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    Grow Forest

    Grow Forest

    Education and Games

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    Ah, the forest, such a magical place! In this particular forest, Banja and her friends are waiting...

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Lindsay (1717 KP) rated Shadow of Murder (A Mac Faraday Mystery #14) in Books

Jun 7, 2022  
Shadow of Murder (A Mac Faraday Mystery #14)
Shadow of Murder (A Mac Faraday Mystery #14)
Lauren Carr | 2022 | Mystery
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Are you looking for some fun cold cases to solve? Maybe even a bit of mystery to solve with a twist. Lauren Carr's latest book "Shadow of Murder" does just that. We get a prologue full of mystery and murder. You will be wondering how a gunman kills an entire family. Is it real, or is it not. You will have to read or listen to find out for yourself.

This book had me going and wondering who would kill a whole family, including a law officer. There are a few main characters. We meet two of them right at the beginning of the story. Erica and Dusty.

I love the fact that mysteries are going on throughout the book. I enjoy that Erica and her friends seem to need to help the new local deputy chief. David gets some time with his wife and newborn. I recall David meeting a woman and a little boy I thought was introduced to him as his son?

Mac is pulled into a Chao once he returns from Europe with Archie. His son Tristain brings to life the disappearance of a missing person, a woman named Konnor Langston. Why did she disappear? It goes on from there. There are many mysteries and curses and stories of witches as the book goes on. I wonder who killed Erica's parents and why? Who taking advance of Larry? Why were Erica Hart's parents killed, and will Erica get justice for her childhood friend Konnor?

If you are looking for a good versus evil? This book has it. Once a dark shadow tries to harm Erica. Dusty seems to fall for a bird guiding him to help Erica. Will Erica and Dusty get together? There may be some romance for more than just two folks in the book. How will Dusty's father-law decide to find some love as well? There seems to be the talk of angels and demons? They're a bit supernatural in this book; that is a nice change to the story.
  
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Acanthea Grimscythe (300 KP) rated The Haunting of Hill House in Books

May 16, 2018  
The Haunting of Hill House
The Haunting of Hill House
Shirley Jackson | 2009 | Fiction & Poetry, Horror
6
7.5 (29 Ratings)
Book Rating
Several years ago, I watched The Haunting (1999). It was not an intentional watching of the movie and I actually forgot that I had watched it shortly after. Now and then, I would recall a scene and try to remember where it was from without much luck. At that time, I was not aware that it was an adaptation of Shirley Jackson's novel, The Haunting of Hill House. In fact, it wasn't until more recently that I returned to my long forgotten passion for the written word. In a way, I'm a bit glad that I read the book - or in this case, listened to it.

One of the largest determining factors for me when I'm listening to an audio book is the quality of the narration, and in this case I highly suggest the version narrated by David Warner over Bernadette Dunne. Warner's voice is far gentler on the ears and his heavy English lends an utterly unique feeling to the story. I only listened to a sample of Dunne's version and found it very painful on my ears. Warner's reading is published by Phoenix, whereas Dunne's is from Blackstone Audio. Considering that I use audiobooks in order to help me relax along the hour long commute to and from work, the quality of the recording is vital to whether or not I am capable of stomaching the book (and for this reason, I nearly dropped House).

The Haunting of Hill House was published in 1959 by Viking, six years before Shirley Jackson's death. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_Jackson"; target="new">The book itself is lauded as a classic example of haunted house fiction, earning praise from my all time favorite author, Stephen King.</a> It is a story in which four individuals take up summer residence in the famed Hill House, where they embark upon an unexpectedly brief journey to learn more about the supernatural - and perhaps even about their own selves. Each character is riddled with their own flaws and, to my great surprise, are not filled with the incessantly needy yearning for romance that is so common in other books.

I can also admit that none of the characters are particularly likable. The character that I find most tolerable is Eleanor Vance, our star for this read who clearly suffers from mental illness. Given the time in which the book takes place, it is almost heartbreaking how little others are able to pick up regarding her mental state and, when they finally do, the disdain they treat her with is extremely painful to watch. My least favorite of the cast is Mrs. Montague and her planchette. Mrs. Montague seems rather incapable of caring about anyone other than herself and goes to great lengths to undermine her husband. Her short fuse makes her utterly unbearable and, were I to cross paths with her, I can't promise that I wouldn't want to throttle her.

As far as the haunting of the manse itself goes, there's very little to it. While Jackson's prose is meticulous and gorgeous to behold, at no point did I feel any sense of unease. Much of what is meant to be unsettling is not supernatural in origin, but derived from the interactions of the characters. In a way, the reader is simply a passenger along for the ride in Eleanor's descent into madness, and it is from this that unease can be felt than by anything ethereal.

I enjoyed The Haunting of Hill House and I find it to be a pleasant read (or in this case, listen), but it is not among my favorites when it comes to horror. I felt no real need to keep going and none of the edge-of-your-seat anxiety that horror fans like myself thrive on. It is certainly a beautiful book and Hill House has a hauntingly sad past, but other than that I did not find the story to be overly impressive. While some of this could be attributed to the fact that I had seen the movie in the past, I don't really feel that is the case - especially since I seem to be in agreement with several other readers.