The Wilderness of Ruin

The Wilderness of Ruin by Roseanne Montillo

HarperCollins: 3/17/2015
eBook Review Copy, 320 pages
Hardcover ISBN-13: 9780062273475

In late nineteenth-century Boston, home to Herman Melville and Oliver Wendell Holmes, a serial killer preying on children is running loose in the city—a wilderness of ruin caused by the Great Fire of 1872...
In the early 1870s, local children begin disappearing from the working-class neighborhoods of Boston. Several return home bloody and bruised after being tortured, while others never come back.
With the city on edge, authorities believe the abductions are the handiwork of a psychopath, until they discover that their killer—fourteen-year-old Jesse Pomeroy—is barely older than his victims. The criminal investigation that follows sparks a debate among the world’s most revered medical minds, and will have a decades-long impact on the judicial system and medical consciousness.
The Wilderness of Ruin is a riveting tale of gruesome murder and depravity. At its heart is a great American city divided by class—a chasm that widens in the aftermath of the Great Fire of 1872. Roseanne Montillo brings Gilded Age Boston to glorious life—from the genteel cobblestone streets of Beacon Hill to the squalid, overcrowded tenements of Southie. Here, too, is the writer Herman Melville. Enthralled by the child killer’s case, he enlists physician Oliver Wendell Holmes to help him understand how it might relate to his own mental instability.
With verve and historical detail, Roseanne Montillo explores this case that reverberated through all of Boston society in order to help us understand our modern hunger for the prurient and sensational.

My Thoughts:
 
The Wilderness of Ruin: A Tale of Madness, Fire, and the Hunt for America's Youngest Serial Killer by Roseanne Montillo is a highly recommended historical account of Boston in the late nineteenth century. Although, in reality, there is no frantic search for Jesse Pomeroy in this account, it is, nonetheless, an interesting look at 19th century Boston.

In Boston in the 1870s young boys began to disappear of turn up tortured, beaten and bloody. It turns out that the killer/torturer was 14 year old Jesse Pomeroy, a mentally ill sociopath who was convicted and sentenced to the reform school. After he was released early from the reform school, another boy was tortured and a young girl turned up dead. Pomeroy was convicted and sentenced to hang, but that was changed to life imprisonment. While detailing Pomeroy's life, Montillo includes information about the area, including the history of prisons, the treatment of mentally ill criminals, the fire of 1872, author Herman Melville, and physician Oliver Wendell Holmes.

In The Wilderness of Ruin Montillo succeeds in presenting an expertly researched, riveting look at historical 19th century Boston and some of the people who inhabited the city rather than a frantic true crime search for a psychopath. Anyone who enjoys American history or the history of Boston will likely appreciate The Wilderness of Ruin. While Pomeroy's story is disturbing, it is more interesting when placed in historical context and presented as a part of history. What is less successful is the attempt to draw a comparison between Melville and Pomeroy. I'm not sure that the forced comparison was even necessary.

The book includes black and white illustrations. As is my wont I was pleased to see that in her well documented research Montillo presents a plethora of notes, an extensive bibliography, and index.
 
Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of HarperCollins for review purposes.

The Pocket Wife

The Pocket Wife by Susan Crawford

HarperCollins: 3/17/2015
eBook Review Copy, 320 pages
Hardcover ISBN-13: 9780062362858
http://www.susancrawfordnovelist.com/

A stylish psychological thriller.... in which a woman suffering from bipolar disorder cannot remember if she murdered her friend.
Dana Catrell is shocked when her neighbor Celia is brutally murdered. To Dana’s horror, she was the last person to see Celia alive. Suffering from mania, the result of her bipolar disorder, she has troubling holes in her memory, including what happened on the afternoon of Celia’s death.
Her husband’s odd behavior and the probing of Detective Jack Moss create further complications as she searches for answers. The closer she comes to piecing together the shards of her broken memory, the more Dana falls apart. Is there a murderer lurking inside her . . . or is there one out there in the shadows of reality, waiting to strike again?
A story of marriage, murder, and madness, The Pocket Wife explores the world through the foggy lens of a woman on the edge.

My Thoughts:

The Pocket Wife by Susan Crawford is a highly recommended psychological thriller. The suspense in this debut mystery novel is going to sneak up on you and become quite intense by the end.

