Book Review: The Translation of the Bones ARC

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: W&N (25 Aug 2011)
• ISBN-10: 0297865080
• ISBN-13: 978-0297865087

Reality or delusion? Fantasy or fact? When word gets out that Mary-Margaret OReilly, a slow-witted but apparently harmless young woman, may have been witness to a miracle, religious mania descends on the Church of the Sacred Heart in Battersea. The consequences will be profound, not only for Mary-Margaret but for others too - Father Diamond, the parish priest, who is in the midst of his own crisis of faith, and Stella Morrison, adrift in her marriage and aching for her ten-year old son, away at boarding school. In the same parish Alice Armitage counts the days until her soldier son comes home from Afghanistan, and Mary-Margarets mother, Fidelma, imprisoned in a tower block, stares out over London with nothing but her thoughts for company. Remembering her early childhood by the sea in Ireland, the bleak institution she was sent to and the boy she loved, she hungers for consoling touch. In the meantime Mary-Margarets quest grows increasingly desperate. But no one is prepared for the shocking outcome that ensues. The Translation of the Bones is a searingly powerful novel about passion and isolation, about the nature of belief, about love and motherhood and a search for truth.

The Translation of the Bones is wonderfully written – a fresh new novel to shake the cobwebs off and introduce readers to something a bit different.

The style for one thing, is genius. No chapters, no dialogue tags and skips between multiple POVS. For a lot of writers, this would be catastrophic. Francesca Kay pulls it off effortlessly. She places you firmly inside the hearts and minds of her characters; their fears and delusions almost becoming your own.

Mary-Margaret O’Reilly is at the centre of the novel, bringing all the other threads together. She is a simple-minded woman, who enjoys her work cleaning Sacred Heart church. She takes particular care of the statue of Jesus on the cross.   One afternoon’s cleaning has disastrous consequences for all involved. Mary-Margaret falls from a precarious position, breaking her wrist and banging her head. Before her fall, Mary-Margaret believes she saw the eyes of the statue open, and the wounds of Jesus bleed.

A crowd descends on the church, with many believing what Mary-Margaret is saying. While she is pondering her soon-to-be fame and now passionate relationship with Him, Alice Armstrong is awaiting her son’s return from war. Stella Morrison is in an unhappy marriage and pining for her son who is off at boarding school. Father Diamond is trapped in his own worries. Mary-Margaret’s mother, Fidelma, who is house-bound and disabled, is stuck in her small flat with nothing but her mind and memories for company.

The Translation of the Bones is a thought-provoking novel, with so many elements and twists. It is a story of passion and desperation, of loss and tragedy. It is not to be missed.

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Book Review: The Girl With Glass Feet

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Atlantic Books (1 Jan 2010)
• ISBN-10: 9781843549208
• ISBN-13: 978-1843549208
• ASIN: 1843549204
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A novel to fall in love with - for anyone who loved the escapism of "The Time Traveller's Wife" and "The Memory Keeper's Daughter". A mysterious metamorphosis has taken hold of Ida MacLaird - she is slowly turning into glass. Fragile and determined to find a cure, she returns to the strange, enchanted island where she believes the transformation began, in search of reclusive Henry Fuwa, the one man who might just be able to help...Instead she meets Midas Crook, and another transformation begins: as Midas helps Ida come to terms with her condition, they fall in love. What they need most is time - and time is slipping away fast.

The Girl With Glass Feet is one of those rare reads that grab you and hold you hostage, unflinchingly until you have devoured the story. It has the eerie, almost ethereal qualities like the Time Traveller’s Wife, but also firmly footed in our reality.

Ida Maclaird returns to the strange St Hauda’s Land. The first time she visited, it was for a holiday. Now it’s for a cure. Ida encounters the reclusive and socially awkward Midas Crook as he is lost in his world of photography. As a native islander, Ida hopes Midas can help her find the one person she believes can give her the answers she has been searching for.

When Midas stumbles into Ida’s life, it opens up a life time of old wounds that had never healed, only scabbed partially over. The story flits effectively from the present to the past, revealing a loveless and often cruel father and a lifetime of regrets that come from almost every character. Except Ida herself.

It struck me as ironic that the Ida, the girl with glass feet, has nothing to fear. She has lived a full life and even though she is slowly turning into a hardened mineral, she is the wholest of all the cast of characters, the only one who does not fear what is to happening to her. She has no regrets.

The Girl With Glass Feet is a romantic story with a warm heart, but it wasn’t until I finished the book that I realized it was a cleverly disguised paranormal romance. With strange creatures that have the ability to turn anything it looks at to pure white, or the cattle-moths, or glass bodies hidden in bogs, St Hauda’s Land is like no other place. It has an other-wordly quality to it that at times feels fantastical, at others like it could easily happen.

I cannot recommend this book enough. Ali Shaw has created something very special, and it should be adored by everyone. Seriously. 

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Book Review: Deviant ARC

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Amulet Books (Oct 2011)
• Language English
• ISBN-10: 0810984202
• ISBN-13: 978-0810984202

Danny Lopez is new in town. He made a mistake back home in Las Vegas, and now he has landed at an experimental school in Colorado for “tough cases.” At the Cobalt Charter School, everything is scripted—what the teachers say, what the students reply—and no other speaking is allowed. This supercontrolled environment gives kids a second chance to make something of themselves. But with few freedoms, the students become sitting ducks for a killer determined to “clean up” Colorado Springs.

Initially, Deviant starts off seeming like a story about an angry kid, forced to move from a neighbourhood he was only just settling into. Danny is angry about a lot of things – his hippy/posh step-dad Walt, who insists he call him Dad, his Mom who got a new job, the move to a part of the country that can only be described as the polar opposite of what he is used to. Danny grew up in East L.A. before he was moved to Vegas. Now he is in Colorado, replacing desert sand for snow. Lots and lots of snow.

Danny reads like an average fourteen year old boy – angry at the world, becoming interested in the girl across the street, hating his new school. Only when you scratch the surface of this book and delve a little into its pages does its true nature appear. At the heart of it, Deviant is a mystery and a horror story about evil in the world and serial killers. And with correctional institutions after correctional institutions very close by, there isn’t exactly a shortage of them in Danny’s new hometown.

Little does Danny know, there is more to worry about than the weird new school rules he has to abide by, or how he is going to adjust to the bitter cold of Colorado. Something weird is going on in his new town. Someone is taking cats. And sacrificing them. 

At his new school, Danny is quickly targeted. He is protected by an elite group who manage to find ways around the strictly enforced school rules. And his new friends are very interested in what is going on with all the neighbourhood cats.

Deviant is primarily a mystery story but it has so many other elements thrown in. Great suspense, the blossoms of first love, the acceptance of the hand that fate has dealt us. What struck me as the greatest surprise was how much Danny himself grew on me. In the beginning he seemed like any other petulant teen boy – rude to everyone and never apologising for his passive aggressive attitude. But as the story and the mystery unfolds, so does Danny. He becomes a sympathetic character who only wants to have his old home life back, and when it is clear that isn’t going to happen, he fiercely protects the new one he has. Danny is a selfless character, with a brave heart and a very likeable nature.

Deviant is left wide open for a sequel – and I sincerely hope there will be one! This is a great book for anyone who wants a good mystery or who enjoys YA.  

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