Four women who work for the same company have experienced sexualised violence by the CEO. This is a man who will use all of his considerable power to silence the women he assaults.
He’s counting on us not telling anyone because we’re afraid they won’t believe us.
Jo, Abony, Ranjani and Maia have all tried to find ways to be heard but each has been constricted, by fairy tales of all things. These are definitely not the Disney sanitised versions with songs and adorable talking animals.
This is a difficult but important read. It highlights the many ways people who have experienced sexualised violence can be silenced by not only the perpetrator but also the systems we expect to help victims of these crimes.
“If you weren’t so scared that people would believe women, why have you tried so hard to silence us?”
It also clearly explores trauma responses and how the impacts can vary from person to person and across time. These can include the inability to say the words and the shrinking of your world.
There are scenes that describe the violations the women have experienced. While they’re not especially graphic, they don’t allow any doubt about what each woman has experienced so please tread carefully if you are likely find this content difficult to read.
Content warnings include addiction, dementia and sexual assault. Readers with emetophobia may want to skip this one.
Thank you so much to NetGalley and Titan Books for the opportunity to read this book.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Once Upon a Blurb
Four women. Four enchantments. One man. But he is no handsome prince, and this is no sugar-sweet fairy tale. Jo, Abony, Ranjani, and Maia all have something in common: they have each been cursed by the CEO of their workplace after he abused his power to prey on them. He wants them silent and uses his sinister dark magic to keep them quiet about what he did. But Jo, Abony, Ranjani and Maia are not fairy-tale princesses waiting to be rescued. They are fierce, angry women with a bond forged in pain, and they’re about to discover that they have power of their own.
In this sharply written, bitingly relevant modern fable, the magic is dark and damaging, and the women are determined to rescue themselves.
It’s a miracle and it’s a curse, the secrets our bodies keep.
When Rory agreed to temporarily move back to her hometown to support her pregnant twin, Scarlett, irrevocable changes to her life (and body) weren’t what she had in mind. After running into Ian, who’s been in love with her forever, at a bar, she has an accident on her way home.
It wasn’t a bear that attacked Rory that night under the watchful gaze of the full moon. It turns out werewolves aren’t as fictional as we’ve all been led to believe.
“Yep. Werewolf,” I say. “A real thing apparently. Who knew?”
While Rory was justifiably concerned about Bambi’s welfare after the accident, it’s not Rory’s car Bambi needs to worry about; it’s her appetite.
The body horror is strong with this one, with the transformation process a particularly visceral experience. The close encounters with a smorgasbord of meats will mean you’re likely to either crave a big juicy steak while reading or reconsider your carnivore status entirely. Or, if you’re like me, your stomach will be turning even as you wish you had a cheeseburger in front of you waiting to be devoured.
Having a female werewolf central to the story doesn’t just make for an entertaining read. It also paves the way for themes of power and control, rage, how we live after trauma and the reclamation of bodily autonomy when your body has been used by another as an object and it doesn’t feel like you inhabit it anymore. Rory’s struggles with what her life looks like now and with her family and past are explored while she works her way through the deli section of the local supermarket.
In all the fairy tales, the wolf is big and bad and dangerous. A predator. Devious and evil. Something to be feared. But fairy tales are bullshit. Maybe wolves just get a bad edit.
There are worse things to be. I know because I’ve faced those monsters.
Content warnings include mention of domestic abuse, grooming, physical abuse and sexual assault. If you have emetophobia, do an about-face now. This is not the book for you.
Thank you so much to NetGalley and Titan Books for the opportunity to read this book.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Once Upon a Blurb
Rory Morris isn’t thrilled to be moving back to her hometown. There are bad memories there. But her twin sister, Scarlett, is pregnant and needs support, so Rory returns to the place she thought she’d put in her rearview. After a night out at a bar where she runs into Ian, an old almost-flame, she hits a large animal with her car. And when she gets out to investigate, she’s attacked.
