Amalia Gkavea

‘'The children of Lucifer are often beautiful.''

Hotels are fascinating places. Well, they can be quite a nightmare if you're careless while booking or if the residents are a bunch of barbarians (which is often the case...) but under normal circumstances, hotels hide hundreds of secrets within their rooms. And the guests just have to mingle with each other. And who knows where all this mingling will lead? In the societies of the past, it would lead to certain, shall we say, questionable situations. And murder. This is the world of Bertram's Hotel.

Our beloved Miss Marple returns to the hotel of her youth to find that very little has remained the same. The world is supposedly progressing but sometimes, this progress is quite dubious. Agatha Christie creates a tangled web of doppelgangers, brave women who love adventure, despairing heiresses, playboys, broken relationships and, obviously, deadly secrets in what I consider to be one of Queen Agatha's finest moments.

The 2007 ITV adaptation, starring the inimitable Geraldine McEwan is exceptional. Quite different from the original material but beautiful nonetheless. Not to mention that Ed Stoppard plays Ladislaus Malinowski and call me shallow, but hey...

‘'I learned (what I suppose I really knew already) that one can never go back, that one should not ever try to go back - that the essence of life is going forward. Life is really a One Way Street, isn't it?''

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/

‘'A house is family. A house is history. A house is a body. One subject that comes up again and again in horror, both new and classic, is houses. Haunted houses, home invasions, axe murderers lurking in the attics and chasing us into the basements. Our homes are a site of endless terror.We are afraid that someone will come into our house when we don't want them to. We are afraid that the thing we fear is already inside. We are afraid that we can't make it leave. We are afraid that the lock on the door will not hold.''

What is it about darkness that makes it easier for us to confess and entrust our deepest fears and thoughts to others and, let us not forget to ourselves? Surely many of us fear it but confession is easier when the lights are out. And what about that moment when a certain thought crosses our mind: our house seems a strange cage when the occasional power- cut takes place. Our house isn't recognizable anymore. It's just us within a semi-familiar darkness. What happens then?

'Such secrets you would need to swallow. Such masks you would need to wear.''‘

Kirsty Logan needs no introductions. In her new exquisite book, an author finds shelter in Iceland, and in the process of writing, uncovers thoughts and feelings relevant to the stories within the story in a brilliant framing device that elevates Things We Say In The Dark to the highest level of literary quality. The collection is divided into three parts that, to me, represent three of our greatest fears. The House, our shelter and, sometimes, our prison. The Child, where a strange, dark and very realistic depiction of motherhood permeates each story, and The Past, the most frightening of all our daily demons that keep us company.

Fear and uncertainty are two major themes. Both come from the way women have been treated and ‘'categorized'' throughout the ages, traps that we have yet to exterminate once and for all. Fear of what others may think of us. Fear of not following the norms imposed by each one of our societies, fear of being unable to be ourselves. Fear of being silenced. Fear of being raped and brutalized. Fear of disappearing under the pressure. Fear of not being able to find our steps in a world that lifts up signs of warnings and orders in every step of the way.

The entire volume is a work of Art, a Gospel of dark fairy tales that reveal an honest, surreal and oh, so real image of women's lives. It would be impossible to include every story here but allow me to refer to the ones who will haunt my mind forever.

‘'I made you house after house after house. But each time it was too small, too losable, too easily destroyed.''

Last One to Leave Please Turn Off the Lights: The fears of women who struggle to build a home to satisfy their partners, or their friends until the gold ashes of a pure soul turn a house into a golden cage.

‘'A woman always dressed in green, who wore strange jewellery, rings made of glass she found washed up on the beach. She had green eyes and long black hair - black as winter night, black like it was always wet.''

In Things My Wife and I Found Hidden in Our House, two women discover strange objects belonging to a suspected witch. This story reminded me of the vast Scottish tradition and mystical folklore.

‘'On late summer days Jay and Yara used to go exploring, eating blackberries straight from the bush, even though Mam said they were covered in fox piss. They'd stay out collecting berries so late that the sun went down and the light dropped blue and the owls swooped over their heads, making them run shrieking with laughter through the bramble-choked lanes.''

My House Is Out Where the Lights End is the epitome of rural mystery, the very definition of Folk Horror.

Sleep, you Black-Eyed Pig, Fall Into a Deep Pit of Ghosts is a sad, haunting story of night and love and everything breaking, set in a Finnish cabin.

Girls Are Always Hungry When all the Men Are Bite-Size: A story of facades, seances, lies and desire that starts in a strangely sensual tone and soon becomes a true manifestation of threat and punishment.

Birds Fell From the Sky and Each One Spoke in Your Voice: What can I possibly say about this one? A haunting family story, 90s nostalgia, inertia and the returning nightmares of a drama. A masterpiece.

We Can Make Something Grow Between the Mushrooms and the Snow: A couple tries to find the perfect home, but they cannot agree. The search for a house becomes a metaphor for the lack of communication, of understanding. Ultimately, for the lack of love.

Half Sick of Shadows: What seems to be an ordinary family's trip in a Medieval theme-park turns into an unimaginable plan with a shuttering closure.

The World's More Full of Weeping Than You Can Understand: In this outstanding story named after the gorgeous Stolen Child by William Butler Yeats, a mother and her daughter visit a seaside pier on a Saturday. The footnotes hide all the horrors. Sweet Jesus, this one is...I have never, EVER read anything like it. It is perfection in all its absolute glory.

Sleep Long, Sleep Tight, it is Best to Wake Up Late: What starts as a quirky dream questionnaire, is actually revealed to be a series of questions on night terrors and it becomes eerie and alarming. As someone who often suffers from this peculiar phenomenon, I had tears in my eyes upon finishing it.

Watch the Wall, My Darling, While the Gentlemen Go By: In my opinion, this story contains the heart of the themes in this collection. It is brilliant and excruciating and terrifying and very, very tangible. Just proceed with caution with this one because of various trigger warnings.

With Kirsty Logan, all you need is a paragraph. That's it. That's all you need to find your heart in pieces. That's all you need to understand what it means to find yourself in the hands of perfect writers. That's all you need to stare in awe page after page, sentence after sentence, realising and wondering how can someone dive into your soul and expose all. This is how Literature should be.

‘'The town unspools past the window. The red-roofed houses, all different heights, foundations subsiding, higgledy-piggledy like a mouth of uneven teeth. The spindly stretch of the pier with the spinning carousel at its end, fairy lights strung from posts, bringing down constellations for strolling lovers. The painted - out street signs and shop names, the raised arm of the church steeple. And around it all the encircling sea, black as tar under the evening sky.''

‘'That's why I decided I was ready to write about my fears. I have a place to retreat to where I can always put on the lights no matter how dark it is outside.''

