The Story

It isn’t until homeschooled twelve-year-old Ari makes her first real-friend that she realizes that there’s something strange about her father. Being raised as an only child in a single-parent home, and living a very sheltered life, has led to Ari being educated in Edgar Allen Poe, not in pop culture. So when she sees her first vampire movie, things start to click. Soon she discovers the truth – her father is a vampire, her mother is a human, and she may or may not be a vampire.

In a search for the truth about her mother, and what happened between her parents, Ari leaves home one day and starts on a road trip that will take her to her mother’s doorstep, with a few stops along the way, including the emergence of Ari’s own vampirism.

The Review

This book was on my TBR list since it first came out, and yet I was a little bit afraid to read it because of how much vampires got unvampirized in the past few years. For The Society of S, on one hand, there is still the thick gothic atmosphere that I love about Dracula but the vampires aren’t scary monsters in it – they’re sympathetic creatures and aren’t much different than humans.

I loved everything about this book while I was reading it, but the more I think about it the more I can pick out a few things that I didn’t particularly enjoy. I think that is the beauty of Hubbard’s writing in this book (can’t say about all her books, as this is the only one I’ve read so far) – it is so gorgeous and lyrical that I’m more interested in the actual act of reading than I am with what’s going on in the book. Her writing is amazing and I would gladly read anything else that she’s written if her writing style is even a fraction as enjoyable as it was in this book.

The Society of S was part gothic novel and part coming of age story – both of which I typically love, so I was thrilled that this book had a little bit of both going on. Ari’s self-discovery, and her realization of who she is and what her family is, is thoroughly enjoyable to witness. She grows so much through the book that it’s hard, thinking back now, to realize that she’s the same character at the beginning that she is at the end… even though she changed very gradually through the book.

And yay gothic feeling of the book! But it was strange – the gothic feeling in this book seemed to disappear pretty much as soon as Ari reached Florida. Looking back, this is disappointing, but while reading it I didn’t notice too much at all.

The one thing that really bothered me while actually reading it, though, was the epilogue. Oh, how I do not enjoy epilogues, and this one is no exception. Would’ve worked better just leaving the book at the end of the last chapter – there was closure, so I don’t know what the point of it was. Bother.

The Bottom Line

But as mentioned, I thoroughly enjoyed the book while actually reading it (except for the epilogue). I loved the little bit of mystery that was thrown in, I loved the feeling of Ari’s family house, I loved Ari’s self-discovery. It was quite good, and I would definitely highly recommend this to non-romantic-vampire fans. And I’m definitely going to be on the look-out for other books by Hubbard.

Other Reviews

Fantasy Book Critic. Have you reviewed this book on your blog? Let me know and I’ll add your link.

This is the third of du Maurier’s books that I’ve read. I do love the way she writes, it draws me into the story completely. My Cousin Rachel is told from the perspective of Philip Ashley, a young man of 24, who was brought up by his much older cousin Ambrose after the death of both of his parents. They live in a large estate in Cornwall, and for the past few winters Ambrose has had to travel to warmer climates to prevent him from becoming too ill. During one of his yearly travels, he ends up in Italy, only to meet and fall in love with Rachel – a widower who, soon after marrying her, he grows to hate and fear. Not too long afterwards, Ambrose dies, and Philip believes that Rachel is the cause of Ambrose’s death.

When Rachel comes to live at Philip’s home, he goes from hating her, to falling in love with her, to fearing that she is attempting to poison him like he believes she poisoned his older cousin.

While it took a while for me to get into the book, as soon as I hit about a third of the way in, I devoured the rest of it. The setting – ah! I love books that take place on estates in the English countryside. And the characters were wonderful. It was hard seeing them all through the eyes of Philip (the narrator) however, as his moods changed frequently, so he either saw only the good in people or (more often as the book went on) only the bad (in everyone else but Rachel). It can be hard, though, when reading a book that takes place through first person to know how accurate what they are telling you is – because you know that they’re not always going to tell you exactly the way things are, but more how they appear to them.

I loved that I was left wondering whether Rachel was really as at fault as Philip believed her to be, or whether Philip was dealing with the same sort of brain tumor (leading to delusions) that people believe Ambrose died of. It’s very ambiguous, and I want to go back and read the book again to see if I can gain any more evidence either way.

In fact, as soon as I finished the book, I went back and reread the first chapter. Like Rebecca and The Frenchman’s Creek, the first chapter of My Cousin Rachel takes place after the actual events of the novel. It gives the outcome of the whole book, but not how we get there, which is in this case the most exciting part (as it is with Rebecca). So yes, as soon as I finished, I reread the first chapter to see if there was anything I had forgotten that would shed a little bit of light on the final outcome.