After spending an afternoon drinking too much at a neighbor's house, Dana Catrell goes home and naps, only to wake up and discover her neighborhood, Celia Steinhauser, is now dead. Dana was the last known person to see Celia alive, but Dana can't remember much of what happened that afternoon. Between the alcohol and her worsening bi-polar disorder, for which she has stopped taking her meds, Dana is unsure of what is real and what is a by-product of her own psyche. Could she possibly have murdered Celia? She vaguely recalls an argument. She doesn't think she could possibly be capable of murder, but she can't be sure. And what happened to Celia's phone and the picture on it, of Dana's husband leering at another woman?

Detective Jack Moss is investigating, but he's got problems of his own. His second wife just left him. It looks like Dana is the most likely suspect, but Kyle, his son from his first marriage, might be involved with the case in some way. Celia was Kyle's GED teacher. Adding to the suspense is the increasing pressure to hurry and solve the case by the prosecutor's office. Chapters alternate between Dana and Jack. While Dana's mania is building and her thoughts are becoming more scattered, Jack is plodding forward with the case, dreading the clues that seem to point to some involvement by his son.

My appreciation of Crawford's  The Pocket Wife increased as I continued reading. Dana's mental state seems to make her an unreliable narrator, but one who also seems to have an acuity and awareness of what is going on around her. I knew she was heading toward a breakdown because she knows she is. Because of this, there is almost a surreal quality to what Dana sees and how she perceives it. Are the notes she finds real? Did she really see a figure in a hoodie? And is her husband really the total jerk he seems to be? (And he really is a complete jerk.)

The writing quality and descriptiveness is wonderful in this literary thriller. Crawford excels at setting the tone and pace, which helps to slowly build the suspense. This is a character driven mystery and the characters are all well developed, completely unique individuals. I found the conclusion to be satisfying.

Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of HarperCollins for review purposes.

Hush Hush

Hush Hush by Laura Lippman

HarperCollins: 2/24/2015
Advanced Readers Edition, 320 pages
Hardcover ISBN-13: 9780062083425
Tess Monaghan Series #12
http://lauralippman.net/

Private detective Tess Monaghan is back in an absorbing mystery that plunges the new parent into a disturbing case involving murder and a manipulative mother.
On a searing August day, Melisandre Harris Dawes committed the unthinkable: she left her two-month-old daughter locked in a car while she sat nearby on the shores of the Patapsco River. Melisandre was found not guilty by reason of criminal insanity, although there was much skepticism about her mental state. Freed, she left the country, her husband and her two surviving children, determined to start over.
But now Melisandre has returned Baltimore to meet with her estranged teenage daughters and wants to film the reunion for a documentary. The problem is, she relinquished custody and her ex, now remarried, isn’t sure he approves.
Now that’s she’s a mother herself—short on time, patience—Tess Monaghan wants nothing to do with a woman crazy enough to have killed her own child. But her mentor and close friend Tyner Gray, Melisandre’s lawyer, has asked Tess and her new partner, retired Baltimore P.D. homicide detective Sandy Sanchez, to assess Melisandre’s security needs.
As a former reporter and private investigator, Tess tries to understand why other people break the rules and the law. Yet the imperious Melisandre is something far different from anyone she’s encountered. A decade ago, a judge ruled that Melisandre was beyond rational thought. But was she? Tess tries to ignore the discomfort she feels around the confident, manipulative Melisandre. But that gets tricky after Melisandre becomes a prime suspect in a murder.
Yet as her suspicions deepen, Tess realizes that just as she’s been scrutinizing Melisandre, a judgmental stalker has been watching her every move as well. . . .

My Thoughts:
 
Hush Hush by Laura Lippman is the highly recommended twelfth book in the series featuring P.I. Tess Monaghan. Tess is now dealing with juggling work, her relationship with Crow, and the logistics of having a three year old daughter, Carla Scout.

When Tess and her partner,  ex-homicide cop Sandy Sanchez, are asked to help with security by Tyner Gray, her mentor and an attorney who just happens to be married to Tess's Aunt Kitty, it is a given she will say yes. The client just happens to be the infamous Melisandre Harris Dawes. Twelve years earlier Melisandre left her infant daughter in a hot car to die. She was found not guilty by reason of insanity based on evidence that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis at the time. Melisandre left the USA, and her two young daughters in the custody of her ex-husband, Stephen, after her treatment was completed.