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/

Unfortunately, this novella failed to speak to my heart. An endless ‘‘chapter'' of a woman's musings on sex, alcoholism, sex, men and did I mention sex? It leads nowhere, I failed to discover its deeper meaning and the stream-of-consciousness style requires a masterful use of language that didn't exist here, in my humble opinion.

I found no depth and I was disappointed by the fact that every city in the world of the woman, from Paris to Beijing, to Moscow, etc. is described in such a dismissive way, each hotel is the same old, same old and all our character thinks of is SEX.

And if you don't like the streets of Prague, you're a demon...

A big No from me.

Many thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

‘' Everything was still; no rain, only the touch of wind as I walked, with the occasional call of birds in the desolation. I looked at the reddish bracken; the tall grasses; the sugary purple of the heather the colour of fondants Hester loved to eat, the bees buzzing over it, drowsy in the gloom. The grasses were of different colours and forms, from red to a startling green. I wished I could name them; but every sound and plant was foreign to me and fascinating.''

Annaleigh finds work as a housekeeper in an estate somewhere in the wild, wuthering land of the Yorkshire Moors. The mansion is occupied by a handful of servants and two siblings, Marcus and Hester Twentyman, the owners of White Windows. This is 1814, everything is difficult. The financial status of the less privileged families, the mercurial landscape. But nothing is more dangerous than the human soul.

‘My fears of rain had not been justified, for it had turned into one of those bright autumn afternoons that seem to pierce the soul with their particular beauty, a golden light on the land and the shadows sharp edged, and the soft light was kind to the house. Nothing could soften those stark outliners, but on a distant green hill the sun shone, and suddenly it did not seem as isolated as it had been.''

British Gothic Fiction is a universe on its own. Its characteristics are used to create outstanding stories. But that is rare. Most of the time, we have works where the scenery is perfect but the story begs for an adequate writer. In my opinion, Sophia Tobin is a very good writer. She chose to set her plot during the Regency era, something that doesn't happen often, within the land of Yorkshire. This is already an advantage. Tobin transfers the moorlands right into the eyes and the mind of the reader. She uses the mysterious, dark mansion trope to ‘‘house'' her characters. But all these merely compose the backdrop of Annaleigh's adventure. What is terrifying is the spot-on depiction of the monster that lurks within us all.

Nature and houses are no threat to us. Madness, obsessions and wickedness. These are the lethal dangers. Add poverty and desperation in a time where the choices of women were frightfully limited and you have a claustrophobic situation which cannot be escaped without consequences. I appreciated the fact that Tobin doesn't underestimate our intelligence by serving everything in every step of the action. I was trying to find the answers, I kept guessing as to the motives of the characters, Annaleigh's life in London, the potential helpers and their possible lack of honesty. It does get a bit repetitive and predictable but I liked its ambiguity. If we have all the answers served on a plate, we become automatons that merely turn pages. So, this was an interesting and overall satisfying reading experience.

Comparisons to classic works are futile and useful only to the editors creating the back covers of books. There can only be one Wuthering Heights, one Jane Eyre, one Jamaica's Inn. This isn't a Laura Purcell masterpiece, but it is a well-written story, with excellent atmosphere, an interesting plot and a very sympathetic heroine.

This is NOT a Victorian novel. This is the Regency era. I am tired of everyone thinking that when a novel is set in a manor we find ourselves in the Victorian times. When one decides to write a review, the least one can do is check the basic facts. Google it, for God's sake!

''But I was without sense, and without feeling.''

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”

“Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.”

And that's the madness of the human beings in a nutshell...

‘'Dawn. There's no sunrise, no birdsong.Light seeps over the water, through the branches. The sky is lying on the loch, filling the trees, heavy in the spaces between the pine needles, settling between blades of grass and mottling the pebbles on the beach. Although there's no distance between cloud and land, nowhere for rain to fall, it is raining; the sounds of water on leaves and bark, on roofs and stones, windows and cars, become as constant as the sounds of blood and air in your own body.''

Midsummer is a strange time of the year. Fascinating, even for a winter lover. There's something mystical and hidden in the sound of the word. Midsummer...When the long, sleepy days, the hazy afternoons, the sultry evenings call for cold wine, lanterns on the parches, and companionship. And secrets that are about to be unleashed. In the new novel by Sarah Moss, strangers intended to spend a few days in a beautiful landscape in the Scottish Highlands. Those days were meant to be carefree, playful, sensual. But the rain doesn't seem to stop and what about those weird neighbours that disturb the peace of the place by playing horrible, loud music all night long?

‘'The sky has turned a yellowish shade of grey, the colour of bandages, or thickened skin on old white feet. Rain simmers in pabbles. Trees drip. Grass lies low, some of it beginning to drawn in pooling water, because even here, even when the aquifers are in constant use and the landscape curved by the rain for its own purposes, the earth cannot hold so much water in one day. Under the hedges, in the hollows of tall trees, birdsdroop and wilt, grounded, waiting. Small creatures in the burrows nose the air and stay hungry.There will be deaths by morning.''

Sarah Moss is a unique writer in today's Fiction. Following the marvellous, twisted Ghost Wall, Summerwater is a novel twice as dark and secretive as its predecessor. In short chapters, we enter the minds of the people who chose to spend their holidays in the heart of the Scottish nature. Written in an exemplary form of stream-of-consciousness style, their thoughts and darkest wishes. The constant rainfall causes passions and regrets to come to the surface.

Moss is a highly gifted writer. The Scottish nature, the rain reflect the harshness of the characters who seem to be in a crossroads of their lives, trying to keep appearances and lying to themselves. Parenthood and the always relevant issue of the generation gap, along with the crushing of mutual expectations. Self-harm, despair, isolation are themes depicted in a challenging, yet understated, quiet way. Underneath the psychological implications lies the uncertainty over the future, the question of whether our lives, our societies, our planet will last. The complexity of the post- Brexit era is evident. And the vixens, the owls, the wolves and the bats observe the world of the humans falling apart.

My only objection was the ‘'Zanzibar'' chapter. It was hideous, in my opinion. Disgusting, resembling the work of a different writer. Cheap and distasteful. There were also a few gross details that didn't seem to add anything to the themes.

Summerwater is a book read like a mysterious walk. As if we're passing outside houses lit by the caramel lights as the summer night approaches, and we can't resist having a look, peering through the windows, invading the residents' privacy, experiencing brief moments of their lives. Except we are intruding their most secrets thoughts as well...

This is one of the best literary offerings of the year.

‘'Behind the music, the sounds around her change. A wind strokes the hillside, disturbs the trees, lifts the rain sideways into her face. Go on then, rain on me.''

Many thanks to Picador and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/

‘'But what is your affair in Elsinore?'' Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 2

William Shakespeare's plays aren't exclusively defined by the plot, the monologues and the characters. More often than not, the setting itself is the trigger for the unfolding story, the factor that influences the characters' psyche, prompting them into action. Think of Elsinore and Hamlet, ‘'Denmark's a prison'' for the young prince. Think of fair Verona, and Venice. Think of grim Scotland where Macbeth orchestrates his crimes that will lead him to his doom. Rome and the wars of Coriolanus, Titus and Julius Caesar. Egypt where the tragic story of Cleopatra and Anthony unfolds. We'd need pages after pages to name every location.