But, I do have a question for those of you who have read all of du Maurier’s books (ahem, Rachel): do all of her books start after the story takes place and then go back to the beginning of the story?

The Bottom Line: I definitely liked this better than The Frenchman’s Creek, but not as much as Rebecca. As mentioned, I will definitely be keeping this on my shelf in order to read again in the future. I would recommend this book to people who did enjoy Rebecca and were looking for some more du Maurier to read.

Sir Richard Sedgeley and Lady Mary have come upon hard times, and are no longer able to afford to keep up their castle. The castle has been in the Sedgeley family for five hundred years – and before that, belonged to the royal family for five hundred years. But a castle doesn’t make much income – few tourists come to this out-of-the-way castle in the middle of the English countryside, so Sir Richard has been looking at other opportunities. When a young American appears and offers to buy the castle in order to transform it into a museum, Sir Richard, Lady Mary and their two faithful servants starts questioning whether there is anything else they can do to keep the castle – including searching for lost treasure with the help of the castle ghosts.

Death in the Castle sits right on the edge of being almost a ghost story. It’s also almost a gothic novel. It’s certainly got the setting right – an old English castle, with dungeons, the frequent mention of ghosts, windows that don’t belong to any rooms… It’s just missing the atmosphere. But what it lack in atmosphere, it makes up in other areas of the novel.

Quite the cast of memorable characters in this book, I have to say. There’s Sir Richard and his wife, Lady Mary. Sir Richard is somewhat manic, and (as it turns out) rather crazy. Lady Mary is a sweet, almost timid woman, who turns a blind eye to her husband’s madness, and convinces herself (instead) that the castle is haunted. Then there’s Wells and his granddaughter Kate. Wells is the grumpy old butler, who has had to deal with (and hide) his master’s madness for many a year, while Kate is a bubbly young woman who loves Sir Richard and Lady Mary, but has no idea what’s really going on in the castle. And then there is John Blayne, the dashing young American who is trying to buy the castle, in order to transport it from the rural English countryside to … Connecticut.

The plot was a little unsurprising, but I wish it had gone a little bit more in depth in regards to Sir Richard’s madness. I would’ve loved to see more of the world from his perspective when he believed he was the king of England and had to defend his castle from the intruders (the Americans). It was such a short book, and quite the quick read, that I would’ve happily read more of what was going on in the lives of the characters.

The Sister starts of with Ginny waiting for the return of her sister, Vivian, to their childhood home. Vivian has been absent for over fifty years, and has out of the blue decided that it’s time to come home. Over the course of the weekend that this book takes place on, Ginny reflects on what has happened in their past that had driven Vivian to leave home in the first place, as well as what had torn her family apart. Ginny believes that everything begins to fall apart when they are young children and Vivian falls from the bell tower – thankfully Vivian survives, but due to the accident she will never be able to have children of her own. From that point on, things get slowly worse and worse until they escalate out of control. By the time Vivian has left home, their mom has become an alcoholic who beats Ginny on a regular basis, until a horrible accident results in their mother’s death.

We get a real sense of how different Ginny and Vivian view their childhood through this book – especially when it comes to the death of their mother. While Ginny has always believed that it has been an accident, Vivian is convinced that it is otherwise. At the same time, while Ginny believes that she is the one who has always been protecting Vivian from the truth about their mother, it turns out that Vivian is the one who has been protecting Ginny all the time.

By the end of the book, I really disliked Vivian. I thought she was cruel and manipulative. The way she used Ginny to get what she wanted at a few times throughout the book, really bothered me. Ginny, on the other hand, I felt for. What I really liked about this book was that Adams implied, but never outright stated, a lot of things about Ginny. There were things the secondary characters knew about Ginny that you could sense from comments they said, but Ginny never grasps the meaning of – Adams can’t actually say what is going on, as the whole book is narrated from Ginny’s point of view, but she does such a great job of conveying to the reader things that Ginny doesn’t completely comprehend.

I was disappointed by the atmosphere of the book. I had been expecting something a little bit more gothic in nature. A lot of reviews I’ve read, as well as a statement on the back of the book, had led me to believe that there would be a real gothic feeling to it. The house is a big old empty home (with almost no furniture in it) but it doesn’t have the atmosphere that I have associated with settings in typical gothic novels. The obsession with moths certain make things strange, but in no way makes it creepy or gothic. If I had not been expecting that atmosphere to permeate through the story, it would have been fabulous, but as I had been expecting it… it fell a little flat in that respect.