Now she has returned to Baltimore along with a documentary filmmaker, Harmony Burns. She commissioned the documentary ostensibly to examine the insanity defense, but in reality she is hoping to capture on film her reunion with her daughters, 17-year-old Alanna and 15-year-old Ruby. The trouble is her ex has remarried, has a new wife and a new infant, and is not interested in allowing the reunion to take place. She doesn't have a clue what her daughters might want. Included at various points within the narrative are several transcripts of Harmony's interviews for the documentary, so you can learn about Melisandre's past infamy and how that notoriety might affect her now.

Melisandre is an intensively disagreeable, haughty character who is used to getting her way and easy to dislike. Tyner seems to jump at her every summons and, strangely enough, she doesn't seem particularly interested in listening to any security measures Tess and Sandy suggest. Melisandre also seems to be manipulating almost everyone around her in some way, but, she also pays very well and Tess can use the income. Then, just as Melisandre starts receiving weird, vaguely threatening notes from a presumed stalker, Tess also starts receiving notes from an unknown source.

While working for Melisandre, Tess is struggling with the demands of being a mother of an active three year old. It is challenging to juggle work and motherhood and Tess doubts her ability to be a good mother. At the same time her relationship with Crow, while good, seems to have all sorts of new food rules now that Carla Scout is here. It is also challenging to do it all - work full time and care for a very active, rather obnoxious child. No wonder Tess questions her ability to do it all.

Lippman keeps the story moving along at a brisk pace, which make reading Hush Hush a pleasure. There isn't any filler here. While it's not an intense, action-packed thriller, it does cover the backstory and the current events without a wasted word. The novel is either covering the people and actions surrounding Melisandre or Tess. For those who don't know Tess or other returning characters, Lippman brings you up to speed quickly. It's not going to matter if this is your first Lippman book featuring Tess or your twelfth. I'm going to have to admit that I like this maturing Tess, who struggles with being a working mother, more than the Tess in earlier books.

Disclosure: I received an advanced reading copy of this book from HarperCollins for the TLC tour of reviews. 

Tour schedule

The Fire Sermon

The Fire Sermon by Francesca Haig

Gallery Books: 3/10/2015
eBook Review Copy, 384 pages
Hardcover ISBN-13: 9781476767185

Four hundred years in the future, the Earth has turned primitive following a nuclear fire that has laid waste to civilization and nature. Though the radiation fallout has ended, for some unknowable reason every person is born with a twin. Of each pair, one is an Alpha—physically perfect in every way; and the other an Omega—burdened with deformity, small or large. With the Council ruling an apartheid-like society, Omegas are branded and ostracized while the Alphas have gathered the world’s sparse resources for themselves. Though proclaiming their superiority, for all their effort Alphas cannot escape one harsh fact: Whenever one twin dies, so does the other.

Cass is a rare Omega, one burdened with psychic foresight. While her twin, Zach, gains power on the Alpha Council, she dares to dream the most dangerous dream of all: equality. For daring to envision a world in which Alphas and Omegas live side-by-side as equals, both the Council and the Resistance have her in their sights.

My Thoughts:

The Fire Sermon by Francesca Haig is a recommended first book to a new YA dystopian series.
 
Centuries ago a nuclear apocalypse destroyed the known world, leaving behind a blighted land. In this new  world all babies are born as twins, one male and one female, one Alpha and one Omega. The Alpha's are the "perfect" twins (either male or female), without any birth defect or mutation. The Omegas are the "weaker" twins, the one with some "defect" that sets them apart. The Omegas are all branded on the forehead and sent away to live in separate hardscrabble communities where, while the Alphas shun them, they also rule the Omegas and require them to pay tithes. If either one of the twins experiences something painful, the other twin will feel the pain too. More importantly, if one of the twins dies, the other will too. Their lives and deaths are inexplicably connected.

Cassandra is an Omega whose defect is that she is a seer, which means she has a kind of psychic ability. In her case she was able to hide her defect until she was 13, at which point her twin, Zach, tricks her into admitting it. Cass goes to live in an Omega hovel while Zach rises to the Alpha Council. Once there he imprisons Cass but sends a seer in who is working for the Alphas, to try and get her to reveal what she sees in her visions, especially wondering if she sees an island where only Omegas live.