But Ralph Berry had the opportunity to do so. He aimed to take us to Elsinore and Ephesus, to Venice and Windsor, to Falstaff's tavern, London during Richard III and the cryptic country of The Twelfth Night.

In my opinion, he failed. Miserably.

Every single chapter is utterly confusing, jumping all over the place, mixing and mingling bibliography with references to actors' memoirs and footnote. All in the same paragraph. It lacks coherence and purpose. It gives no insight as to the choice of the settings or their influence on the Bard's plays. It doesn't provide any information to the readers who would like to familiarize themselves with the work of the greatest of the greats. And if you have read a billion Shakespeare essays like yours truly, this is utterly useless.

There is no Macbeth, no King Lear, no Romeo and Juliet, no Tempest. But there are two chapters on Ben Johnson and the depiction of London in his works. The writer clearly prefers Johnson and I am once more convinced the world is mad.

God, no!

This is one of the worst books on Shakespeare I've ever read.

‘'You don't join the oprichnina. You don't choose it. It chooses you. Or, more precisely, the oprichnina pulls you in like a wave. Oh, how it pulls you in! It pulls you in so fast that your head spins, the blood in your veins boils, you see red stars. But that wave that can carry you out as well. It can carry you out in a minute, irrevocably. This is worse than death. Falling out of the oprichnina is like losing both your legs. For the rest of your life you won't be able to walk, only to crawl...''

‘'That's what it is...Russia. Since it's Russia. I lower my eyes to the floor at once. I look at the fire. And see The Idiot and Anna Karenina in flames. I have to say - they burn well. In general, books burn well. Manuscripts go like gunpowder. ‘'

''Miyuki, look at the water. Not the flow. Not the twigs floating by. Only the water in front of your eyes.''

Our beloved Miyuki is curious about meditation and her grandpa is always there to help. But this isn't the kind of meditation most of us have in mind, influenced by articles on what is ‘‘trendy'' and the Western image of yoga and zen and whatnot, discovered by...Facebook users.

Grandpa takes Miyuki for a walk. Nature always has the answers. The murmur of the river, the song of the grass caused by the gentle breeze, the clouds chasing each other. Miyuki learns that Nature speaks to us. Love speaks to us. All we have to do is listen. When Nature and Loves are combined, our existence changes. Our perspective changes. And Miyuki understands that meditation is all listening to the voice of Nature, with our loved ones close to us.

Another beautiful addition to the Miyuki series.

''I see a cloud, Miyuki. A cloud watching a grandfather and his granddaughter.'‘Miyuki looks at the clouds again and tries to see just clouds. But her mind wanders.''Grandpa, does this little cloud have a grandfather, too?''Yes, Miyuki, and I'm sure that he's watching over her.''

Many thanks to Princeton Architectural Press and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/

''The fibrous contents of her shop - so much wool and linen and cotton - seemed a dry and tangled trap around her. But here was a face that opened up a space above her head that was cold and vast, like the sky over the sea. Her gaze floated up to the top of the page and she started to read.''

A seagull falls on Ray's head as he is standing on the beach. The strange accident happens at an even stranger moment when Ray's attention has been attracted by a woman who's standing in the distance, looking at the waves. This moment changes everything. Ray goes on to create a series of paintings dedicated to that unknown woman. But what happens when Jennifer finds out that she has been the muse of a recluse artist whose heart opened one day at the beach?

''But she looks ancient to me, kind of wise and sad. Like she knows something we don't.''

Our lives are defined by meetings and once-strangers that soon become friends, lovers, enemies. But what about the ones who remain strangers? What about those weird moments when we come face-to-face with a person we haven't met before and yet, somehow, our curiosity is awakened? What about those chance meetings that never came to fruition? What if things were different? What if we were supposed to meet a special person and the indecisive nature of fate intervened?

Ray sees Jennifer and his life changes. Paige cleverly and brilliantly weaves her story around our anticipation. Will the two characters meet? Jennifer's life is present throughout and this allows us to understand her character. She is an ordinary woman, level headed, cautious, a little too afraid of the world. Ray is a secret. Melancholic and silent, a man who lives by his own rules. Both are extremely cryptic, secretive characters and that's what makes this slim novel even more fascinating. The quietness, the dreamy atmosphere, the very familiar routine. Every reader can connect with Paige's story.

Paige elegantly comments on Art, the influences of the artists and the dubious ‘‘promoters'' who exploit their talent for profit. Or sex. Paige's views on this issue are honest and eloquently depicted in the characters of Grace and Amanda, the rich wife and the inexperienced journalist, two awful women who try their best to make use of Ray and Jennifer to satisfy their sick instincts or promote themselves despite their obvious incompetence.

Do we ever get to truly know each other? Is a fleeting moment enough to define us? We are free to draw our own conclusions. What is absolutely certain is my strengthened conviction that a quiet, ‘‘ordinary'' story written with sensitivity and elegance stays with the reader long after the last page is turned. This novel resembles one of those melancholic afternoons during the end of summer. The calm, sweetness and sadness are there. We just have to give in.

''It was the first day after the clocks had gone forward, the first lone evening, and whereas yesterday this house had been marked by a dull and deepening gloom, the sun was behind them now, on its way down, and the warmth hit their backs as they walked, hand in hand like one of those sweet old couples still in love. The tide was high and Jennifer looked far across the water to the long row rise of Kent. Across the mouth of the Thames.''

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/

''Olivia Gertrude Mead, my hope for you since the day your mother left was that you would grow up to be a rational, respectable, dignified young woman who understands her place in the world.''

Olivia has problems. She is a young woman, living in Oregon in 1900, a member of the middle-upper class society and she needs to be ‘‘respectable''. She is not allowed to disagree with men. She is not allowed to have opinions. She is not allowed to react when young men view her as ripe for the taking. She is not allowed to eat whatever she chooses. She is not allowed to wear the scarf she likes. She is not allowed to become an active citizen. She is not allowed to vote. She is not allowed to vocally exist.

It's just too much...

And why? Because she is a woman. Her society cannot abide with women working or choosing their husbands or voting. The world would be destroyed! So she must obey a father who hires a hypnotist to extract these ugly, unladylike thoughts from the mind of his daughter. Little does he know...

''Miss Mead'', asked Henri Reverie. ‘‘Would you like me to take you away from the world for a while?''

