed ball of the century’. In fact, we are halfway through the story before we reach the day of the heist. I’m not getting into what that ‘more’ is. The story shares details in small doses and at a leisurely pace, keeping the reader guessing exactly what is going on, how the various characters relate to each other, and if ‘getting revenge while getting rich quick’ is not the only motivation for Mrs. King and her co-conspirators.

The mystery in this book is not ‘whodunnit’. In fact, when the story starts nothing (obvious) has been done and the reader is a witness as the scheme is organised; seeing everything unfold through the eyes and thoughts of the characters. But there definitely are mysteries in this story, and the process of discovering what exactly is going on and why it is happening was fascinating and at times thought-provoking.

This was a well-written and brilliantly plotted story. I knew from early on that there had to be more to the story than the obvious and I loved how slowly but steadily layer after layer lifted to reveal secrets. The heist itself was just the right mix of suspense and over-the-top shenanigans. An original and compelling read!

Three Sisters by Heather Morris

414 pages

Publisher: Bonnier Books

Publishing date: October 2021

Own Copy

Book Club Read

 

Blurb

A promise to stay together.

An unbreakable bond.

A fierce will to survive.

From international bestselling author Heather Morris comes the breathtaking conclusion to The Tattooist of Auschwitz trilogy.

When they are girls, Cibi, Magda and Livia make a promise to their father - that they will stay together, no matter what.

Years later, at just 15 years old, Livia is ordered to Auschwitz by the Nazis. Cibi, only 19 herself, remembers their promise and follows Livia, determined to protect her sister, or die with her.

In their hometown in Slovakia, 17-year-old Magda hides, desperate to evade the barbaric Nazi forces. But it is not long before she is captured and condemned to Auschwitz.

In the horror of the death camp, these three beautiful sisters are reunited. Though traumatised by their experiences, they are together.

They make another promise: that they will live. Their fight for survival takes them from the hell of Auschwitz, to a death march across war-torn Europe and eventually home to Slovakia, now under iron Communist rule. Determined to begin again, they embark on a voyage of renewal, to the new Jewish homeland, Israel.

Rich in vivid detail, and beautifully told, Three Sisters will break your heart, but leave you amazed and uplifted by the courage and fierce love of three sisters, whose promise to each other kept them alive. Two of the sisters are in Israel today, surrounded by family and friends. They have chosen Heather Morris to reimagine their story in her astonishing new novel, Three Sisters.

 

Review

It’s not very often that I read a story that is as horrific as it is uplifting and inspiring, but that’s what happened here. I’m sure I do not have to go into detailed descriptions of the nightmare Cibi, Livia, and later Magda were forced to live through while in German concentration camps. Suffice it to say that it is nothing short of a miracle that anybody would survive such ordeals with their humanity intact, yet all three of them did. And that’s only one of several miracles. The odds against Magda and her two sisters finding each other and being reunited once the middle sister is also captured by the Nazi machine are staggering but it happened. That all three of them managed to survive both the camps and the death march is nothing short of mind-blowing, as is the fact that all three found their way to the emerging state of Israel and a new life.

It was somewhat surprising that while the horrors I read only pushed me from word to word, it was the happier moments, like when Cibi gave birth to her son, that brought tears to my eyes. Or maybe it is not that surprising since my reactions mostly mirrored those of the three sisters. They pushed their emotions away during the nightmares they endured, only to let them flow once they’d found (relative) safety.

I haven’t read either of the prequels to this book and I don’t think I ever will. Born in the early 1960 in the Netherlands, I was raised on WW II stories. In fact, the vast majority of books published at the time in the Netherlands was in one way or another related to the war and/or its aftermath. Stories about the five years during which the Netherlands was occupied were required reading in school. History lessons were dominated by those recent events at the cost of everything that happened in previous centuries. I imagine there isn’t a horrific event or heroic action I haven’t read about over the years, and I’m not convinced exposing myself to more of it will benefit me in any way, no matter how uplifting the ending of such a story might be.

Three Sisters is a very well-written book and portrays the lives of these three girls/women in graphic and often horrific detail. I have no doubt both The Tattooist of Auschwitz and Cilka’s Journey are equally good and worthy books. I just don’t think that reading them will bring me anything other than more confirmation of man’s ability to inflict terrifying horrors on his fellow man.

