Bookshelf

While we're building the site, why not check out these other interesting reads...

Room by Emma Donoghue

If an entire novel narrated in the first person present by a five-year-old sounds wearisome, you might just be mistaken. Room by Emma Donoghue requires some patience at times, but given the subject this seems entirely appropriate: Jack has lived his entire life in the tiny cell where his mother has been held captive for many years. He is highly literate (for his age) and survives on a diet of imagination and meagre rations, with no real concept of the outside world.

Haunting from the outset and yet often delightful, Donoghue's Room is a surprisingly enjoyable place to visit. Jack's voice is incredibly vivid and for the most part rings true, with only occasional wobbles of authenticity. There are certainly a few narrative missteps an editor should have seized upon, but Room is a highly ambitious novel that brings something very interesting to the table. Definitely worth reading.

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Annabel by Kathleen Winter

Vivid, poetic and caustic: The story of a cross-gendered child born to a tightly-knit community in the icy extremes of Labrador. Jacinta and Treadway take the decision to raise their child as a male, but it is a secret which will haunt the family for decades. Frozen within the deceits and expectations of Wayne's hyper-masculine life, his other-self, Annabel, longs to be set free.

Kathleen Winter's novel is breathtaking in its acute perception of its characters, landscapes and cultures; all of which are drawn with a haunting and beautiful prose. The story challenges us to find villains or hero/ines; casting tragedy as the epic misadventure of good intention. Annabel is a first-class novel which consistently defies expectation; unforgettable.

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Harbor by John Ajvide Lindqvist

Following Let the Right One In and Handling the Undead John Ajvide Lindqvist continues to produce his sophisticated takes on horror staples with Harbor. The story follows Anders, who at the beginning of the novel is a young father living an idyllic life with his wife and their daughter, Maja. When Maja disappears in very mysterious circumstances on the strange island of Domarö, where Anders himself grew up, his life and his marriage falls to pieces. Several years later, haunted by his own demons of guilt, grief and despair, Anders returns to Domarö and begins to unravel its chilling mysteries.

I will admit that while I'm not an avid reader of genre fiction, I find Lindqvist is consistently smart, interesting and refreshing. Always reliable for a more cerebral engagement with a horror theme, Harbor is not disappointing. Well-rounded characters inhabit a Sweden where the supernatural has subtle introductions and is presented with a degree of credibility. The slow burn of the haunting presence of the island is effective, and while Harbor might not be quite on par with Lindqvist's previous works, the novel is significantly more eerie with some very enjoyable periods of suspense. The conclusion is a little anticlimactic, but overall a pretty good creepy read.

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