In a delicious book that -hopefully- will make you boil with anger over the atrocious way in which women were viewed a mere century ago, Winters paints the life of a young woman in bleak colours within the very vivid setting of Oregon. Using a number of exciting themes like the Women's Suffrage Movement, the obsession with hypnosis and all things paranormal that swept the world during the late 19th, early 20th century, the advancing discoveries in the field of medicine, the change in women's fashion to accommodate a more active role in society and the constant threat of the asylum, Winters creates a marvellous story, centred around a very sympathetic, extremely brave young heroine and a young man who dreamed of a different society.

Imagine living in a society where you are not heard. Literally. You aren't supposed to. Your order in a restaurant is decided for you and the one phrase you are told day after day is ‘‘it's all for your own good''. Well, 8 times out of 10 this means the exact opposite. Olivia finds solace in books. In Gothic Literature, to be more specific. In Dracula and Sleepy Hollow, innovative stories with controversial (at the time) female characters who took life in their own hands. There are also references to ground-breaking works like The Awakening by Kate Chopin, The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and The Vindication of the Rights of Women by Mary Wollstonecraft. Because Olivia has to put up with people who utter sentences such as this:

''More than ever it seems we need a remedy for the growing army of loud, obnoxious women who insist they are the same as men.''

This came out of the mouth of a woman and all is most definitely NOT well...

I am not sure whether hypnosis actually works in the way depicted in the novel, and at times, it seemed a little too convenient, but you know what? It doesn't matter. The setting jumps right out of the pages, the plot is terrific, the dialogue is lively and flowing, and the heroine is perfectly developed. This is an extremely well-written story that makes you appreciate the fragile freedom we've acquired thanks to the unrelenting efforts of the women who fought against the world and won.

''My mind isn't like a rotten tooth. You can't just take it away.''

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/

I don't want a ‘'fictionalized'' account. I don't want the POV of a Nazi. I don't want a ludicrous fictional character -whose only thought is SEX SEX SEX!!!! - that has nothing to do with the actual regiment. I don't want a boy's wet dream about these heroic women who sacrificed everything for freedom. I don't want the POV of a misogynist Soviet pig (my apologies to the lovely, cute animals for being compared to the Soviets)

Are editors and publishers even serious? The Russians and the Germans speak as if they are part of a Hollywood Mafia film. I was waiting for someone to come out and actually say ‘'I'll make him an offer he can't refuse''. And if you are going to play it down for shock value and decorate page after page with intestines, at least make them look realistic. Don't ‘'draw'' them like enormous, twisting, pink doodoos.

This...thing is an absolute blasphemy of the extraordinary story of the Night Witches, the 588th Night Bomber Regiment, the women who showed the Germans how this game was played in the Southern Front.

Don't mess with Russian history (or any history, obviously) if you don't have the chops to do it justice.

What's next? Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps presented as bartenders? The Auxiliary Territorial Service depicted as pole dancers?

How does such trash get published?

ARC from Naval Institute Press and NetGalley.

‘'I smelt frankincense in the church of the Holy Sepulchre and looked out across the glinting stillness of the Dead Sea. I walked in the footsteps of Jesus, Moses and Abraham.''

‘'Every inch of this city has a story to tell and I trod in the footsteps of time itself. The names of those warriors, demi-gods and saints, all of whom had prayed, fought and died here, came to mind in the very fabric of the stones I touched. Abraham, King David, Solomon, Alexander, Nero, Jesus, Muhammad, Richard the Lionheart, Einstein...''

‘'I listened to these singers as night fell. While it didn't exactly cure my seasickness, the chanting and their songs gave the night a magical atmosphere. Soon the stars came out and the entire sky was ablaze with them. ‘'I wish there were as many pearls in the ocean as stars in the sky,'' murmured the sailor. ‘'Then I would be a very rich man.''

“When we are born, we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.”

“This is the excellent foppery of the world, that,when we are sick in fortune,–often the surfeitof our own behavior,–we make guilty of ourdisasters the sun, the moon, and the stars: asif we were villains by necessity; fools byheavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, andtreachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards,liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience ofplanetary influence; and all that we are evil in,by a divine thrusting on: an admirable evasionof whoremaster man, to lay his goatishdisposition to the charge of a star.”

Any political comments will be deleted. I don't discuss political/religious/social issues on the Internet, with strangers. So, don't waste my time and yours.

For us Greeks, the Olympic Games run in our blood. It is one more reason to be proud. All the citizens of the world associate the 15 days of peace and togetherness with strength, pride, honour. With images of the sacred ceremony of the Olympic Flame, the Olympic movement, the Flag of Peace with the circles of equality and solidarity.

But there are certain people who refuse to learn the meaning of peace, who refuse to respect anything that goes beyond their twisted notion of religion.

When I was ten, I watched a documentary dedicated to the events of the Munich Massacre that took place in the 1972 Olympics. Since that day, one of the strongest images I associate with the global celebration is a monster with a raised gun, standing on the balcony. A monster who didn't even have the balls to uncover his face. One of the eight beasts that violated every sense of morality, peace and every basic principle that makes us human beings, causing the death of eleven Israeli athletes. It is the memory of a child beginning to understand that no, all is not well with the world. It is the memory of the Games that should have never continued but hey, let's hear it for the show, right? Not to mention the incompetence (or unwillingness) of the German authorities. And my money is on the second option...

This book is a journey. The 2005 film by Steven Spielberg is a masterpiece. No written words, no movie can depict the horror, the violation, the flag of peace that was torn to pieces by the Black September monsters. But books and films are there for the younger generations.

Lest we forget...

>‘'How can we possibly consider merely turning the other cheek to adversaries who are willing to commit crimes on the order of the Munich Massacre or 9/11 - or, for that matter, the Holocaust?''
And that's how simple it is...

‘'Calderón, on the other hand, stands motionless. He can't bring himself to lift his foot from the one he has killed. He is, perhaps, afraid of recognizing his girl's colours on the dead wings.''

Twenty stories full of darkness. Deep, impenetrable, untraceable, lingering in our souls. Stories told in a strange place between reality and a world we meet in our dreams. Or are they actually hallucinations that reveal our true colours? In Schweblin's collection, the boundaries between human relationships and violence are extremely thin. Birds are eaten alive, butterflies are destroyed, children present the greatest mystery. Are they a projection of our true nature before this is influenced by external factors? Is parenthood an act of uncertainty, a leap of faith? Are human beings destined to be alone even if we are surrounded by family and loved ones? Are we all prone to commit the ultimate acts of violence when prompted by the slightest trigger?

Samanta Schweblin's stories don't need verbose tricks. Her writing is minimalistic, yet extremely intricate in its gifted simplicity. Through innocuous moments of our daily life, circumstances beyond our imagination arise, turning the surreal and the macabre into a tangible reality that the reader experiences with merciless force. In every story, you encounter a hidden aspect, a wish locked in a chest that you may be too afraid to open. You realise that the intense feeling of something being wrong lies next to you, extending a finger pointing at us. Each story is a universe, a dream we are desperately trying to wake from. In vain.

