The Dead Key by D.M. Pulley (TLC Book Review)

The Dead Key

Author:  D. M. Pulley

Published:  March 1, 2015

Publisher:  Thomas and Mercer

Pages:  477

Genre:  mystery

Source:  a copy was provided by the publisher in coordination with TLC book tours in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

It’s 1998, and for years the old First Bank of Cleveland has sat abandoned, perfectly preserved, its secrets only speculated on by the outside world.

Twenty years before, amid strange staff disappearances and allegations of fraud, panicked investors sold Cleveland’s largest bank in the middle of the night, locking out customers and employees, and thwarting a looming federal investigation. In the confusion that followed, the keys to the vault’s safe-deposit boxes were lost.

In the years since, Cleveland’s wealthy businessmen kept the truth buried in the abandoned high-rise. The ransacked offices and forgotten safe-deposit boxes remain locked in time, until young engineer Iris Latch stumbles upon them during a renovation survey. What begins as a welcome break from her cubicle becomes an obsession as Iris unravels the bank’s sordid past. With each haunting revelation, Iris follows the looming shadow of the past deeper into the vault—and soon realizes that the key to the mystery comes at an astonishing price.

My thoughts:

Finally I've had some time to sit and read and it looks like The Dead Key was just waiting for me.  I couldn't be more pleased to have picked up this debut novel to hunker down with.  It was difficult to put it down after breaks at work were done and the chapters flew by.  Finally got a day off due to bad weather; it's snowing!!

The Dead Key is a fascinating story of two women, in different time periods and how their lives intersect.  1978 the Cleveland bank shut down without explanation.  Staff were locked out and customers were not allowed access.  There's a huge secret hidden in those walls of solid wood, tin ceilings and marble executive bathrooms.  When Iris Catch is given the assignment to draw out the floor plans for the abandoned bank, she uncovers some oddities and can't control her curiosity.  Hidden rooms, a safety deposit key, missing records.... all beg her attention.  Dangerously so....

The Dead Key is one of those hard to put down novels that captivates you and has you turning the chapters late into the night.  I love a book that draws you in so close you lose track of time and the outside world.  Good thing, considering the outside world is white and cold today. Having just finished, I must recommend this book!  Treachery, lies, forbidden attraction....need I say more?

Meet the Author:  D. M. Pulley

D. M. Pulley’s first novel, The Dead Key, was inspired by her work as a structural engineer in Cleveland, Ohio. During a survey of an abandoned building, she discovered a basement vault full of unclaimed safe deposit boxes. The mystery behind the vault haunted her for years, until she put down her calculator and started writing. The Dead Key was the 2014 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award grand prize winner. Pulley continues to work as a private consultant and forensic engineer, investigating building failures and designing renovations. She lives in northeast Ohio with her husband and two children, and she is currently at work on her second novel.

Links:

Amazon.com:  http://www.amazon.com/The-Dead-Key-D-Pulley/dp/1477820876/ref=tmm_pap_title_0

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22077587-the-dead-key?from_search=true

Debut Mystery Release: Killer WASPs

Killer WASPs

A Killer WASPs Mystery

Amy Korman

Crime really stings in Killer WASPs (Witness Impulse e-book, on sale 9/16/2014, $1.99), a Witness Original from debut author Amy Korman. If you love cocktails, antiquing, parties, shopping and the occasional crime-lite thrown in amid vodka tonics and tennis matches at the club, then you’ll love Killer WASPs. The first installment in this modern and cozy series features crime, romance, and fun amid the classic estates of Philadelphia’s Main Line.

Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, is a haven for East Coast WASPs, where tennis tournaments and cocktails at the club are revered traditions. Little happens in the sleepy suburb, and that is the way the Lilly Pulitzer–clad residents prefer it. So when antiques store owner Kristin Clark and her portly basset hound stumble upon the area's newest real estate developer lying unconscious beneath the hydrangea bushes lining the driveway of one of Bryn Mawr's most distinguished estates, the entire town is abuzz with gossip and intrigue.

When the attacker strikes again just days later, Kristin and her three best friends—Holly, a glamorous chicken nugget heiress with a penchant for high fashion; Joe, a decorator who's determined to land his own HGTV show; and Bootsie, a preppy but nosy newspaper reporter—join forces to solve the crime. While their investigation takes them to cocktail parties, flea markets, and the country club, they must unravel the mystery before the assailant claims another victim.

Fans of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series will enjoy shaking up the Philadelphia Main Line. To learn more, check out the Killer WASPs Facebook page:https://www.facebook.com/killerWASPsseries.