Which is why, when I remember this book, I will focus on the promise the three young girls made to their father. They said they would always stick together, and they did. Keeping their promise goes a long way to explaining how they managed to survive their ordeal although it’s hard to deny that an enormous amount of ‘luck’—a bad word to use given the circumstances, but non the less true—played a big role too.

I guess that’s the message I take away from this book. If the whole world turns against you, trust and hang on to those who only have your best interest at heart, even if it means ignoring everybody else.

Nora by Nuala O’Connor

426 pages

Publisher: New Island Books

Library book

Book Club Read

 

Blurb

Dublin, 1904. Nora Joseph Barnacle is a twenty-year-old from Galway working as a maid at Finn’s Hotel. She enjoys the liveliness of her adopted city and on June 16—Bloomsday—her life is changed when she meets Dubliner James Joyce, a fateful encounter that turns into a lifelong love. Despite his hesitation to marry, Nora follows Joyce in pursuit of a life beyond Ireland, and they surround themselves with a buoyant group of friends that grows to include Samuel Beckett, Peggy Guggenheim, and Sylvia Beach.

But as their life unfolds, Nora finds herself in conflict between their intense desire for each other and the constant anxiety of living in poverty throughout Europe. She desperately wants literary success for Jim, believing in his singular gift and knowing that he thrives on being the toast of the town, and it eventually provides her with a security long lacking in her life and his work. So even when Jim writes, drinks, and gambles his way to literary acclaim, Nora provides unflinching support and inspiration, but at a cost to her own happiness and that of their children.

 With gorgeous and emotionally resonant prose, Nora is a heartfelt portrayal of love, ambition, and the quiet power of an ordinary woman who was, in fact, extraordinary.

 

Review

This is going to be one of my ‘I’m not entirely sure what to say’ reviews.

Don’t get me wrong. Nora’s story captivated me. I loved her voice and the way she picked her words and formulated her sentences.

“Sometimes I crave a little alone time to just let my thoughts scatter.”

That’s just one example. I have a much longer list of Nora-sayings written down in my reading-notebook.

Nora was also an easy read in so far that I got swept up in the tale, found it hard to put the book down, and couldn’t wait to get back to it when I had to pause my reading. At the same time, Nora is anything but an easy read when it comes to the content of her story and in my mind, I retitled it…

The things we do for love…

Because you would need to love somebody deeply in order to put up with everything Jim Joyce put Nora through. From James refusing to marry her for the longest time, through the various locations where they lived in sometimes abject poverty dependent on others just to keep a roof over their growing family’s heads and food on the table, to a life led making sacrifices for James’s art, it takes someone special and an extraordinary level of love and trust to stay the distance.

I wonder if I would have had a better understanding of Nora and James if I’d known more about them and if it would have made a difference if I had read, for example, Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake.

 I’m not sure how to write this review without summarising the journey the Joyce family made, and honestly, if you're curious about that, you're far better off reading this beautiful book.

Ultimately, Nora was a gorgeously written book about an anything-but-easy life. I was happily surprised to discover it was universally loved and admired by the members of my reading group, even if one or two felt the need to remark on the more erotic scenes in the story. I’m very happy I read this story. And it just goes to show that it is indeed true that behind every great man there’s a great woman because it is hard to imagine James Joyce reaching the heights he achieved without Nora facilitating his life and art.

 

 

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

 116 pages

Publisher Faber & Faber

Part of The Art of Reading Book Club with Colm Tóbín

 

Blurb

It is 1985, in an Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant, faces his busiest season. As he does the rounds, he feels the past rising up to meet him – and encounters the complicit silences of a people controlled by the Church.

The long-awaited new work from the author of Foster, Small Things Like These is an unforgettable story of hope, quiet heroism and tenderness.

 

Review

“The worst was yet to come, he knew. Already he could feel a world of trouble waiting for him behind the net door, but the worst that could have happened was also already behind him; the thing not done, which could have been – which he would have had to live with for the rest of his life.” 

What to say about this book?

What to say about a story that left me both happy and dissatisfied?

Basically, this is the tale of a good man, Bill Furlong, paying it forward; performing an act of kindness that mirrors the similar act decades earlier, performed for his mother. I loved this aspect of the story. What’s not to like about a man confronting, facing, and overcoming his fears in order to do what is right?