Children are turning into butterflies. Women find themselves a part of a wedding ritual that thwarts their dreams. Mothers are able to delay the birth of their children ‘‘until the time is right.'' A teenage girl gives in to absurd cravings. A train that never reaches its destination, condemned in an eternal schedule, repeated on and on and on. An emissary comes face-to-face with a starving crowd. An artist with violent urges. A family drama unfolds in a toy shop. Children are swallowed by the pit they dug. A couple, living on the steppe, longs for a child. A man murders his wife and is treated as an artist by a corrupted psychiatrist.

Continuing the tradition of Borges and Cortázar, Schweblin creates a collection that is eerie, haunting, and merciless. Two of her stories, Butterflies and On The Steppe are so flawless that you will read them again and again. Mouthful of Birds is one of those unique books that mirror our soul in a dark room. It is like a hazy dream that frightened us even though we are unable to recall its details the moment we wake up. It is a monumental work in today's Short Story genre, in a brilliant translation by Megan McDowell.

''Then the madness began. They say that one night a woman heard noises in her house. They were coming from the floor, as if a rat or a mole were digging underneath it. Her husband found her moving the furniture, pulling up the rugs, shouting her son's name while she pounded the floor with her fists. Other parents started to hear the same noises. They moved all the furniture into the corners of their homes. They pulled up the floorboards with their hands. They knocked down basement walls with hammers, dug up their yards, emptied the wells. They filled the dirt streets with holes. They threw things inside, like food, coats, toys, then they covered them over again. They stopped burying their garbage. They dug up their few dead bodies from the cemetery. It's said that some parents kept digging day and night in the empty lot, and that they stopped only when exhaustion or madness finished off their bodies.''

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/

A beautiful collection of children's stories, fables, myths, poems, allegories and fairy tales of Yiddish culture. Through Folklore and customs, family stories, we travel from the beginning of the 20th century to the mid-70s, in a rich tapestry of Jewish holidays, history and tradition. Miriam Udel's translation is full of spirit and warmth.

It is immensely difficult to choose among the gems included in the collection, but my favourite stories were A Sabbath in the Forest by Yakov Fichmann, The Wind That Got Angry by Moyshe Kulbak, The Alphabet Gets Angry by Moyshe Shifris, The Girl In The Mailbox by Simkhe Geltman, Evie Gets Lost by Berish Oyerbakh who died in the Warsaw Ghetto, one of the countless victims of the Nazi monsters, Mirele's Birthday by Sarah L. Liebert and the extract from An Unusual Girl From Brooklyn by David Robin.

In this collection, I found some of the most beautiful descriptions of scenery and feelings I've ever read in a book. These extracts speak for themselves:

‘'Once in deepest winter, when the cold is strongest, Lipe rose as usual at dawn on a Friday and worked hard through the morning, his fingers flying. He wanted to be early because the winter days were short and the road difficult. He hardly noticed the great sheets of snow that had fallen throughout the night. The cold was so bitter that you wouldn't let a dog outside in such weather. Lipe was happy to have finished his work early, and he began to prepare for the journey home.''

‘'Meanwhile the forest was growing darker and more frightening. The frozen branches were all motionless, the tree trunks buried to their waists in snow. A sadness fell over everything.''

‘'Who has ever seen or heard of such a thing: children sprouting out of the earth like grass in a field? Of the kind sun sending her golden rays onto their little heads and the heaven's dew dripping its pearly drops upon them? Of songbirds singing cheerful songs and butterflies fluttering by them all around and around? Of a soft breeze caressing their hair and of angels covering them with their wings and rocking them with lullabies?''

‘'The street where Shprintse lived was a pretty one and as quiet as in the olden days. The houses there were large, one-story brownstones; leading to each door were five wide marble steps with ornamented brass railings on either side; next to each house was a flower garden; in front of the house, trees; and between the trees, old-fashioned gas street lamps. Every evening, the lamplighter would come to light the street lamps, and every morning, he would come to extinguish the lamps and polish them. The street was paved with stones. When the city had wanted to lay asphalt over the street and introduce electric lights instead of the old-fashioned gas lanterns, the neighbours banded together and wouldn't stand for it. After all, if the street were paved over and electric lighting installed, then cars would begin to drive down that road, and it would become as noisy and chaotic as all the city's other modern streets. So it remained old-fashioned and quiet, in the midst of the large, noisy, new streets of the modern city of Brooklyn.''

Many thanks to New York University Press and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/

“We dream in our waking moments, and walk in our sleep.”

“In all her intercourse with society, however, there was nothing that made her feel as if she belonged to it... She stood apart from mortal interests, yet close beside them, like a ghost that revisits the familiar fireside, and can no longer make itself seen or felt.”

“Some attribute had departed from her, the permanence of which had been essential to keep her a woman. Such is frequently the fate, and such the stern development, of the feminine character and person, when the woman has encountered, and lived through, an experience of peculiar severity. If she be all tenderness, she will die. If she survives, the tenderness will either be crushed out of her, or—and the outward semblance is the same—crushed so deeply into her heart that it can never show itself more.”

For a child dancing in the field, unaware of her mother's grief. For a priest who realised what really mattered. For a woman who refused to yield...For a letter that became a badge of honour and courage.

''We lined up, waiting to pull our tickets from the machine, the way you would take your number at the butcher's counter. The music popular that year played from speakers on the ceiling. Just gravity enough. Not necessarily such an important thing, after all.''

Calla is waiting for a ticket. Blue ticket, white ticket. A lottery for a life without children. A lottery for a life as a mother and a wife. What passes as a game of chance between a ‘‘care-free'' way of living and a full-blown responsibility journey into motherhood is, in reality, a decision by the invisible forces that control the lives in this peculiar dystopian society. And Calla gets her blue ticket and is free to live her life, so to speak. She can do everything. Except becoming a mother. But it is never easy to accept that others have already decided what is ‘‘good for you'' and her rebellion to earn the right to choose begins.

''I turned my face up to the night.''

In her new novel following the success of The Water Cure, Sophie Mackintosh sets her story within a dystopian community, but in a way that is subtle and extremely mysterious. Our focus isn't on the structure of this society, therefore do not expect a full-scale Dystopian universe and any comparisons (that are bound to exist) to Atwood are absurd. This choice results in a far better story than all the cliches we have witnessed lately. The heart of this journey lies in the strange absence of the authorities that hunt down the ones who violate the decision of the State. The people do this job instead, and the blindfolded search of Calla towards a possible way out of a tyranny that took everything from her.

Calla is not the woman who knows for certain that she wants a child. Some of us are not keen to become mothers. This isn't a story about a strong, unbeatable inclination to have children. This is about choice. Her life seems somehow void of meaning, the man she dates is an absolute selfish bastard, and she starts wondering. She has doubts. We've all been there at some point in our life. Do I want a child? Do I want to change my life? But with Calla, the question is much more poignant. Why can't I choose? Who gave THEM the right to judge whether I am the paragon of motherhood or not? We can choose. We must. Calla doesn't have this luxury. And she becomes desperate, and watches the world passing by, becoming more and more vulnerable in sequences that are delivered through hypnotic prose, sometimes so raw that make you avert your eyes from the page. Calla does fall and needs to rise again.