About the Author: Amy Korman is a former senior editor and staff writer for Philadelphia Magazine, and author of Frommer’s Guide to Philadelphia. She has written for Town & Country, House Beautiful, Men’s Health, and Cosmopolitan. Killer WASPs is her first novel.

Purchase your copy here:  HarperCollins, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, iBooks

Elizabeth is Missing - a hit debut novel by British author Emma Healey (review)

Elizabeth is Missing
Author:  Emma Healey
Published:  June 2014
Publisher:  Alfred A. Knopf Canada
Pages:  288
Genre:  fiction
Source:  borrowed


http://emmahealey.co.uk

Maud, an aging grandmother, is slowly losing her memory—and her grip on everyday life. Yet she refuses to forget her best friend Elizabeth, whom she is convinced is missing and in terrible danger.

But no one will listen to Maud—not her frustrated daughter, Helen, not her caretakers, not the police, and especially not Elizabeth’s mercurial son, Peter. Armed with handwritten notes she leaves for herself and an overwhelming feeling that Elizabeth needs her help, Maud resolves to discover the truth and save her beloved friend.

This singular obsession forms a cornerstone of Maud’s rapidly dissolving present. But the clues she discovers seem only to lead her deeper into her past, to another unsolved disappearance: her sister, Sukey, who vanished shortly after World War II.

As vivid memories of a tragedy that occurred more fifty years ago come flooding back, Maud discovers new momentum in her search for her friend. Could the mystery of Sukey’s disappearance hold the key to finding Elizabeth?

My Thoughts:

Maud is an elderly soul who is determined that her best friend Elizabeth is missing and must find her. No one listens though.    Not the police officer she has spoken to four times, not her daughter Helen, nor Elizabeth's own son Peter.  Her friend's house is empty; the furniture gone.  The notes in Maud's pocket remind her.  Elizabeth is missing.  Maud must solve the mystery of her disappearance.

Pinterest Random House

A debut novel by a young British author, Emma Healey; Elizabeth is Missing features an elderly protagonist who is so well written that the reader really knows her.  We feel her anxiety, her fears, acknowledge her intelligence and self-awareness, and cannot dismiss the turmoil she faces daily; though the author never admits in so many words to Maud's illness. It is what we decipher from the clues, the thought processes and the memories of Maud, that we understand her memory is slipping and getting worse. 

Elizabeth is Missing is a story of relationships.  Maud, the senior with memory lapses; her daughter Helen, who has the patience of a saint (but you can see it wears her thin sometimes), assisting her mother on a daily basis while she also works and raises her daughter, Katy who is coy, a bit rebellious but empathetic.  I quite enjoyed the dialogues Maud had with her granddaughter who didn't seem fazed by the sometimes perplexing situations her grandmother got into. The British wit and sense of humour are evident in the dialogues between these two.

Allow me to set the scene.  It is pouring rain and Maud, who has "escaped," is soaked to the skin.  Her granddaughter sees her on the street, wraps her jacket over her Maud's shoulders and ushers her into a cafe to get warm.

"It's such a shame, Katy," I say."I know Grandma.  I know."She's humouring me.  A wet lump of tissues folds into itself on the table.  It looks like that Plasticine stuff the children used to play with."I can't get hold of Mum," Katy says, holding something to the side of her face.  "She's probably on the phone to the police or something.""What's that you've got against your ear?  A shell? Who is it you're listening to?" I say. Douglas had a shell, I remember.  I watched him discover it in Sukey's case: he felt all around the edges and found it in the lining.  And then he held it to his ear and her voice came out and she told him how she'd met the man she was going to marry."Handy," Katy says. "But this is just a phone. I'm afraid.  And at the moment I'm listening to a woman telling me the number I have dialled is busy.  Never mind.  We'll go home in a minute.  After you've drunk your coffee.""Coffee is good for the memory," I say.  She smiles and sits back.  I think of telling her that I've forgotten why we're here.  But she looks so happy...." 

Helen is too close to the drama with her mother but Katy finds the humour in it. 

"Do you know, " I ask...."where is the best place to plant marrows?"There's a grin and a shrug.  "I don't know, you'd have to ask Mum.  Though probably you shouldn't.  That question winds her up like crazy.  It's almost better than asking where Elizabeth is."  She gives a squeal of delight at the thought and helps me to sit down for a minute.  We don't have to wait long for the bus and Helen, or whoever she is, finds my pass quite easily in my bag.

Through seemingly insignificant situations, Maud's memories of the past are revealed.  A can of peaches reminds her of her mother and we are privy to glimpses of Maud's youth in post-war Britain.  Maud fixates on things, like melons, where is the best place to plant melons?  Toast, she would like toast and tea though she had some earlier, she doesn't remember.  Elizabeth is missing.  Seemingly random threads of thought string together.  One thought can trigger a memory.