Rory survives, miraculously, but life begins to look and feel different. She’s unnaturally strong, with an aversion to silver – and suddenly the moon has her in its thrall. She’s changing into someone else – something else. But does that mean she’s putting those close to her in danger? Or is embracing the wildness inside her the key to acceptance?
This darkly comedic love story is a brilliantly layered portrait of trauma, rage and vulnerability.
For more than a hundred years, the people of Vermont had, knowingly or unknowingly, sent their children in reverent offering to the huge house on the hill outside of town. The obedient servants of the Catholic God took the children in, and in return, behind the locked doors of St. Joseph’s Orphanage, out of their own pain and misery, and with all their immense entitlement, they devoured them.
Some books stay with me because they were so well written. Others linger because they invited me into a world that I previously knew very little of, or their content haunts me. Then there are those that introduce me to people I’ll never forget.
This book was all of the above. I expect it to be one of my favourite non-fiction reads of the year.
Investigating some of the worst abuses of power I’ve ever read about, abuse that took place over the course of decades and throughout continents by seemingly countless perpetrators, this is not an easy read. Important, absolutely. Easy, not even close.
However, despite detailing abuses that run the gamut – verbal, emotional, physical, sexual, medical, neglect, torture, even murder – the descriptions are not as graphic as I had expected them to be. That’s not to say that there’s any doubt about the level of brutality these children survived (or didn’t, in some cases). The content is potentially triggering but it’s delivered as sensitively as possible.
The research that preceded this book was extensive, consisting of hundreds of interviews as well as … take a deep breath …
thousands of pages of transcripts from the St. Joseph’s litigation in the 1990s and files from Vermont Catholic Charities, which included contemporaneous logs from social workers at the orphanage, medical records, historic photographs, and letters written by priests and other workers in child welfare at the time, as well as handwritten diaries, police records, autopsy reports, transcripts from secret church tribunals, priest rehabilitation reports, orphanage settlement letters, historic newspaper articles, death and birth certificates, and government files and reports from many jurisdictions.
While the bulk of the book focuses on the atrocities that took place at St. Joseph’s Orphanage in Vermont, you’ll also learn about other orphanages in America, Canada, Australia, Ireland and Scotland.
“I thought I was the reason all that stuff happened,” he told me. “All that time, I thought it was only happening to me, but it was happening all over the place.”
Geoff Meyer
Sally Dale is integral to this book but hers is not the only story that will stay with you. I’m in awe of the courage, resilience and determination of the children I was introduced to, those who lived to become adults as well as those who didn’t.
As adults, many have fought for justice against one of the oldest institutions in the world. The pain of hearing their stories was well and truly offset by the privilege of getting to know these remarkable survivors.
I can’t recommend this book highly enough, but my recommendation comes with a word of warning: please take good care of yourself while you’re reading it. And make sure you have tissues on hand.
Now I know that some people have always moved freely between the reality that is plain to see and its hinterlands: the institutions, the orphanages, the places where things happen behind closed doors and stay hidden.
Content warnings include death by suicide, domestic abuse, emotional abuse, forced labour, medical experimentation, mental health, murder, physical abuse, sexual assault and torture. Readers with emetophobia are really going to struggle.
Thank you so much to Hachette Australia for the opportunity to read this book.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 5.
Once Upon a Blurb
A shocking expose of the dark, secret history of Catholic orphanages – the violence, abuse, and even murder that took place within their walls – and a call to hold the powerful to account.
Ghosts of the Orphanage is the result of ten years of investigation by award-winning journalist Christine Kenneally. What she has uncovered is shocking, yet it was all hiding in plain sight.
Terrible things, abuse, both physical and psychological, and even deaths have happened in orphanages all over the world for many years. The survivors have been telling what happened to them for a long time, but no one has been listening. Authorities have too often been unwilling to accept their stories. And a victim’s options for recourse have been limited by the years it has taken many survivors to process their trauma, tell their stories, and pursue legal action.
