I was drawn to the historical aspect of this book, and the names dropped on its pages, such as Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy, to name a couple. As a lover of history and mystery, there are few things more intriguing to me than the number of conspiracy theories involving these two mega-icons.
This book is fiction, but so strewn with possibly actual events that it reads like fact, and it kept my heart a-thumping with every turn of the page. The words conjured an actual movie in my head, depicting events that probably didn’t happen but could have!
I pulled this book off the shelf of a used bookstore, and I confess I purchased it only because of a 3/$10 sale. I’d heard of the movie, but I never watched a movie until I read the book, so I figured…why not give it a turn?
I love a good between-worlds story, and the setting of both the New England fishing village and the mystical in-between absolutely enchanted me. Sherwood’s masterful character building had me feeling as if I were one of Charlie’s neighbors, as intrigued by the mystery as the streetside fortune teller.
An added treat? As an afterword, Sherwood writes of his research, and many of the minor characters are based on actual residents of a small fishing village! A great peek into an author’s process.
'Refreshingly romantic, dangerously good fun, hugely addictive' Joanne Harris, author of Chocolat
Charlie St. Cloud was a blessed boy, destined to do good things in high places. But all that changed the night he survived the car crash that killed his little brother, Sam. Years later, Charlie is still trying to atone for his loss. He has stayed at home, in his snug New England fishing village, tending the lawns and monuments of the ancient cemetery where his brother is buried. You see, Charlie is graced with an extraordinary gift: he can see, talk to, and even play catch with…
I have lived in many haunted places, one of them a 1906 Victorian, which I painstakingly restored, so I couldn’t resist acquiring this novel for my collection. Orlando’s gripping style pulled me into the horror and love of living in places that are sometimes scary. Add to this the family mystery, and voila: MAGIC.
It brought me back to the days of straddling the explainable and otherworldly, particularly when my girls were reluctant to go to bed because they were too tired to play with the little girl in the closet. I literally could not stop reading this one. And who needs sleep, anyway?
“Why run from a haunted house when you can stay and ignore the ghosts? Just when you thought you'd seen everything a haunted house novel could do, The September House comes along and delivers an eerie, darkly funny, and emotionally grounded book about the ghosts that haunt houses and marriages."– Grady Hendrix, New York Times bestselling author of How to Sell a Haunted House
A woman is determined to stay in her dream home even after it becomes a haunted nightmare in this compulsively readable, twisty, and layered debut novel.
When Margaret and her husband Hal bought the large Victorian…
Three months after four-year-old Holly Gebhardt was kidnapped, she was returned…with no memory of the ordeal. Though a local handyman was convicted, suspicion also fell on his friend―Holly’s mother, Cecily.
The doubts about Cecily’s involvement shattered the family. Twenty years later, another girl goes missing. It’s just the latest in a series of kidnappings that Detective Jason Guidry thinks Holly can help solve. Holly is missing vital pieces of the puzzle but believes her mother can put them in place.
In desperation and fear, Holly and her mother come together again.
But in a chilling rush toward the past, Cecily still has secrets she’s yet to share with her daughter. Should she dare to breathe a word, she could lose Holly all over again.