I’m less happy that the story ended on the act, without showing us any of the consequences. Of course, it is easy enough to predict what might happen next, but I would have liked to see it unfold. As it is, I can imagine two very different outcomes and in an ideal (reading) world, I would have read about the positive option playing out. Maybe not immediately, but I like to think that in the end, Bill’s act of kindness would have been met by those who care for him, backing his decision. As it is, I will never know.

Then again, maybe that’s for the best. Rural Ireland in 1985 is not a place I recognise. Of course, my first visit to Ireland didn’t happen until two years later, but even what I saw, learned, and intuited at the time is nothing like what I encountered in this story. 1985, it doesn’t feel that long ago, but it is fair to say that Ireland has come a very long and mostly positive way since then. Based on the little I do know about those times and public attitudes back then; it is just as easy to imagine Bill’s act leading to the destruction of everything he holds dear.

I’m not entirely sure how I feel about the contrast between the way the story is told and what it is about. The writing is easy, gentle, and almost entirely without a sense of urgency. The content on the other hand is edgy, pressing, and filled with tension. Especially the first part of the book left me with the impression that I was reading a gentle vignette of times gone by. But the longer I lived with the words I’d read, the darker this apparently simple tale turned.

So, that’s where I’m at. Somewhat confused about how I feel about this story. It was beautifully written and deceptively easy to read. It was also darker than I expected, and it has left me with enough food for thought to last me days, if not weeks. While I’m not sure how much I liked Small Things Like These, I am very glad I’ve read it and I’m looking forward to (eventually) discussing this little gem with my book club.

Unfit to Print by K.J. Charles

145 pages

Buy links: Amazon US | Amazon UK

Blurb

When crusading lawyer Vikram Pandey sets out in search of a missing youth, his investigations take him to Holywell Street, London’s most notorious address. He expects to find a disgraceful array of sordid bookshops. He doesn’t expect one of them to be run by the long-lost friend whose disappearance and presumed death he’s been mourning for thirteen years.

Gil Lawless became a Holywell Street bookseller for his own reasons, and he’s damned if he’s going to apologise or listen to moralising from anyone. Not even Vikram; not even if the once-beloved boy has grown into a man who makes his mouth water.

Now the upright lawyer and the illicit bookseller need to work together to track down the missing youth. And on the way, they may even learn if there’s more than just memory and old affection binding them together...

Review

Unfit to Print was a delightful read for a multitude of reasons.

First and foremost is K.J. Charles’ fabulous writing. Everything works. Her words flow, the conversations sparkle, and descriptions are vivid, taking you right into the setting—in this case, mostly a poor and sleazy part of 19^th century London. As for the characters, they were fascinating. For some reason coloured people rarely spring to mind when I think of England in those times. I realise that’s unreasonable of me, especially since Great Britain really did rule the waves back then and had colonies all over the globe. After decades of reading historical books featuring only Caucasian characters, it was both a revelation and a delight to read a story in which they didn’t take centre stage.

As for those main characters, both Gil and Vikram captured my imagination from the moment they were introduced and not because they weren’t white. In fact, their ethnicity, while never completely out of the story, soon became an afterthought, secondary to the mystery Gil and Vikram were trying to solve and their personal reconnection.

Gil has been betrayed so badly he’s built a fortress around his heart.

“If you went around regretting things you might curl up and cry for the lost hopes and the ruined dreams, and bugger that for a game of tin soldiers.”

And Vikram is lost too, be it in a different way, as he struggles with the country he grew up in and the place he was born, a homeland he’s afraid to visit.

“So what if I went home and didn’t feel as though I belonged? […] If home wasn’t home at all, what—who—would I be then.”

These are two men with no real place in the world who, over the course of 124 pages managed to create their own space…together.

I enjoyed the mystery and its resolution, although to me the involvement of the young man Vikram is trying to find and Gil’s half brother posed a question which wasn’t asked or addressed in the book. I don’t mind that, I’ll jump to my own conclusions 😊 But, I think I enjoyed watching as the two men reconnected even more. Their journey from surprise, through reluctance, to embracing and expanding the feelings they had for each other over a decade earlier was glorious, sexy, and at times deeply touching.

What I loved most about this book though was K.J. Charles’ wonderful writing and how the words and phrases she used put the story in its time as much as—if not more then—the descriptions did. I gave one example of that above, and here’s another one:

“Percy’s eyes brimmed with happy malice.”

