PRIVATE RITES
Julia Armfield
A trio brought together by blood. The only thing holding them together. The only thing holding them accountable. If not for blood, they wouldn’t be here now. They would’ve gone long ago.
Isla is a therapist, unconvinced she has a purpose. Even as she is helping her clients, she feels invisible and ineffective. She spends her days dreaming in her therapy sessions of clients that recover, clients that move on, clients that don’t need her.
Irene is angry and has always been. Frustrated with herself, more so with others, despondent and full of conviction. She is oftentimes accused of being angry even when she feels she isn’t. There is a hardness to her that makes loving her difficult and altogether not worth the effort.
Agnes the youngest, born of a different mother. Unattached, unmoored. Bends with the wind and sets sail on rocky waters, which is at this very moment, a detriment.
The earth is in a moment of watershed. It’s been raining for what feels like years. The sisters gather at the hospital bed of their dying father. Who to them has died at least once before. All the sisters grieve more for the living than the dead. His passing, merely a rainy day in June.
Beautiful writing. In the beginning, I felt a bit overwhelmed by the words. The sentences were too rich to absorb. I read the beginning several times thinking the entire text would be in a way, indigestible. But Armfield moved on and so did I. The poetry of the beginning lasted throughout the novel. But was interlaced with easier-to-manage latent words. Which is the only way I was able to finish the book.
Armfield has been telling the same story in all the books written by her that I’ve had the pleasure of reading. Simply changing the characters’ names and introducing settings that mirror her intention. It is a story of grieving those who are still living. Missing the ones who are near you but somehow somewhere far away. Not seeing the ones in front of you because you’re too busy wishing they were someone else. Not loving and accepting yourself because you’re too busy trying to be anyone but you.
Ghosts. Living.
I find that I appreciate Armfield’s novels more than I enjoy them. They almost feel inert. Unalive. A little selfish, taking more than giving. They are contemplative, and thoughtful, and I’ll always recommend them. This one is no different.
Out tomorrow! Make sure you pick up your copy where books are sold or borrowed.
Thanks to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for the advanced copy of the audiobook!
PRIVATE RITES…⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
PICTURES OF YOU
Emma Grey
“Whenever I’m alone with you, you make me feel like I am whole again.”
The Cure
A life forsaken you have no memory of living. A husband dead you don’t remember loving. Your future, is suddenly at the mercy of a person you don’t remember being.
Should you make yourself smaller to fit in the spaces that never allowed you to be the breadth of who you were meant to be?
Evie wakes up in the hospital after a devastating accident that took the life of her husband. She wakes up with no memory of the last decade. She thinks she is 16, in high school, determined to not marry, to be on her own, to live a life her parents would be proud of, that she would be proud of.
In reality, Evie’s life is very different than what her sixteen-year-old self wanted. She started out with dreams of independence, in reality, she is bound lock and key to a man she doesn’t remember marrying. Her easiest hello and hardest goodbye, but it’s not him she grieves. It is the dream of her life she has trouble letting go of.
Enter Drew…
How do you write the ending to a story that someone else has written? All at once every dream you gave up on over the course of your lifetime seems attainable and worth fighting for.
If you were given the chance to rewrite your life, would you? If you were given the chance to repaint the masterpiece that is your life, would you use the same colors?
I didn’t need this to be a love story. I didn’t want it to have a happily ever after ending. I wanted Evie’s start to be her own. I wanted her to claim what she lost. I wanted a recovery story. But this is Emma Grey, and her strong suit is romance.
Happily ever after is what I got.
Maybe I feel it is romantic enough for Evie to rediscover herself. To fall in love with her life all over again. Maybe I’m tired of the love interest coming in and being the savior. Maybe I wanted her to save herself.
This is fiction after all.
PICTURES OF YOU might be just what you need from your reading right now. It’s well-written, there is strong character development and an unforgettable sequence of events. An unraveling you find yourself as the reader twisted in.
Perhaps I’ll revisit this book when it is not the same week as a presidential election. When my spirits are high, the sun is shining, and when I can look at the bright side of being loved and swallowed whole, tip to tip.
Thanks to Librofm for the advanced listening copy!
PICTURES OF YOU…⭐️⭐️⭐️
DEVILS KILL DEVILS
Johnny Compton
The mask you’re wearing is hiding your mouth, but showing your eyes, and they tell me everything I need to know about you.
Sarita has had a friend for quite some time. She doesn’t know his name, but she calls him Angelo. One day Angelo kills someone very close to her and she must consider that he may not be a friend at all, but something far more nefarious than she ever knew. Far more than she ever expected.
To find out what or who he is she must first admit to some hard truths. That may take more time than Sarita has. Will she find out who he is before she or someone she loves dies again?
True Southern Gothic horror in its finest form. From a much-needed, much-appreciated new voice, Johnny Compton.
(This is his second book. Can I still call him new?)
I loved this on audiobook. There is such a sinister experience in walking around my house with headphones on, completely absorbed in the story, becoming a little devil myself, and no one around me knows any better. Which is exactly the way it should be.
I was absorbed in the storyline, and it provided a hellish escape from my everyday chores and responsibilities. Doing the dishes never felt like such a guilty pleasure. If you couldn’t tell already, I loved this audiobook. I couldn’t wait for this one and now I can’t wait for the next one. Truly a superior horror reading experience.
Compton has a magnificent way of combining classic and well-known tropes of yesterday with the real-life horrors of today. I appreciate his writing, and love his perspective, and I can’t believe I get to experience both in the horror genre.
One you can’t miss!
Thanks to Netgalley, Macmillan Audio, and Tor Nightfire for the advanced copy of the audiobook and a fresh physical copy that I can hold onto!
DEVILS KILL DEVILS…⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
