Fresh on the heels of finishing both Pharos by Alice Thompson and Stolen by Lucy Christopher (finally!), I discovered another book, Plain Kate by Erin Bow, waiting for me in my mailbox on Saturday and I couldn’t resist starting it.

Pharos was an intriguing read. The best part about the book was the prose. It was evocative, (usually) spare, and eloquent. The story itself wasn’t bad, but I still need to digest it a bit before I try to express my opinions coherently.

Stolen. Oh, Stolen. What can I say about that book? Well, first I’d say that it’s agonizingly slow in the beginning and although it does pick up somewhat around the later middle and end, it’s still relatively slow throughout. That said, I did like the story. Basically, I kinda wish it was written by someone else. But that one is also digesting so I can write a cogent review.

I’m about two thirds of the way through Plain Kate and I’m enjoying the journey. There is so much to love about this book so far: it’s a fairytale without gratuitous sugarcoating, there’s talk of witchcraft, there’s a blood-sucking ghost, and the protagonist isn’t handed all of her heart’s desires on a silver platter—she actually has to work for it. That said, I’ve spotted a couple of (minor) problems which I’ll address in the review, but as of now, this one’s a winner. (I’m totally in love with Taggle, Kate’s cat, because he’s just plain hilarious.)

Assuming I finish Plain Kate today (which I’m positive I will), I’ll take in a few short stories or possibly read one of the new books that came home with me today.

And speaking of new books, I’m now of the belief that it’s darn near impossible to leave the house without coming back with a bucket-load of books. This morning while grocery shopping, I noticed that they were having a 75% off sale, so I decided to rummage through the remains and have now added 3 new books (technically 4, but one of them is a craft book) to my library. I’m not really complaining though because they were only a buck apiece.

I hadn’t realized I’d picked up two books by the same author, but I’m hoping that I really like her style because she’s a new to me author (both of them actually).  Also, I hadn’t realized that The Wire in the Blood is the second book of a series, so I’ll have to scout out the first one before reading it.

If anyone has read Flynn or McDermid or these books specifically, I’d love to hear about your experiences with them.

Happy Tuesday! It’s time again for another edition of Teaser Tuesdays…

Here are the rules:

• Grab your current read
• Let the book fall open to a random page
• Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• You also need to share the title of the book where you get your teaser from…that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given
• Please avoid spoilers

This week’s teaser:

"He had not looked at her closely until now. And he saw true hatred in her eyes, unforgiving, murderous hatred." pg. 191 East of Eden by John Steinbeck

I’m going to admit something: I don’t remember reading anything by Steinbeck. It doesn’t mean I haven’t read anything by him (actually, I’m 99% sure I did, at least for one of my myriad Literature classes), I just don’t remember it. And lately I’ve been craving more substantial reads–books that make my mind dig deep and peer beneath the surface–and this book was just sitting on my shelf and I figured, allegory…that’ll make my mind start looking for a shovel.

Every so often I come across a scene that is so potent that it lingers long after I’ve finished reading it. That’s where the idea for this feature came from. Each Monday I intend to share with you a memorable scene from one (or more) of my reads.

If you like the idea I invite you to join me in sharing a memorable scene on your blog and link to it in a comment or just share the scene in the comment itself. (Please remember to include the book’s title and author so our wishlists and TBR stacks can grow. Also, if your scene is a spoiler, please clearly mark it as one.)

This week’s scene comes from Pharos: A Ghost Story by Alice Thompson.

The next day the pain from the burn developed into a fever and she was forced to retire to bed. Late afternoon, someone knocked on the door and she lifted her head from her pillow to see the young assistant keeper enter. Her heart sank. His looks disconcerted her. He had a very still face with green eyes that reminded her of a snake or wild creature, something from the sea. His hands moved delicately, like anemones. As if they had a life of their own, quite apart from the rest of his body, which was lithe and fluid like an acrobat’s. His body looked as if it were always alert, as if it were about to jump up and do a somersault in the air, that sitting down never quite satisfied it. But he was sitting down in front of her in the small, round room, on a wooden chair, his hands nervously twisting in his lap.

She wondered what she looked like to him. But she hardly cared and neither, it seemed, did he, as he was acting as if it were quite normal for him to come into a strange, ill woman’s bedroom and make conversation.

‘Would you like to see a trick? It might help while away the time for you.’

She tried not to smile. Being cooped up in a lighthouse must make people strange, she thought. She nodded.

He bent towards her and at first she thought he was coming towards her to kiss her, until she saw him keeping on bending, clasping his hands over his head. He moved himself over and round until he was a circle in the middle of the room. He rolled around in the center of the room like a wheel.

‘That’s not a trick,’ she said rather disappointedly.

Then she watched as suddenly, to her astonishment, he seemed to catch fire. Flames were coming out of his body as he was turning, now on the spot, as if he had been transformed into a Catherine wheel. He lit up the room in the encroaching twilight. Bright red, orange flames spun out of his curved body as he turned and she could no longer see where his head met his hands or even his body at all. He had turned into a wheel of fire.

