I've succumbed to yet more bookish temptation. I didn't even try to resist actually. I knew I would be interested in S.J. Bolton's Sacrifice and I started reading the moment I brought the book home from the library. How could I resist the description, "a bone-chilling and spell-binding debut that will grip readers from the beginning to the startling end"? I just couldn't. The story is set on the "rocky, windswept Shetland Islands, a hundred miles from the northeastern tip of Scotland". I don't know about anyone else but I tend to search out books with a setting in mind and this one is a perfect sort of setting for me. Of course when I finish it may not be so appealing if the story does indeed have a startling ending.
The book begins with Tora Hamilton burying her beloved and very dead horse Jamie. As she digs into the peaty ground her mini-excavator catches on something and she stops to investigate. Whatever it is, it's wrapped in linen, and though she knows she should call the police ('crime scene' flashes across her mind) she cuts away linen to reveal a human foot. A woman's foot. Initially she and everyone else thinks the remains are those of a bog body centuries old, but it's not long before its decided the remains were buried far more recently. Tora is an obstetrician and she'll get pulled into the mystery when her expertise is required during the post-mortem. The story reminds me a bit of Erin Hart's mysteries, which are set in Ireland and feature a forensic pathologist. Bolton doesn't hold anything back, right from the start she grabs you, and even her (or Tora's really) description of the process of a decaying body is scarily fascinating (I wouldn't have thought so when I was younger). The story is also based on local folklore and I'm looking forward to reading this one!
I brought home a couple of other books as well.
Alexia's Secrets by Una-Mary Parker. This is published by Severn House Publishers, which seems to put out a lot of historical fiction. I'm wondering if they deal primarily with libraries, as my library has a fair amount of their backlist, and I've never seen these titles in my local bookstore. I've got a couple of their titles at home now, both appear to be historical romances set in the interwar period in England. They sound good, though I'm not familiar with the authors, so I don't know what the writing will be like. Has anyone read anything by this publisher?
An Expert in Murder: A Josephine Tey Mystery by Nicola Upson. I've heard good things about this mystery. It's set in 1930s London featuring a real-life Josephine Tey solving a fictional murder.
Well, I did say I wanted to read more mysteries this year, though a lot of what I'm reading seems to be of the thriller-ish type. I seem to getting in my quota of this type of book lately.
I also grabbed the August issue of BookPage. I'll be getting in line for these:
A Manuscript of Ashes by Antonio Munoz Molina. This has been translated by Edith Grossman. I've noticed lately there seem to be more translated works from Spanish popping up, which is a good thing. BookPages says, "Munoz Molina's novel is a dense, at times devilishly complex tale that yields its secrets slowly, all the way up to the astonishing final pages. It's a challenging metafictional work that demands close reading, but one that in the end will gratify those willing to make the commitment".
The Seamstress of Hollywood by Erin McGraw. "McGraw has taken the skeleton of her own grandmother's story and turned it into a frant and engaging depiction of one young woman's attempt to reinvent herself".
The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry. "Part historical novel, part romance, part mystery". The reviewer said if you're going to read just one book this summer, this should be it.
The Glimmer Palace by Beatrice Colin. This is set during the heyday of the Weimar Republic.
White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson by Brenda Wineapple. "The first book to portray one of the most remarkable friendships in American letters, that of Emily Dickinson—recluse, poet—and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, minister, literary figure, active abolitionist."