There is no doubt that Haig, a poet, has a way with words. Technically her ability to write and capture a scene and the emotions surrounding it add a depth and richness to the narrative which elevates the story about just another YA dystopian novel. It is the quality of writing that kept me reading this novel. This is the first of a planned trilogy and rights have already been purchased by Dreamworks.

That said, I almost stopped reading this novel for several reasons. The abelism, disability discrimination, is disturbing. I was never able to buy into the whole Alpha/Omega system where you send the "defective" twin away, treat them badly, etc, etc, and yet if the Omega twin dies so will the Alpha. It just doesn't make sense to me and I can't suspend my disbelief enough to get all the lingering questions out of my head. I also found the plot rather slow moving. It was difficult to believe in Cass's abilities, which seem to be rather random, present when they are needed for the plot. The big plot twist was not a surprise for me.

So, for me, this is a technically very well written novel with an unbelievable world. YA readers may be able to set aside any niggling disbelief or questions about how this society is set up, but, in the end, I couldn't.


Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Gallery Books for review purposes.

What Stands in a Storm

What Stands in a Storm by Kim Cross

Atria Books: 3/10/2015
eBook Review Copy, 320 pages
Hardcover ISBN-13: 9781476763064

April 27, 2011, marked the climax of a superstorm that saw a record 358 tornadoes rip through twenty-one states in three days, seven hours, and eighteen minutes. It was the deadliest day of the biggest tornado outbreak in recorded history, which saw 348 people killed, entire neighborhoods erased, and $11 billion in damage. The biggest of the tornadoes left scars across the land so wide they could be seen from space. But from the terrible destruction emerged everyday heroes, neighbors and strangers who rescued each other from hell on earth.
With powerful emotion and gripping detail, Cross weaves together the heart-wrenching stories of several characters—including three college students, a celebrity weatherman, and a team of hard-hit rescuers—to create a nail-biting chronicle in the Tornado Alley of America. No, it’s not Oklahoma or Kansas; it’s Alabama, where there are more tornado fatalities than anywhere in the US, where the trees and hills obscure the storms until they’re bearing down upon you. For some, it’s a story of survival, and for others it’s the story of their last hours.
Cross’s immersive reporting and dramatic storytelling sets you right in the middle of the very worst hit areas of Alabama, where thousands of ordinary people witnessed the sky falling around them. Yet from the disaster comes a redemptive message that’s just as real: In times of trouble, the things that tear our world apart also reveal what holds us together.

My Thoughts:

What Stands in a Storm by Kim Cross is a very highly recommended account of the April, 2011 superstorm tornado outbreak in Alabama. If you are a weather geek or live anywhere prone to tornadic activity, this book should be a must-read. Having grown up and lived much of my life in the region that most people think of when they hear "tornado alley," I have plenty of tornado memories, close calls, and stories of my own, but certainly nothing that even reaches close to the heart breaking devastation Cross describes in this account that is an expanded version of an article that first appeared in Southern Living magazine.

In the foreward Rick Bragg writes: "April 27, 2011, became the deadliest day of the biggest tornado outbreak in the history of recorded weather. It was the climax of a superstorm that unleashed terror upon twenty-one states—from Texas to New York—in three days, seven hours, and eighteen minutes. Entire communities were flattened, whole neighborhoods erased, in seconds, by the wind. This was an epic storm in an epic month: April 2011 saw three separate outbreaks and a record 757 tornadoes—nearly half of which (349) occurred during the April 24-27 outbreak that inspired this book."

The book is divided up into three sections: “The Storm,” “The Aftermath” and “The Recovery.” The first section introduces us to the people who will play a prominent role in subsequent stories and provides some information of the history of forecasting. Cross tells the story through the individuals who lived it, including meteorologists, storm chasers, and the individuals caught in the storms, some who survived and some who did not. The book reflects the year of extensive research and interviews Cross undertook in order to present the information and the story in a very approachable, caring, personal way that humanizes the event that claimed 348 lives in 72 hours.

Most of the dramatic footage you see of tornadoes are from the Great Plains, the marked tornado alley, where the wide open relatively flat land allows you to see a storm coming from miles away. In Alabama, the terrain of the land and the amount of trees obscure residents view of the sky. There are also a plethora of old wives tales and folk lore about the movement or directions tornadoes will or won't take that are simply not true. (I've heard many of these over the years and have tried to explain to more than one person that their facts are not true at all.)