The reader can envision the mystery surrounding Sukie, Maud's sister, who disappeared one day; never to be heard from again. While Maud goes about her day, items and conversations bring back memories as seamlessly as a poem and she remembers the past, focusing on the disappearance of her sister.  Possible suspicions are played out as Maud remembers Sukie's husband Frank, the family's lodger Douglas, and a serial killer who now resides in jail.  Elizabeth's disappearance prompts memories of Maud's sister's years before.  

For such a young author to grasp and portray the dynamics of a family of three women, an elderly woman with declining memory, her daughter who visits daily and assists the carer with her needs, and the granddaughter who at 15 or so, displays great empathy while keeping a sense of humour; is just amazing. Emma Healey is able to portray all three as distinct individuals at different points in their lives; keeping them authentic in their respective roles while telling the story all from the perspective of an aging woman.

Elizabeth is Missing is ideal for a book club discussion.  The story between the lines that is picked up bit by bit, clues skillfully hidden for later reveal; all excellent discussion points, as a co-worker and I have discovered while sharing our thoughts over this debut novel that has everyone talking. I borrowed my copy but I want to purchase one now so I can re-read it.   This is a tale not soon to be forgotten, nor would I want to forget it.  

Who would I recommend Elizabeth is Missing to?  Healthcare workers, book clubs, women (young and mature alike), people caring for those with declining memory, caregivers of the elderly, mystery lovers, readers of fiction with substance.  Emma Healey's novel has wide appeal.

Emma Healey grew up in London where she completed her first degree in bookbinding (learning how to put books together but not how to write them). She graduated from the MA in Creative Writing: Prose at UEA in 2011. Elizabeth is Missing is her first novel.

#2014bestreads  #ElizabethisMissing  #bookswithbuzz

Book Review: The Memory Thief by Emily Colin

The Memory Thief
Author:  Emily Colin
Published: 2012
Publisher: A Ballantine Books Trade Paperback Original (a division of Random House Publishing Group)
Pages: 420 (including epilogue and acknowledgments)
ISBN 9780345530394
ebook: 9780345535580
Category/genre:  Women's fiction/romance/paranormal
Source:  A complimentary copy was provided by JKS Communications and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

"Before Madeleine Kimble's mountaineer husband, Aidan, climbs Mount McKinley's south face, he makes her a solemn vow:  I will come back to you.  But late one night, Maddie gets the devastating news that Aidan has died in an avalanche, leaving her to care fore their son -- a small boy with a very big secret.  The call comes from J.C., Aidan's best friend and fellow climber, whose grief is seasoned with survivor's guilt ... and something more.  J.C. has loved Maddie for years, but he never wanted his chance with her to come at so terrible a cost.

Across the country, Nicholas Sullivan wakes from a motorcycle crash with his memory wiped clean.  yet his dreams are haunted by visions of a mysterious woman and a young boy, neither of whom he has ever met.  Convinced that these strangers hold the answers he seeks, Nicholas leaves everything behind to find them.  What he discovers will require a leap of faith that will change all of their lives forever."

My thoughts:

As a good friend and I were discussing books, she asked what I was reading to which I responded "The Memory Thief" and I explained the plot.  "That's not the kind of book you usually read," she said and she's right.

When I picked up Emily Colin's debut novel, I was expecting something like "Left Neglected" but this is totally different!  The Memory Thief is a consuming story about a mother and son who lose a husband/father in a mountain climbing accident.  Aidan had promised he'd return, trying to assuage Madeleine's fears that her unease about the trip meant pending disaster.  One night, though, her fears come to fruition as she receives a phone call from J.C., her husband's best friend and one of his climbing companions.  

The same day, Nicholas is in a motorcycle accident which puts him in the hospital in a coma and with partial amnesia.  He cannot remember anything about his personal life and yet he dreams vividly of being on a mountain, seeing the snow give way as an avalanche swallows him whole. Progressively his thoughts and dreams are consumed by images and memories that are ...... Aidan's. (shocker!)

The Memory Thief is an unusual story, more twisted than I imagined and yet so compelling that it was difficult to put down.  Emily Colin's characters live and breathe and love and lie and they draw you in to their lives.  Vivid physical and personality descriptions carve out each main character as a sculptor would carve a medium, be it wood, stone or clay.  They seem as real as you and I.  

The plot twists and, though the reader has a sense of what is happening, it is not until the end that we fully understand the magnitude of it all.  It isn't all tied up in a pretty bow, in the end, and yet, in a way it is complete. The Memory Thief is one of those stories that you will remember because it is different and the characters are so vivid that they leave an impression upon you after you read the last sentence, closing the book upon the story but not the feeling it leaves you with.