'‘[...] for I was not fragile, I was not protectable, I was dark wind and dust blowing across a landscape, and there was nothing anybody could do for me.''

I understood Calla and I loved her character. Her doubts and fears felt oddly familiar. Her spirit, even audacity, at the beginning and the slow but certain downward spiral when everything seems to fall apart are given through poetic and confident writing and are brilliantly depicted. Why do we meddle Twitter movements with Literature? Why do we ‘‘deny'' a book because of a certain punctuation and dialogue style? Why do we project our morality over a writer's choice? If we cannot abide with ‘‘demanding'' styles and complex, controversial characters, then the word ‘reader'' cannot be applied to us. Calling Calla a ‘'slut'' and utterly overlooking the exceptional depiction of the solidarity amongst the women who demand their right to choose brings to mind the voices against the ones who support choice in all matters that have to do with our body and our life. I think we all know what I'm talking about...I am a fervent lover of choice, I've always been, I'll always be.

Written in a style that requires absolute attention and experience, Blue Ticket is as haunting as The Water Cure, and for me, it is even more interesting and relatable. It is beautiful, at times, mesmerizing and if you don't sympathize with Calla, you have no heart...

''My name is Calla, and I wanted to choose.''

Many thanks to Penguin and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/

''She is a mermaid, but approach her with caution. Her mind swims at a depth most would drown in.'‘ J. Iron Word

Mermaids. Complicated, controversial, mysterious, endlessly fascinating creatures of mythology and folklore. Rulers of the waves, protectors and punishers, shape-shifters. Haunting like their haunting song, they dwell in palaces, caves, rivers. They are deities, royalty, fiends, even underwater builders like the Russian Vodyanoy. Known since the early ages of mankind, the Ancient Mesopotamian mermen, the Assyrian goddess Atargatis who fell in love with a mortal man, the Nereids of Greek mythology echo the birth of a myth that grew stronger as the centuries passed. In Greece, we have the myth about the sister of our beloved Alexander the Great. She wonders the seas, asking whether her brother is alive. If the sailors reply ‘‘yes'', she will bless their journey. But a ‘‘no'' will lead them to a terrible death.

In Europe, we have the selkies and the Finfolk of the Hildaland, in Orkney, the finwomen need a human husband to gain immortality. In the Hebrides, there are the Blue Men of the Minch. In Cornwall, we have the famous Mermaid Chair connected to the myth of Morveren. Lamia resides in the Basque Country, Lorelei in Germany. Syrenka protects the city of Warsaw, while Rusalka serenades to the Russian moon. And who hasn't heard the sad song of Melusine?

But we know little about the water spirits of the continents, and this beautiful little book is here to fix this. In Nigeria and the Yoruba culture, the mermaid Yemoja is the greatest goddess, the mother of the sun, the moon, the water and all life. In South Africa, Karoo must not be angered or else storms will follow. In Zimbabwe, the Mondao are terrifying, what with their red eyes and sharp teeth and their man-eating habit. The Dogon people in Mali believe that mermaid-like beings descended from the sky in a basket and created water.

In Asia, the Lobusta resides in Turkey and Central Asia. A frightening, evil creature resembling an old woman whose vile laughter causes storms and disaster. In Korea, the Sinjike once fell in love with a Chinese man. She can be seen on a moonlit night, singing and throwing rocks in the water to warn of danger. In Japan, the Ningyo is a fish with a terrifying human face. If you eat one, you'll remain young for centuries but ill fortune will follow you.

Moving on to America, we meet Lasiren, a strange goddess residing in Haiti, protector of wealth and wisdom, owning the treasures of the shipwrecks. Men are lured into her lair and won't be seen again but women return wiser and with the gift of healing. In Patagonia, we find the Sumpall who trap mortals in their kingdom but give fish in return. La Pincoya in Chile protects the sailors, in Lake Titicaca, mermaids play the charango. In Brazil, Iara is the founder of the Amazonian warrior mermaids that lure men to their death, avenging male cruelty.

In Oceania, the Dakuwaga, a shark-human god, has made its home in Fiji, protecting the fishermen. In Northern Australia, the Ji-Merdiwa are shape-shifters that send sickness to the one who harms the coast. Images of them must never be created but their walking can be heard on a moonlit night. We also learn of Pania, a Māori mermaid, and Vatea of Cook Islands, father to all.
Marvel at the stories of the Japanese soldiers who claimed to have seen mermaids in Kai Islands in Indonesia in 1943, the finfolk sighting in Kiryat Yam, in Israel, in 2009, and the special ceremony that took place in Zimbabwe in 2012 because the mermaids were really, really angry.

A treasure for any mythology lover.

‘'I must be a mermaid, I have no fear of depth and a great fear of shallow living.'' Anaïs Nin

Many thanks to Laurence King Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/

‘'We have been put in the mood for ghosts, that evening.'' The Eyes, Edith Wharton

As this year's summer approaches with remarkable hesitation, a different time for ghost stories begins. Ghost stories that don't require the comfort of a fireplace while the snow is falling softly outside. The ghost stories of the summer are told around a lively campfire in Midsummer's Eve, they need to be narrated while we're sitting on our porch, as the blue of the summer sky slowly darkens and the stars start their late twinkling, as the wine freezes and the trees are painted purple by the early evening light.

It is the time of the American Midnight...

The Masque of the Red Deathby Edgar Allan Poe: A prince finds refuge in his abbey as the Red Death, the horrifying plague, is destroying his land. His frenetique masquerade ball has an unexpected (or maybe not...) outcome after the arrival of a strange, uninvited guest.

Young Goodman Brownby Nathaniel Hawthorne : An outstanding story by the master of the Gothic tale, a fable as atmospheric as it is enigmatic and frightening. Set in Salem during the 17th century, this is the story of a young man who witnesses the forbidden and his life is changed forever.

The Eyes by Edith Wharton: In a marvelous tale-within-the tale story, a man recounts his strange experience of being haunted by a pair of eyes burning in the darkness. But as it always happens with the great Edith Wharton, this is so much more than a ghost story...

The Mask by Robert W. Chambers: A story that still fascinates us with all the questions it raises, the mystery that lies within the city of Carcosa and the enigmatic figure of the King In Yellow. P.S. True Detective lovers unite.

‘'They were strangers in the house.''

Home by Shirley Jackson: Even though Ethel is sooo irritating (yes, with three ‘'o'''), this is a straightforward but extremely atmospheric story of two cursed souls and a tragedy.