“Happy malice.” It’s such a wonderful description. It put a huge grin on my face when I read those words.

Long story short, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and it was a timely reminder that I’ve got a few unread books by this author on my Kindle, which shouldn’t stay unread for too much longer.

The Fall Guy by Chris Quinton - Release Day Review

42 pages / 12911 pages

Buy links: Amazon US | Amazon UK

Available in KU

Blurb

In 1920s New York, Pinkerton Agent John Brady is assigned to a brutal robbery/kidnapping, an open and shut case with an obvious culprit - but nothing and no one are what they seem.

Small-time crook Cesare Donati has the perfect getaway: a transatlantic cruise ship. When Brady turns up at his cabin door, Cesare knows he is out of options until they reach England.

Will London be a safe haven or a place of reckoning?

Review

For a short story, The Fall Guy delivered a lot and what's more, I thoroughly enjoyed all of it.

John Brady is a most wonderful main character. He may appear rather gruff and short at first glance, but we soon discover there’s a lot more to him than the stereo-typical cynical gumshoe and that his heart is most definitely in the right place. Cesare Donati is at least as intriguing as John, and, as John soon discovers, Cesare also amounts to a lot more than the sum of his parts. The spark between these two men is obvious from the start, even if, at that moment, neither man knows for sure whether or not the other can be trusted.

As the blurb suggests, nothing in this story is as it at first appears, and the tension in this story doesn’t so much lie in the ‘who dunnit’ but more in the ‘will our heroes be able to stay safe’. In fact, this story is probably more about how John and Cesare meet and end up as partners (in more ways than one, I’ll have you know) than about solving a mystery. However, that doesn’t mean the story is either boring or lacking tension. Reading about their time in London was a bit like waiting for the axe to fall; you know it’s going to happen, but you’re just not sure when.

I love how the author managed to highlight cultural and linguistic differences between prohibition-era New York and London in 1920, without ever stressing them or being obvious about it. And John wondering about Cockney rhyming slang just made me smile.

 “Who would take a butcher’s hook at a store window?”

So, I loved the story, I loved the setting, I loved the connection between John and Cesare, and I’m over the moon that when I finished the story I was left with the impression that I’d just read the start of something. I can only hope that Chris Quinton will indeed decide to send John and Cesare on future adventures. I can’t wait to spend more time with them.

The Man Inside Me by Sean Kerr - Review Tour

Book Title: The Man Inside Me

Author: Sean Kerr

Publisher: SGK Publications

Cover Artist: SGK Publications

Release Date 31st September 2018

Genre/s: MM Romance, MM Historical, MM Gothic Romance, MM Paranormal Romance

Heat Rating: 4 flames 

Length: 202 Pages

It’s a standalone story.

Add on Goodreads

      

Blurb

Victorian London is a difficult place to be when you are gay, as Henry and Gabriel know all too well.

When they were young at Oxford University, Henry and Gabriel’s love burned hot and bright, and they thought to change the world together until a devastating tragedy ripped them apart.

Now, as youth fades away, Henry can no longer stand to see his own reflection in the mirror. All he sees is a sad, tired old man whose body has betrayed him. He craves the touch of another, to feel attractive and vital once more but his obsession with finding a cure for insanity has stolen his life away, and now his work has taken on a dark and sinister dimension. How far will he go to recapture the passion of his lost youth?

Gabriel fears that Henry is losing his mind, and when a brutal killer invades their lives, they are thrust into the dark depths of Victorian London in a fight for their very lives.

As their friendship is tested to its limits, Gabriel cannot help but wonder if there is still a chance for love. Can they move beyond the friendship that has spanned over thirty years and find the love that once made their hearts beat as one?

You may never be too old to find love, but will you be able to survive it?

Buy Links: Amazon US  | Amazon UK

- Available on Kindle Unlimited

 

 

Review

“I see the man inside me, the other man, the better man. The more attractive man. He is so full of confidence, so full of life, so full of all the qualities that prevent me from finding such companionship, and I find more and more that I wish to be that man, the man inside me.

I will find the answer. Now that I seem him (…). For the man inside me is me, and I will find some way to set him free.”

So, I wrote a very long (some might say of novel proportions) review yesterday, and two minutes ago I deleted every single word. In my eagerness to convey how much I adored this story, how awe-inspiring the writing had been to me, I ended up writing a long piece of nonsensical gibberish.