-pg 26-7

This book had been sitting on my TBR stack for a while and for some strange reason, I was struck with a desire to read it. So far, Thompson’s writing has a tactile quality to it, which engages all the senses. It really is rather beautiful. The story is shaping up to be a mind-bending one as clues have been dropped that not everything on Jacob’s Rock is as it seems.

The short story Weights and Measures by Jodi Picoult can be found in Stories: All-New Tales Edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio.

Short Synopsis

A man and his wife who are mourning the loss of their young daughter begin to grow apart in a disturbing way.

My Thoughts on Weights and Measures

I’m probably the only person on planet Earth who hasn’t read something written by Jodi Picoult, so when I saw that she was one of the contributors I was excited. This would be a good way to test the waters, get a feel for her style…and I wasn’t disappointed.

First there is the prose style: smooth and lyrical. Her story was most definitely a character study and not only did each of them come alive, their grief did as well. It’s easy to feel the realness of this story.

And then the fantasy element sneaks up on you. When you realize what’s happening to the man and the woman, you’re forced to pause and let it soak in. Yes, the fantasy element was woven quite nicely into the tapestry of the story.

When I finished reading, the bittersweet story haunted me. It’s beautiful, and somewhat chilling, though nothing overtly frightening actually happens.

Now I know I’ve waited too long to read Picoult. She has officially been moved up on my author wish list.

Final Rating: A

Every so often I come across a scene that is so potent that it lingers long after I’ve finished reading it. That’s where the idea for this feature came from. Each Monday I intend to share with you a memorable scene from one (or more) of my reads.

If you like the idea I invite you to join me in sharing a memorable scene on your blog and link to it in a comment or just share the scene in the comment itself. (Please remember to include the book’s title and author so our wishlists and TBR stacks can grow. Also, if your scene is a spoiler, please clearly mark it as one.)

This week’s scene comes from Broken by Karin Fossum, a unique thriller/mystery novel translated to English from its original Norwegian.

I am sitting in front of the computer. My fingers skate quickly across the keyboard. There are times it becomes flexible like a ribbon in my hands and I can bend and twist the language any way I please. Alvar comes up behind me, shifting nervously from one foot to the other.

“Are you really going to burden me with your sleeping problems and anxiety?” I turn around and give him a somewhat patronizing look.

“Everyone struggles with anxiety,” I say. “Can you feel how it eats away at you? In here, behind your ribs?” I tap my chest with my finger. “A cowardly rat sits in here gnawing its way through your ribs. It hurts.”

“But I’m a decent man,” he says. “I always keep my affairs in order.”

I turn off the computer, then turn around in my chair and look at him again. “Yes, that’s true. At the same time, you’re all alone. It’s dangerous to go through life without someone you can lean on. In certain circumstances it might well prove to be extremely dangerous for you.”

“In certain circumstances,” he echoes, “that you are about to put me in?”

I get up from my desk and go to my armchair, sit down, and light up a cigarette.

“What will be will be,” I say to him over my shoulder. He follows me. He stands with his hands folded. It is gray outside the windows. Heavy and wet, no hint of wind or movement.

“That rat,” I continue, “that gnaws at us all, it never feels satisfied. We constantly seek relief in every way possible. And on rare occasions it allows us a brief respite. Do you know what it’s like when everything suddenly falls into place, when that feeling floods your body? It’s like taking off from a great height. We float through the air and everything around us is warm. For a few brief seconds we think how great life can be. You’ll have such moments too, I promise you.”

He sits down on the sofa, on the edge as usual.

“Are people supposed to settle for a few brief moments of happiness?” he asks, dismayed.

“That’s a good question. It’s up to each and every one of us to decide. The majority spend most of their day looking for some kind of relief. A cigarette, a bottle of red wine. A Cipralex, going for a run. I won’t deprive you of sleep, Alvar, I promise you. But you have come to my house. I have seen you close up, and some events are inevitable. At this point in the story I’m no longer free; there is a clear structure and I have to work within it.”

-pg 55-6 (from the ARC)

Let me back up a little bit and mention that this is a book within a book. The author sees a line of people outside her door, each of them waiting to have their story told.

One evening, the author is awoken by one of those characters who pays her a visit and begs her to write his story because he’s worried she’ll die before she gets a chance to. However, he’s cut in front of another young woman holding a possibly-dead baby. Despite this, the author is somehow engaged by him and decides to start writing his story. During the process, like whenever she takes a break to eat or sleep or write letters to people, he pops in to chat her up about the progress of his story.

Frankly, that entire premise is the reason I decided to read this book. It sounded so fascinating that I couldn’t pass it up and so far, I’m not disappointed. This is more of a character study than a typical thriller/mystery, but I enjoy that. It’s pace is leisurely, but not slow and a few of the passages so far has made me stop to think…about life in general and writing in particular.

The book is scheduled for publication on August 1st, 2010, but it’s available for pre-order on Amazon.