This extremely well written account of the storm and the aftermath is heart breaking, but there is a resilience and neighborliness in the South that transcends the devastating aftermath of the storms. Cross captures the essence of this in the August 2011 edition of Southern Living:
"But that same geography that left us in the path of this destruction also created, across generations, a way of life that would not come to pieces inside that storm, nailed together from old-fashioned things like human kindness, courage, utter selflessness, and, yes, defiance, even standing inside a roofless house. As Southerners, we know a man with a chain saw is worth ten with a clipboard, that there is no hurt in this world, even in the storm of the century, that cannot be comforted with a casserole, and that faith, in the hereafter or in neighbors who help you through the here and now, cannot be knocked down."

Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Atria Books for review purposes.

Dead Wake

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson

Crown: 3/10/2015
eBook Review Copy, 448 pages
Hardcover ISBN-13: 9780307408860 http://eriklarsonbooks.com/

On May 1, 1915, with WWI entering its tenth month, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were surprisingly at ease, even though Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone. For months, German U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic. But the Lusitania was one of the era’s great transatlantic “Greyhounds”—the fastest liner then in service—and her captain, William Thomas Turner, placed tremendous faith in the gentlemanly strictures of warfare that for a century had kept civilian ships safe from attack. 

Germany, however, was determined to change the rules of the game, and Walther Schwieger, the captain of Unterseeboot-20, was happy to oblige. Meanwhile, an ultra-secret British intelligence unit tracked Schwieger’s U-boat, but told no one. As U-20 and the Lusitania made their way toward Liverpool, an array of forces both grand and achingly small—hubris, a chance fog, a closely guarded secret, and more—all converged to produce one of the great disasters of history.

It is a story that many of us think we know but don’t, and Erik Larson tells it thrillingly, switching between hunter and hunted while painting a larger portrait of America at the height of the Progressive Era. Full of glamour and suspense, Dead Wake brings to life a cast of evocative characters, from famed Boston bookseller Charles Lauriat to pioneering female architect Theodate Pope to President Woodrow Wilson, a man lost to grief, dreading the widening war but also captivated by the prospect of new love. 

Gripping and important, Dead Wake captures the sheer drama and emotional power of a disaster whose intimate details and true meaning have long been obscured by history.

My Thoughts:

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson is very highly recommended. It is a perfect integration of thorough research and an impeccable presentation which results in a definitive account of the tragedy that manages to present the facts and the personal stories. Most of us probably think we know the story of the sinking of the Lusitania: it was sunk by a German U-boat off the coast of Ireland on May 7, 1915, and propelled the USA into WWI. While those may be facts, as Larson proves, there is much more to the story. Larson's narrative follows the Lusitania, the news of the war, what the intelligence community knew, the U-boats, and the personal stories of passengers, captains, and President Wilson.

Larson writes: "I always had the impression, shared I suspect by many, that the sinking immediately drove President Woodrow Wilson to declare war on Germany, when in fact America did not enter World War I for another two years—half the span of the entire war. But that was just one of the many aspects of the episode that took me by surprise. As I began reading into the subject, and digging into archives in America and Britain, I found myself intrigued, charmed, and moved. In short, I was hooked. What especially drew me was the rich array of materials available to help tell the story in as vivid a manner as possible—such archival treasures as telegrams, intercepted wireless messages, survivor depositions, secret intelligence ledgers, Kapitänleutnant Schwieger’s actual war log, Edith Galt’s love letters, and even a film of the Lusitania’s final departure from New York. Together these made a palette of the richest colors. I can only hope I used them to best effect." 

The cast of historical figures makes Larson's account the substantial, vivid account he was hoping for. The Lusitania was the star of the Cunard fleet and William Thomas Turner was the experienced captain. Captain Walther Schwieger commanded the U-20 who torpedoes the Lusitania. Larsen follows the maneuvers and travels of both the Lusitania and U-20, including a plethora of background information. President Wilson's infatuation with courting Edith Galt provided a distraction that took his attention away from current events. British spymaster Blinker Hall decoded German messages and followed the movements and actions of U-20. Adding to these people is the information on many of the passengers included by Larsen, including Boston bookseller Charles Lauriat, trailblazing architect Theodate Pope, and suffragette Margaret Mackworth.