There are a lot of sexual situations in this novel, not gratuitous, but they don't leave much to the imagination.  They are in context with the story line but not what I'd consider necessary to the plot.  It is, however, what the reading audience seems to be enjoying right now if the success of Fifty Shades of ... (you know) is any indication.  The Memory Thief is also riddled with profanity, which too seems to be in context.  I just don't enjoy reading it, though.

I would rate this a 4/5 were it not for the explicit sex scenes and language, which makes it, for me, a 3/5.  Though a good story line, this one has not earned a place on my bookshelf.

The Bellwether Revivals

The Bellether Revivals
Author:  Benjamin Wood
Publisher:  McClelland and Stewart
Publication Date:  March 20, 2012
Pages:  428
ISBN:  9780771089312
Fiction - literary, Fiction - psychological
Source:  I borrowed a copy (ARC) from work.

Part Secret History, part Brideshead Revisited for the 21st century, The Bellwether Revivals is a page-turning, romantic, eerie tale of genius and, possibly madness; a stunning debut for fans of Sarah Waters, Donna Tartt, and Lauren Goff.

The Bellwether Revivals opens and closes with bodies.  The story of whose bodies and how they came to be spread about an elegant house on the river near Cambridge is told by Oscar, a young, bright working class man who has fallen in love with an upper-class Cambridge student, Iris and thereby become entangled with a group of close friends, led by Iris' charismatic, brilliant, possibly dangerous brother.  For Eden Bellwether believes he can heal -- and perhaps more -- through the power of music.  In this masterful debut, we too are seduced by this gilded group of young people, entranced by Eden's powerful personality and his obvious talent as a musician, and caught off guard by the strangeness of Iris and Eden's parents.  And we find ourselves utterly unsure as to whether Eden Bellwether is a saviour or a villain, and whether Oscar will be able to solve this mystery in time to save himself, if not everyone else.  (from the publisher)

My Review:

Stopping outside Kings College Chapel to listen to the music that wafts beyond the doors may have been his first mistake.  This is where Oscar meets lovely Iris Bellwether as she awaits her brother Eden, the organist responsible for the tune that enthralled Oscar.  Drawn not only by her beauty and undeniable charm, but by a world previously unbeknownst to him, Oscar quickly falls in love.

Oscar is an intelligent young man who works as an aide at a home for the elderly and he takes pleasure in his job.  He enjoys the relationships he has forged with the patients he cares for.  Estranged from his mother and father, Oscar may have been seeking a place to fit in, a place where he can leave his world behind with new friends and opportunities.  He is not shallow, he just seems a bit bored with life as he knows it. His association with Iris, her brother Eden, and their friends draws him into a world of love, mystery, and dangerous genius.

It is when Iris enlists Oscar's help in gathering evidence to prove the mentally instability of her brother Eden, that everyone's lives become more complicated.  As Eden becomes more obsessed with his desire to prove himself able to heal through music, we realize his genius is bordering upon madness. Eden surely is delusional, seeking recognition of his brilliance, and, as time and opportunities allow, his experiments grow more dangerous and tragic.  As the synopsis indicates, the novel opens with death, (though we aren't at that time introduced to the victim) and closes with death.  It's the in-between that is so intriguing as to make one put off everything else, including bed, just to see where the story will take the reader.

Benjamin Wood provides an intense well-researched novel in The Bellwether Revivals.  Wood explores mental illness, healing and faith, leaving the door partially open for us to decide about the capacity of music to heal.

An intriguing expose of the genius bordering upon madness, The Bellwether Revivals is worthy of your attention.  Note:  due to the subject matter and some language, I rate this novel 16+ and 4.5/5 stars.

Meet the author:

BENJAMIN WOOD was born in 1981 and grew up in northwest England. In 2004, he was awarded a Commonwealth Scholarship to attend the MFA Creative Writing programme at the University of British Columbia. During his tenure as fiction editor of Canadian literary journal, PRISM international, the publication was awarded the Writers' Trust of Canada/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize. Benjamin's short fiction has appeared in several international journals, and his novel The Bellwether Revivals was shortlisted for the inaugural Dylan Thomas Prize Sony Reader Award for the best unpublished novel. He is a lecturer in Creative Writing at Birkbeck, University of London, where he teaches and develops undergraduate programmes.

Is This The Next Big Hit?

The American Dervish 

by Ayad Akhtar

Read more about this debut novel here.  

The book industry and Hatchett Books liken it to The Help and The Kite Runner, saying it is the book of the season.  Keep your eyes on this one!