‘'[...] thinking of bygone times; recalling old scenes, and summoning half-forgotten faces out of the mists of the past; listening, in fancy, to voices that long ago grew silent for all time, and to once familiar songs that nobody sings now.''

A Ghost Story by Mark Twain: Narrating a strange visit from the past, this tale is written in the unique, humorous style of the great American writer.

Spunkby Zora Neale Hurston: A story about a love affair with dubious connotations. I didn't like this one at all, and I fail to see the reason why it had to be included in this collection.

‘'There comes John, and I must put this away - he hates to have me write a word.''

The Yellow Wallpaperby Charlotte Perkins Gilman: The ultimate story of male cruelty, tyranny and madness. The haunting tale of a young woman, imprisoned by her husband, who finds herself face to face with the monstrous creations of her weakened mind, destroyed by endless oppression.

An Itinerant Houseby Emma Frances Dawson: A cursed house that moves may have been interesting but this story seemed to me a poor attempt to mimic Mary Shelley's masterpiece. No.

‘'And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.''

Many thanks to Pushkin Press, NetGalley and Edelweiss for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com

''If I dieLeave the balcony open!'‘Farewell, Federico Garcia Lorca

Hekla is a child of the 60s. A young woman full of talent, wit and kindness, a writer, an idealist. An intellectual in a society that tries to take the next step, to open its mind and its heart, to stop discriminating between the ‘‘feminine'' and the ‘‘masculine''. But it is hard. It is hard to live by your own rules. It is hard to be a part of a society that believes you're ‘‘whining'' when all you do is state your views and shout to the high heavens. It is hard when your face overshadows your brain. It is hard when women are vicious, judging your every step. And no, things haven't changed.

Hekla was named after a volcano.

I'm jealous.

''Besides, some of the stars are long dead, Hekla. The light takes ages to travel.''

In a mesmerizingly beautiful novel, Ólafsdóttir creates the story of a young woman who doesn't let a man, any man, dictate her life and her choices. A hymn to true friendship and the communication between souls, an honest, brave view on the oppression from the ones who think they have the right to parade you around as if you were a shiny trophy. Pseudo-intellectuals, wannabe-poets, self-proclaimed progressive leftists who are worse than the fiercest patriarchy zealots. ‘‘Oh, hey, we don't want Capitalism, but sure I want to be famous. But not for me, for the good of who-knows which ‘‘People's Republic of...'' I've known this lot since my university years. I punched two of those in a students' faculty gathering that aimed to force us on one of their ‘‘strikes''. They went to the hospital with broken noses and less hair on their empty, ugly heads, having understood how a capitalist (and I will remain one until I die!) woman, student of the faculty of English Language, Literature and History defends herself against manipulative idiots. Good times...

''Some night watchers watch over nothing but the stars.''

The theme that takes Hekla's story into the realms of literary perfection is the deep love for reading and the need to express yourself through writing that ooze out of every beautiful page. The obsession with books that shape our personality, our views, that makes us who we are. Do they prepare us for the world outside? Yes and no. There are beautiful references to poetry and the fascinating Icelandic literary culture. It also provides the finest background for the depiction of the difficulties that must be overcome when a woman wants to become a writer. Hekla, in the 1960s, faces the same obstacles, the same irrational, sexist criticism that her 19th-century peers had to put up with.

''Then the July nights arrived, warm and silent. All days pass, all moments vanish.''

I loved the writer's commentary on the notion of beauty icons, the ideal image of ‘‘femininity'' during the 60s, the ridiculous, distasteful parade of ‘‘beauty'' contests that are nothing more than glamourized prostitution. Womanhood, vulnerability. The society's demand for ‘‘husbands and wives'', the hostility from women who have sided with the dominants, jealous of those who refuse to become one more piece of meat available in the open market. And if we claim that we don't see this in our times, we'll show ourselves to be shameless liars.

The journey in Hekla's search and awakening becomes even more powerful through the vivid cultural references of the 60s, the rising of new political and social attitudes, the intense homophobia, the lack of tolerance and understanding. And the characters? My God, if you don't love them, you are more heartless than I am. Hekla and Jon-John form one of the most beautiful relationships you'll find in a novel! And Isey, dearest Isey!

Let us not forget that Iceland is firmly connected to reading and the joy that books bring to our lives. Who isn't aware of the wondrous customs of jólabókaflóð, the Christmas Book Flood. With a rich tradition that dates back to the Icelandic Sagas, the writers from the Land of Fire and Ice are doomed to succeed.

This is a hypnotizing novel by the exquisite writer of Hotel Silence, full of life and darkness, struggle and hope. It is real, it is Literature.

''Apart from the vault of stars the world is black.A sentence comes to me and then another, then an image, it's a whole page, it's a whole chapter and it struggles like a seal in a net inside my head. I try to fix my gaze on the moon through the skylight, I ask the sentences to leave, I ask them to stay, I need to get up to write, so they won't vanish.''

Many thanks To Grove Atlantic and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/

''Three. I'd said it out loud, after he did. It made a kind of neat sense, something religious about its structure. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Peter betrayed Jesus three times. A familiar number, for a good Christian girl like me. I remember being allowed to ring the bell in church: three times, I was told.''

Lucy, mother to two boys, discovers that her husband committed adultery. In a strange attempt to help their marriage survive, they agree on a special term. Lucy will have the chance to hurt Jake three times. ‘‘Hurt'', figuratively and literally. But is it enough? Can retaliation -in any form- erase the absolute act of betrayal? Will Lucy be able to actually forgive and forget? Has Jake truly regretted his horrible choice?

''I walked past the field, to the meadows and river which ran behind it, turned my face to the grasses, my vision pulled to the horizon. There was a sweet, rich smell of sun and green, kayaks and swans passing by the water. It was a moving, busy day; I turned my face to the wind, felt its smooth power against my skin.''

Megan Hunter's The End We Start From is one of the most memorable books I've ever had the blessing to read. In her equally beautiful novel, The Harpy, Hunter creates a story that doesn't take place in a dystopian world but within the very real, very demanding microcosm of a family and the extreme difficulties that occur within a marriage. We don't need a dystopian universe to experience sadness and hatred, we don't need an external to betray and find ourselves betrayed. Many times, the dynamics within a relationship resemble a minefield. One wrong step, one wrong choice, and everything's blown to pieces.

In language that flows, in realistic and poetic prose, Hunter presents Lucy, a character that won't forget. Without resorting to hysterics, with a full understanding of the situation she is called to face, Lucy battles with herself and the need to protect her children and doesn't refrain from questioning herself. What makes the story stand out is the presence of the Harpy.

''Sometimes, as a child, I would get the book out just to look at the harpies, to trace the way the wings grew out of their backs, easy extensions of their shoulders, lifting into the air. I wanted to know why their faces were like that: sunken, creased by hate. I wanted to ask my mother more questions, but the words dried in my mouth, sat sour under my tongue, unspoken.''