The attack resulted in the loss of 1,195 passengers and crew. "Of the 791 passengers designated by Cunard as missing, only 173 bodies, or about 22 percent, were eventually recovered, leaving 618 souls unaccounted for. The percentage for the crew was even more dismal, owing no doubt to the many deaths in the luggage room when the torpedo exploded. Of 404 missing crew, only 50 bodies were recovered."

This is much more than a dry presentation of historical facts and research. Larson presents all the historical facts in a very accessible manner that makes the history come alive and explains what really happened to the Lusitania. "In the end, Schwieger’s attack on the Lusitania succeeded because of a chance confluence of forces. Even the tiniest alteration in a single vector could have saved the ship." Larsen's gripping presentation proves his point. In the end, reading this tale of a historical tragedy is just as compelling as any novel. Included is an Epilogue, Personal Effects, Sources and Acknowledgements, Notes, and Bibliography.

Erik Larsen is one of a few authors I know I will automatically buy and read any book they write and Dead Wake underscores why that is true. Bravo, Mr. Larson!


Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Crown Publishing for review purposes.

The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy

The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy by Rachel Joyce

Random House: 3/3/2015
Hardcover, 384 pages
ISBN-13: 9780812996678
http://www.rachel-joyce.co.uk/

From the bestselling author of comes an exquisite love story about Queenie Hennessy, the remarkable friend who inspired Harold’s cross-country journey.
A runaway international bestseller, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry followed its unassuming hero on an incredible journey as he traveled the length of England on foot—a journey spurred by a simple letter from his old friend Queenie Hennessy, writing from a hospice to say goodbye. Harold believed that as long as he kept walking, Queenie would live. What he didn’t know was that his decision to walk had caused her both alarm and fear. How could she wait? What would she say? Forced to confront the past, Queenie realizes she must write again.
In this poignant parallel story to Harold’s saga, acclaimed author Rachel Joyce brings Queenie Hennessy’s voice into sharp focus. Setting pen to paper, Queenie makes a journey of her own, a journey that is even bigger than Harold’s; one word after another, she promises to confess long-buried truths—about her modest childhood, her studies at Oxford, the heartbreak that brought her to Kingsbridge and to loving Harold, her friendship with his son, the solace she has found in a garden by the sea. And, finally, the devastating secret she has kept from Harold for all these years.
A wise, tender, layered novel that gathers tremendous emotional force, The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy underscores the resilience of the human spirit, beautifully illuminating the small yet pivotal moments that can change a person’s life.

My Thoughts:

The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy by Rachel Joyce is a very highly recommended novel  in which a woman in hospice is examining her life. This is very much a companion novel to The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry and Queenie's reflections will likely be appreciated more by those who have read about Harold's journey first. Queenie Hennessy, the woman who was the destination of Harold Fry's 600 mile pilgrimage, has entered St. Bernadine's Hospice in northeast England. She is near the end. Cancer has destroyed her throat and jaw. When Harold sets out on his journey, writing and telling Queenie to wait for him to arrive, it gives her and the other residents something to anticipate before their deaths. This is Queenie's story.

Sister Mary Inconnue suggests that Queenie write a final letter to Harold, one in which she reveals all her thoughts and secrets to Harold. Confession is good for the soul, she is told, so she sets out to write her story. She can confess her love for him, tell him the things she held back from him and never discussed or confessed. She can tell him about where she ended up after she left, about her beach house and the garden by the sea. As Queenie writes the things she needs to say to Harold, we learn more about her, past and present. The past is filled with regrets and some pleasures. The present is with an assortment of odd, endearing companions at the hospice. They all know why they are there, which makes their time together now more poignant. Queenie knows the end is very near.

As I now expect from Rachel Joyce, the writing is exceptional. The story is wonderfully wrought and irresistible, the presentation and pacing is impeccable.  Queenie's story alone is compelling, but underneath the surface, there is a literary depth to the narrative that takes it above and beyond a simple recalling of events in a life. There is a twist at the end which surprised me and provided a perfect conclusion.

While I loved this novel, it is very much based on loving The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. The only drawback to The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy is that it very much depends upon you knowing Harold Fry's story first, which will give Queenie's story a context and background. But, if you enjoyed The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry as much as I did, you will want to read The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy.

And don't skip Joyce's novel  Perfect. Rachel Joyce is now moving to the upper echelon of the list of authors I will automatically buy anything they write.

Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Random House for review purposes.