What I’m reading

Little Eve by Catriona Ward

This is the second book that I’ve read by Catriona Ward; the other I’ve read is The Last House On Needless Street. In both stories, I started thinking that I knew what was going on. This level of perceived predictability led to low engagement in the story; this is certainly more true for Last House than it was for Little Eve, when I started to catch onto Ms. Ward’s style. However, despite that, both stories were interesting enough to keep me reading until the Turn. As the Turn unfolded, that magical moment when a good writer can take the story you thought you were reading and turn it into something extraordinary, I realized that I had been wrong about what I thought was going on in the story. The twists in Ms. Ward’s stories surprise, delight, and horrify. Not only that, but I believe that they can be enjoyed, even more so, on a second read, as you scour between the lines for what you might have missed the first time.

Leeches by Hiron Ennes

This is Hirron Ennes’s first novel. If this is demonstrative of the level of quality that from them, they can expect for me to become a Constant Reader. I’m about 100 pages into the story, so about a third of the way through. Though I often find first person perspective to be too limiting to be engaging enough to sustain a novel-length story, Ennes has found a way to add a dimension of complexity to this otherwise limiting perspective. I’d want to finish the story just to have some explanation and closure of that aspect of the story; when you add in the actual plot of the story, it’s hard to put down. A jacket blurb puts it best: ”…think Wuthering Heights… with worms!”

Something in the Water by Catherine Steadman

This is my first Catherine Steadman novel. The title and cover intrigued me. The description of the book mostly made it sound like a romance novel, focusing on the relationship of the main character, Erin, and new husband Mark. However, the jacket description takes a dark turn with the last sentence, saying that the couple finds something in the water while scuba diving. Jacket blurbs mostly describe it as a thriller, which is a little outside my usual genre of horror, but I try to vary my literary diet so I don’t end up bloated on the same old blood and guts.