The harpy is one of the most peculiar and intriguing creatures in Greek Mythology. Half-bird, half-women related to stormy winds, believed to carry people away, and especially hostile towards men, they are often found in Early Modern Literature, particularly in the Shakespearean plays. In Hunter's novel, we don't really know where Lucy's thoughts end and where the harpy's thoughts begin. This ambiguity lends this extraordinary haunting aura in the text and, in my opinion, exposes the image of an artificial peace and quiet, the fragile family prosperity and the viciousness of your exposed sadness when every acquaintance thinks they have the right to judge you while expressing their hypocritical exclamations of pity.

And what about forgiveness? Is it even possible? Do some of us have the right to ask for forgiveness and absolution?

A good book, nay, an extraordinary book is born when daily issues are presented through new lens, beautiful writing and tangible characters. This is a harpy we must all come to know...

''I tried my fucking best. I realized I had said that out loud, glanced around to check if everyone had heard. There was no one: only trees, the city light hazing their leaves in a pinched glow. Then: a single swan gliding downstream, the arc of her neck a question mark, the soft curve of her feathers like a yes on the water.''

Many thanks to Grove Press and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/

''The crow takes off and flies to the top branches of the monkey puzzle tree. It yells at me from there.''

Three women, three different eras. Sarah, Ruth, Viviane. Witchcraft, abusing relationships, loss, depressions, danger in every corner. Shadows and omens. And the wild beauty of the Bass Rock witnessing everything. The relationships between women and men, the cruelty against the former, the violence of the later, the betrayal, the naivety.

But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't bring myself to like this book at all.

Wyld definitely gave us excellent moments of mystery and atmospheric lyricism, like the extract that follows:

''In the third tree drawing a figure appeared high up in the branches, a black shape, inexpertly drawn, clumsily posed. The next page, closer still, the man was missing his shoes and his feet were white blocks, like a duck's, and he leaned back in the tree, and when you really looked you could imagine that the man was dead with a branch thrust through his chest.''

There are wolves and ghosts, and crows and crackling sounds. Proper atmosphere, no doubt about that. The problem is that to me it felt forced, as if it HAD to be there to justify the word ‘‘Gothic'' on the back cover of the book. The feeling of impending danger was indeed effective and helped me not to lose interest completely as the novel progressed and my patience with the writing was growing thin. Elements of Folk Horror were evident in Ruth's storyline which started brilliantly and then became a silly, predictable, unbearable soap-opera.
Read and weep...

''Honestly, it's no problem, I'm putting my shoes on now.Really no need, everything's fine.I don't believe you, leaving now, will be there soon.Seriously don't, I'm fine.''

I grew up in the company of Shakespeare, and Tolstoy, Austen, Bronte, Dickens and Dostoevsky. I worship on the altar of Sarah Perry, Daisy Johnson, Emma Donoghue and Colm Tóibín. Do not ask me to accept that this isn't awful writing...

Why the need to have 90% of the female characters with a glass of wine to soothe their troubles away in Contemporary Literature? It's a stereotype, a nightmare of an idea, as was the constant, dirty, illogical, disgusting swearing in Viviane's chapters. As if her story wasn't already pretty bad...
I am tired, sick and tired of the ‘‘I am a modern witch'' trope to justify plot ‘‘twists and turns'' that are in fact, predictable and unoriginal. On top of that, a serial-killer subplot? No. And why do certain writers believe that all readers are interested in reading about sex every other page? Her chapters were a real torture. The endless descriptions of bodily odours, the numerous (more than I've ever seen in a novel) descriptions of basic bodily functions. So excuse me, this isn't my idea of Literature. There's raw and realistic, and there's disgusting and forced provocative. And I never vote for the latter.

In a newspaper, I read about the ‘‘toxic masculinity'' in the novel and this only touched the tip of the iceberg. This is the one thing the novel did right. Seen here at its worse and most realistic form. It was powerful, infuriating, shuttering, and I am never the one to build barriers between the two sexes. But repetition and the same-old ‘‘haunted house'' tropes formed a clumsily depicted combination. Are all men monsters and all women victims? Of course not. We have fathers, partners, sons, brothers, husbands we love with all our heart and at times, the message the novel wanted to convey left me thinking. But we are here for Literature, not politics (at least I am...) and by my standards, The Bass Rock left me utterly indifferent. In addition, the three women aren't exactly interesting. On the contrary, they are extremely average, underdeveloped to the point of serving as stereotypical substitutes for agendas. Viviane is disgusting, Ruth is hugely problematic and docile, Sarah remained a mystery. In fact, every character apart from Betty, Christopher and Michael was horrible and this is neither realistic nor interesting.

And what did Pride and Prejudice ever do to you, dear writer? Don't mess with works you can't fathom.

So. Love triangles (Jesus!), marital problems, endless swearing with uncountable times when the word ‘‘fuck'' and its derivatives ‘‘graced'' the pages of the novel, toilet descriptions, tropes that have been done to perfection by more competent peers of Wyld, painfully irritating characters. This is what I found. A wasted potential, a setting that deserved a better story, better characters. The themes of abuse and retribution are so strong. They formed an excellent premise but they were not enough. Many loved this, many will. But I have the right of my own opinion and for me, it was a frightening failure.

Many thanks to Pantheon and Edelweiss for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/

''In the evenings, Brother Declan would sit by the boy's bed and tell him the old tales while the candle burned low. He told him about selkies, the seal people, who could shed their skins in full-moon nights and take on human shape. He told him about Líban, who was turned into a mermaid when a great lake flooded her home and drowned all who lived there. For three hundred years she had roamed the lonesome seas. - ‘‘No one has ever seen her'', the old monk said. ‘‘But her singing has entered many a dream on quiet moonlit nights.''

In a time when myths and legends were still walking the earth, Father Declan of the Abbey of Bangor finds a young boy on the sands, wrapped in a shawl made of seagrass. A silver ring shines in his hand. The good monks give shelter to Rónán. Father Declan hasn't forgotten the tales of the Old Age, the visions of selkies and the Faery Folk are still vivid in his eyes. For the young boy had been rescued by a mermaid, a legendary princess that was transformed into a beautiful sea creature, longing for the blessing that will allow her to rest in peace.

The keening of the seals, the lament of Líban, and the music of the harp unite to create a beautiful rendition of a gorgeous myth from Northern Ireland. A legend about princess Líban, daughter of Eochaidh, King of Ulster, who was the only survivor when her land was flooded. She was transformed into a mermaid by the goddess Danu, the mother of the Tuatha Dé Danann, until Father Comgall baptized her with the name Muirgen. She became the Mermaid Saint commemorated on the 27th of January.

The ancient abbey is long gone now, destroyed by the Vikings, and a new abbey now stands in its place, but the traces of the Mermaid Saint are alive. And if you pay attention, you may hear the peaceful hymns of the kind monks echoing from the mists...

Many thanks to Candlewick Press and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/