A short note on the moths – a lot of reviews that I’ve read about this book mention that Adams goes on for way too long about moths and the study of them, but I think it completely suited the narrative voice.

Definitely an enjoyable book. A little depressing by times, and not as gothic as I had been hoping, but it drew me in right from the beginning and kept my interest throughout the whole time I was reading it. I’ll definitely be on the lookout for future books by Poppy Adams.

I think the majority of people have at least an idea of what The Phantom of the Opera is about. It’s been made into countless movies, a musical, etc etc etc. The Paris Opera House in the 19th century is “haunted” by what everyone believes is a ghost, but is really just a disfigured man who has taken to living in the Opera House. The Opera Ghost falls in love with Christine, a soprano who sings at the Opera House, and kidnaps her, resulting in her lover, Raoul, hunting down the Phantom.

I’ve seen the musical, and I saw the movie that was an adaptation of the musical, so I went into this book knowing what to expect in the story. I found that a lot was similar to the main story for the musical. Some of the characters roles, however, had been changed fairly significantly – Madame Giry, for example, in the novel is a concierge who looks after those sitting in the boxes, whereas in the musical she’s a choreographer of the ballet (and in the movie she also saved the Phantom from a circus, and brought him to live at the Opera House). In the movie and musical, Giry is the one to bring Raoul to the Phantom’s house below the Opera House, whereas in the book there’s a completely different character – the Persian – who knew the Phantom from before he established himself at the Opera House.

The Persian was definitely my favourite character in the book. Not only because I hadn’t expected him at all in the book, but partly because his story is the closest we get to learning about the Phantom’s past.

This is my first book for the RIP II Challenge. After reading this book and watching a television special on Ambrose Small (the ghost who haunts the Grand Theatre in London, ON), I’m thinking I may add a book about Small to my RIP list. It would certainly be good follow up to The Phantom – both relating to ghostly stuff in theatres… it might be fun. :)

After my recent readings of gothic novels, I was seriously craving more, so decided to go back to one of the pioneers of the genre, and give Ann Radcliffe a try. This author had not only an influence on the genre in general, but also on some of my favourite authorsd and books. (According to Wikipedia, the list includes Jane Austen, Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.)

Julia and Emilia are forced into a hermitage at the Mazzini mansion by their stepmother, so the girls live a very secluded life, while their father, stepmother and brother live in a different residence. The death of an old servant causes the family to move back to the Mazzini mansion. The two girls and their brother are convinced that there’s a ghost in the house, and their father only makes them believe this further.

Of course, now that their stepmother is back, she brings a whole entourage of people with her, and Julia manages to fall in love with a young man from Italy. Just after Julia and said young man confess their love for each other, Julia’s father accepts a proposal for her from a not-so-nice, but oh-so-high-up-on-the-social-scale duke. Julia escapes from the Mazzini mansion the night before her wedding, only to have to keep having to escape capture by her father and the duke, all the while thinking that the man she really loves is dead, and discovering that the ghost that haunts the Mazzini mansion isn’t quite as dead as most ghosts tend to be.

I’m torn about the narration of the book. Parts I loved. I love the language used in older books, and this book was no exception for the most part.

In her way to the church, the gleam of tapers on the walls, and the glimpse which her eye often caught of the friars in their long black habits, descending silently through the narrow winding passages, with the solemn toll of the bell, conspired to kindle imagination, and to impress her heart with sacred awe.

But then when the dialogue would start!

‘O! talk for ever thus!’ sighed Hippolitus. ‘These words are so sweet, so soothing to my soul, that I could listen till I forgot I had a wish beyond them. Yes – Ferdinand, these circumstances are not to be doubted, and conviction opens upon my mind a flow of extacy I never knew till now. O! lead me to her, that I may speak the sentiments which swell my heart.’

It makes me cringe. It’s so over dramatic, and all I can picture in my head is some man in pantaloons waltzing about the room, throwing his hands above his head in a foppish sort of manner.

I’m not sure whether I’ll read more of Radcliffe’s work; this book was predictable, but it was a quick and easy read that I enjoyed when the dialogue wasn’t making me cringe…

Few things leave a deeper mark on a reader than the first book that finds its way into his heart. Those first images, the echo of words we think we have left behind, accompany us throughout our lives and sculpt a palace in our memory to which, sooner or later – no matter how many books we read, how many worlds we discover, or how much we learn or forget – we will return.