Because, let there be no doubt, this is one fabulous book. The story, the characters, the historical setting, and the way it was written all took my breath away. The writing is almost lyrical, with well-chosen words placing the story in its time and the reader slap bang in the middle of that world.

And what a world it is, this London in Victorian times. Sean Kerr doesn’t give us a romanticized version of history. This is England in the second half of the nineteenth century in all its glory, but also in all its darkness, depravity, and narrow-mindedness. A world in which being gay went from being frowned upon to being a crime.

“The truth of the matter is, in order to survive and exist in a world of our choosing, we must become that which the world expects. Normal and sober, we must conform to society’s code of moral beliefs, though they may conflict with those that we know to be true to our hearts.”

But, this book is so much more than a history lesson. In fact, you may well recognize the story and the characters from a classic tale most of us are familiar with. Except that the author gives the old familiar a new and inspired twist, one that kept me enraptured from the first sentence to the last word. What starts off as an apparently angsty love-story slowly, and almost imperceptibly, transforms into a tale of darkness and horror of such proportions that it became almost impossible to hope for a positive, never mind happy, ending. And no, I’m not going to tell you whether or not you’ll find happiness at the end of this book, but I promise you’ll be on the edge of your seat while you’re reading to find out.

The various characters in this story tell their parts of it in alternating chapters, in what can probably be best described as monologues directed at the reader, and for me that was just about perfect in this book. It allowed me to get to know Henry and Gabriel (as well as one or two others) at such a deep level, and yet, as the book progresses we discover that all those characters lie to themselves, and in the process to their audience, which of course only makes the story more fascinating.

This is a multi-layered story with a multi-layered title. Who knew ‘the man inside me’ could refer to so many different meanings? The blurb only tells you part of what you’ll encounter on these pages, and the layers covering the deeper story are lifted slowly, almost imperceptibly, pulling the reader into a web of ever increasing darkness without them fully realizing it until they’re in the middle of the mayhem (or should that be Bedlam?).

I’m in serious danger of once again gushing my way to an unreadable and overly-long gush-fest, so I’m forcing myself to stop now and leave you with this final conclusion:

Funny, sad, terrifying, totally engrossing and stunningly beautiful, this is one extraordinary book telling a story that will stay with me for a long, long time and a very deserving addition to my list of extra-special reads.

About the Author

Hi everyone, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Sean Kerr, and I am a 49-year-old gay man living in Cardiff, Wales with my husband of 28 years, Derek. We have two cats, Rita and Harry, and a host of tropical fish.

I worked on building sites for years, and I used the money earned from that to put myself through college, specialist paint techniques etc. I trained in fine art, and then I went out and painted murals on client’s walls, and created Roman Bathrooms and fantasy hand painted bedrooms, all the rage back in the late eighties and nineties. I then became an Interior Designer for a large DIY chain. For the past thirteen years I ran my own Interiors business, and while that is no longer in existence, I am now looking for my next challenge in life!

By night I am an Author, and I am very proud to be an author for Extasy Books. It took me some years to get to this point. I spent a very long time trying to get an agent because I thought it was the right thing to do, and after a heck of a lot of refusals, I nearly gave up. I came so close to hitting the delete button on Dead Camp 1 because I thought I did not stand a chance. At the very last moment, I decided to have a go at approaching a few publishers directly, and I sent the manuscript to six. Within two weeks, I had offers of publication from three! Let’s just say that there may have been tears lol. It was my chance, at last, to become a part of a world that I have always loved and admired from a distance, and it is one of the very best things to ever happened to me.

Dead Camp is the first series I ever wrote, and then there is my short novella called Hush Little Baby. Dead Camp is my take on the Vampire genre, an MM Paranormal Romance series that is set against a backdrop of World War 2. However, the series uses key moments from History to tell one enormous saga, and I have loved every single moment of writing it. There are five books in the Dead Camp series.

Hush is a pure horror story with more than a nod towards such classic programmes as The Twilight Zone and Tales of The Unexpected. The project happened just after I completed Dead Camp 3 and it is a story that I had to get out of my system. It’s definitely a different beast to my Vampire saga, and I hope it will make you go to bed with the lights on lol!

