Hildy Biddle is a high school reporter trying to prove that she is ready to bring the truth to the world. And her community is definitely a place where the truth needs to be brought forth – the local newspaper has been covering very little other than the haunted house in town, there are mysterious signs appearing on the fence of the haunted house constantly, and there was a staged robbery at the same house recently. Not to mention that there’s something fishy going on with the psychic who has recently moved to town, and the real estate agents from out of town trying to buy a good number of the town residents’ properties. But will Hildy and the rest of the high school newspaper be able to get to the bottom of this story before it’s too late?

This book left a lot to be desired. There characters were extremely one dimensional. Especially the main character, but it was hard to empathize with any of them. I didn’t like any of the characters; I didn’t dislike any of them. I was just completely indifferent.

The plot? Predictable at best. At worst, it felt like it had all been done before. It wasn’t exciting until the last quarter of the book, and even then it was only exciting because things were finally happening. I still knew how the book was going to end, I was still indifferent towards the characters, but gosh darn it something was finally happening!

Show his eyes, and grieve his heart;
Come like shadows, so depart!

I first read this book around the time I was first introduced to the Stratford Festival. Since then my love for the Festival has grown greatly, but I haven’t visited this book in years. In fact, I had gotten rid of my own copy and didn’t get a new one until I mooched it off someone a couple of months ago.

Kinny, a high school student from Montreal, has managed to score a summer job at the Stratford Festival, working as the assistant to a director of one of the Festival’s plays. The director, Jeneva, is taking on Shakespeare’s Macbeth, a play known to have bad luck go hand-in-hand with it. But it’s not just bad luck that is causing the deaths of actors involved in this play this time around – two of the witches from the play are not only real, but have appeared in Stratford and are very interested in a mirror that Kinny has found to be used as a prop in the play. This is no ordinary mirror – when Kinny looks into it, she has her wishes granted. When Luke, one of the actors in the play, looks into it he sees one of Macbeth’s (the real Macbeth, that is) memories. And Jeneva sees something, but no one is quite sure what.

It was definitely interesting to read this now that I have such a great love for Shakespeare’s Macbeth – I didn’t know too much Shakespeare when I first read it, so I had a better appreciation for parts of it this time around. I enjoyed Katz’s interpretation of the three witches in the play (some of my favourite characters in all of Shakespeare’s plays), but at the same time it was so different than how I picture them in the play. And I enjoyed being able to picture some of the story that takes place in Stratford (a positively lovely place!) when I read about them.

I wish this book focused a little bit less on the English Canadian vs French Canadian dynamics, and focused a bit more on the play, or the story of the mirror and the three witches… Overall, it seemed rather unnecessary to the rest of the story.

The last chapters of the book left a little to be desired. Some characters seemed inconsistent when it came to the part of the book; at the end, one of the witches looses her powers as a witch and suddenly comes across as a harmless and friendly old woman. Kinny suddenly seems to be on good terms with the witch, who she had been avoiding and disliked for the rest of the book.

I can see why I enjoyed this so much when I was younger… as it is now, if the ending had been slightly different, I would have enjoyed it much more, but found it a somewhat disappointing re-read. This was my eleventh book for the Canadian Book Challenge.

I won’t read Michelle Moran‘s Nefertiti. I really did want to – I loved stories about Egypt growing up, and I loved stories about Nefertiti – but now I refuse to read it.

Moran e-mailed me at the end of April, offering to send me a copy to review on my blog – the paperback comes out in about a weeks time. I agreed – as I said, I used to love stories about Nefertiti, and thought it would be fun to delve back into it. Then I proceeded to get two of the exact same e-mail within days:

Dear Courtney,

I’m the author of a novel entitled Nefertiti, which debuted in hardcover July 10th and is scheduled to be released in paperback on May 28th with Crown Publishers. I am a huge fan of your site (I loved your review of [various post titles], btw!), and was wondering if you’d be interested in reviewing Nefertiti. If so, I would be delighted to have my editor send you an early paperback copy.

Thank you for your time, and I look forward to hearing from you!
Michelle Moran

At that point I’m a little annoyed. Yes, I know what kind of power bloggers can have for a product. I work for a company that has considered using bloggers to promote products. Word of mouth is the best form of advertising these days. Much better than traditional forms of advertising. I understand that. But is it too much to keep track of WHO you have contacted? Even I know how to use a spreadsheet, and I avoid those kinds of programs like the plague. Keep track of what bloggers you have been in touch with from what blogs – it’s not that hard.

Even through all that, however, I was still going to read it and review it. Give it a chance, and all that.

Until today when I heard from FedEx that I needed to pay $20.25 in order to actually get the book from them… Let me think about that for a minute. Remembering that people often are charged brokerage fees when the product crosses the border, and remembering that I’ve had numerous ARCs sent to me from the USA before where I’ve never had to pay brokerage fees… Well, should I pay $20.25 for brokerage fees and whatever else I am being charged for, when if I really want to read it (which at this point that is highly unlikely) I could buy it from Chapters for a lot less than that. What would you do?

Needless to say, I refused the package and had it sent back to the sender.

Edited Wednesday morning to add: Since posting this, I have heard from Moran a couple of times (the first e-mail she has sent me was also posted in my comments, and can be read here). The second e-mail states that Random House had sent the book via payment on delivery for some reason. I have to say that I am very impressed with how this is being dealt with, and feel badly about making my post sound as harsh as it does.