The Shadow of the Wind is the story of two men – Daniel, the boy who discovers The Shadow of the Wind in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, and Julian Carax, the man who wrote the book. This book becomes the first book Daniel really falls for – and it drives the next few years of his life. He is determined to find out information about, and read more books by this author, only to discover that he has the last copy of The Shadow of the Wind in existence. All the rest have been bought/stolen and set on fire. In fact, it seems that all of Carax’s other books have met with the same fate, and it appears that it’s being done by a man by the name of Lain Coubert. Lain Coubert also happens to be the name the devil goes by in Carax’s book. While trying to protect the book, Daniel is also trying to piece together what happened to the author – some say he died in a duel Paris, while others claim that he was shot in Barcelona a few days after said duel, but it appears that no one is telling him the whole truth about the author.

In true gothic fiction fashion, this book has a lot of atmosphere – I could practically feel it seeping out of the pages of the book – and enough twists to keep it suspenseful. Although I had a feeling I knew what happened to Carax (and in the end I was right), the way things played out in order for the ending to come about the way it did wasn’t how I expected.

I have a feeling I’m going to be craving more gothic books now, and may have to revisit some of my older favourites… but that’ll have to wait until the end of the fantasy challenge which I think I might have to participate in, considering all of the unread fantasy books on my shelf at the moment.

I feel I may be the last person in the blogosphere to read this book, because I have read so many people raving about it. (With good reason.)

Margaret is a bookish type girl. Works in her father’s bookstore; writes biographies of dead and forgotten people. When she comes home one day, it’s to find a letter addressed to her from Vida Winter – one of the world’s favourite and most beloved authors. Miss Winter is writing to ask Margaret to write her biography; she’s very sick, has been making up tales as to who she is for years, and finally wants to tell the truth. And the true story that Miss Winter tells Margaret is … interesting seems like such an understatement. Riveting, mysterious . . . heartbreaking. (I use that word too much. I need to pick up other words that convey the same feeling.)

Sitting down to blog about this book, there are so many things going through my head that I could write about. I’m having a hard time deciding exactly what to go with. This was such a good book; although it was a mite predictable, I devoured the last two thirds in the span of a day. And it’s put me in the mood to re-read Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca and revisit Manderley for the umpteenth time – though have a hard time justifying that as there are so many other books here that I haven’t read that I want to. (Maybe I’ll just have to rent the Hitchcock movie at some point soon instead.)

This was an underlining book. Whole passages were crying out to be underlined. That’s a big thing – I have a hard time underlining books; want to keep them in pristine condition most of the time and all. But there are certain books with sentences or passages that are SO GOOD that you need to underline said sentence or passage so you can find it easier when you need to read a certain sort of passage. So yes, a whole lot of passages wanted to be underlined. But, really, what can you expect with passages like this:

Do you know the feeling when you start reading a new book before the membrane of the last one has had time to close behind you? You leave the precious book with ideas and themes – characters even – caught in the fibres of your clothes, and when you open the new book they are still with you.

I had two other main thoughts while reading the book. The first was that I hope it was just a typo when the name “Ariane” was used, and that the author really does know her Greek mythology. If you’re going to reference the Mistress of the Labyrinth, you should know her name.

Secondly, I realized that the name Hester is an empty name. Incomplete. If you stick a “Gray” on the end, though, it rather comes to life.

Thank God for Jane Austen coming along and changing my mind. (Or perhaps I ought to be saying “Thank God for Colin Firth playing an absolutely wonderful Mr. Darcy and changing my mind.”)

There are only a few books that, as soon as I have finished, I want to go back and start all over again. There are fewer still where half way through the book, I need to stop, go back, and start again just to read all the good parts that I’ve already read over again. This is one of those few books.

The language used in this book is enchanting. The characters seem real to me, and were just so interesting. Especially Grace Poole and the mystery surrounding her. In all honesty, I think that was one of my favourite parts in the book. (After we found out about that, I must say that the book didn’t excite me as much as it had previously…. but it was still good, don’t get me wrong!)

There is something about Mr Rochester that brings to mind Dean Priest from Montgomery’s Emily series. I think it must be the way he talks of fey and whatnot. Plus the age difference, but still, he seemed very Dean-ish to me, and it makes me think that perhaps, if I wasn’t such a die-hard Tenny fan, I might have enjoyed Dean a little bit more. Perhaps I shall have to revist Emily again to decide on that one.