I recently ventured into the world of self-publishing, and as such, I have just released my first independent book series, The Last Child. The Last Child is a horror series that is in 3 parts dealing with the occult. It has a definite Dan Brown vibe in that I love conspiracy stories, so I have used religion and some intriguing legends as the backdrop to this contemporary supernatural thriller that tells the story of a female protagonist trying to protect her young student. Neither of them realises how their lives, and indeed their histories, are intertwined in the most horrific and tragic ways.

My latest book, ‘The Man Inside Me’ is an MM Victorian Gothic Romance, and I think it is the favourite thing I have written so far. It deals with two men in their fifties trying to find love again, a subject that is very close to my heart as I approach that milestone. It is a very important book to me, and while it has some very ‘KERR’ twists and turns, it is, at its heart, a very romantic tale that deals with middle age. I am particularly proud of this book, and it is a very different spin on the MM genre.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I look forward to meeting you on social media.

Author Links: Blog/Website | Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | Amazon Author Page

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A House of Ghosts by W.C. Ryan - Release Day Review

 419 pages

Publisher: Bonnier Zaffre

Buy links: Amazon US

Blurb

Winter 1917.

As the First World War enters its most brutal phase, back home in England, everyone is seeking answers to the darkness that has seeped into their lives.

At Blackwater Abbey, on an island off the Devon coast, Lord Highmount has arranged a spiritualist gathering to contact his two sons who were lost in the conflict. But as his guests begin to arrive, it gradually becomes clear that each has something they would rather keep hidden. Then, when a storm descends on the island, the guests will find themselves trapped. Soon one of their number will die. 

For Blackwater Abbey is haunted in more ways than one …

Review

“In a House of Ghosts, the Living Await, Their Certain Fate.”

Fa. Bu. Lous. And I don't just mean the gorgeous edition of this hardback.

It’s been a while since I enjoyed a book as much as I did A House of Ghosts. For me this book holds the best of all worlds. We’re given ghosts. We’re enjoying an Agatha Christie style Manor House Mystery. Furthermore, this is an historical novel, set during World War I. And mixed in with both there’s a love story developing as well. It almost feels as if such a mixture shouldn’t have worked, as if it should have been too much of a good thing. But, quite the opposite is true, as far as I’m concerned. This book worked for me on all fronts, and all the various sub genres only enhanced each other.

Donovan, or Mr. Tyrell—take your pick— was a wonderful hero. Charming, smart, and quick witted there is also a darker side to him. He’s a good man working at a time and in a job that require him to sometimes do things that are of a somewhat dubious nature. He is also, for his time, exceptionally open minded and forward thinking. I liked that he didn’t see the world in terms of black and white.

Talk about being ahead of their time; Kate is a most wonderful heroine. She’s smart, independent and talented, not to mention brave. I always love strong female leads, and Kate is most definitely one of those. And yet, she’s not described as a strident, man-hating, activist. Her strength lies in her capacity to be her own woman without robbing herself of her femininity.

Ghosts play a big role in this story, and it was refreshing to read a book in which their presence wasn’t questioned endlessly. It was stunning that those ghosts never once demanded that I suspense my disbelief. In this book they just were. They belonged there.

As for the mystery. I can’t say that the culprit(s?) came as a huge shock to me. But since I also can’t say that diminished my enjoyment of this book, you won’t hear me complain about that. In fact, while the mystery and the violence in the house certainly kept me turning the pages, I found the interactions between the various characters far more fascinating. I was also intrigued by the layers upon layers of intrigue. Politics, war, economics, family relations, and moral choices all played a role in the events unfolding at Blackwater Abbey.

And that brings me to the reason W.C. (William) Ryan is so very high on my list of favourite authors. He doesn’t always provide easy answers. His heroes sometimes have to do less heroic things. But he always gives his readers a multi-layered, well-plotted, and mesmerizingly well-told story. Whether he takes us to Russia under Stalin, Poland during World War II, or England during the First World War, his stories are always a stunning combination of well researched and unputdownable. Always leaving me with something to think about without ever making me feel as if I’m being lectured.

Honestly. I’m not sure I’ve done this book justice with anything I’ve written above, so I plead with you. If you think you might enjoy a well-written historical/ghostly/mysterious/romantic story you really ought to pick up A House of Ghosts now. If you’re anything like me, you’ll have a very hard time putting it down once you start reading.

Finally, here’s my plea to the author: Please, William. Please tell me there’s more to come. Surely Kate and Donovan are good for another adventure or two?