Centering on St. Joseph’s, a Catholic orphanage in Vermont, Kenneally investigates and shares the stories of survivors. She has fought to expose the truth and hold the powerful – many of them Catholic priests and nuns – to account. And it is working. As these stories have come to light, the laws in Vermont have been forced to change, including the statute of limitations on prosecuting them.
Told with human compassion, novelistic detail and a powerful sense of purpose, Ghosts of the Orphanage is not only a gripping story but a reckoning. It is proof that real evil lurks at the edges of our society, and that, if we have the courage, we can bring it into the light and defeat it.
I’ve read books about complex trauma before. Most focus exclusively on those who have experienced trauma, classifying them as victims or survivors. They tend to talk about what happened to people and then discuss the various short and long term impacts, and offer suggestions for managing them.
I’ve also read books about perpetrators before, although these reads generally focus on serial killers, a result of my interest in criminal profiling. More often than not, a perpetrator is painted as only that. If mention is made of any victimisation that they have experienced, it’s in a reductive manner. This happened to this person as a child. Therefore, this person acted in this way as an adult.
This book is designed to be a guide to evidence-based psychological frameworks that can aid in understanding the nature of complex traumas, the tasks of recovery, the nature of those who perpetrate abuse, and broader issues involved in service provision and trauma management.
What drew me to this book was the fact that its author works as both a clinical and forensic psychologist. As someone with a trauma history, I’m always looking for new, better ways to manage its impacts. As someone with a psychology degree (the most expensive piece of paper I own), I am interested in the why behind the what when people act in ways that victimise others.
I love that this book delves into something that most people conveniently ignore: sometimes a person is both victim and perpetrator.
We have neat binaries in our minds: victims and perpetrators. Some people are both, and we struggle to know where to place these people and how to respond to them.
One of my favourite parts of this book was its exploration of the way the media highlights the stories of survivors of trauma whose impacts are socially acceptable; these are usually young, attractive, educated, heterosexual, white women. What’s lost in the narrative is everyone else, including those who are incarcerated, homeless, struggle with addiction or virtually any other impact that makes it easier for us to focus on someone’s behaviour at the risk of ignoring their underlying trauma.
When we think about complex trauma it is essential to hold all survivors in mind – not just those we judge to be worthy of healing (typically those we see as being most like us).
I also appreciated the acknowledgment that many perpetrators are very skilled at hiding their true colours from the people they’re not victimising. So many times when I’m reading news articles about a horrific crime, I see quotes from people who know the alleged perpetrator, who talk about what a nice, wonderful, community minded person they are. They can’t believe that their friend, coworker, family member or acquaintance would be capable of such violence.
People who engage in abusive acts often demonstrate situation and context-dependent behaviours, so that people who are not being victimised by them will often see very different behaviours.
A blend of theory and case studies (composites so as not to breach confidentiality), this book would be of interest to both trauma survivors and those who work in helping professions. I anticipate that readers who work with trauma survivors will find the information relating to managing vicarious trauma particularly helpful.
Content warnings include mention of addiction, bullying, child abuse, coercive control, death by suicide, deaths in custody, domestic abuse, eating disorders, emotional abuse, mental health, physical abuse, self harm, sexual assault and stalking.
Thank you so much to Scribe Publications for the opportunity to read this book.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4.5 out of 5.
Once Upon a Blurb
A groundbreaking book that will broaden and expand your thinking, whether you are a trauma survivor, a clinician, someone who loves a survivor, or someone seeking to understand abuse.
The relationship between trauma and mental health is becoming better recognised, but survivors and professionals alike remain confused about how best to understand and treat it. In Reclaim, through a series of case studies and expert analysis, Dr Ahona Guha explores complex traumas, how survivors can recover and heal, and the nature of those who abuse. She shines a light on the ‘difficult’ trauma victims that society often ignores, and tackles vital questions such as, ‘Why are psychological abuse and coercive control so difficult to spot?’, ‘What kinds of behaviours should we see as red flags?’, and ‘Why do some people harm others, and how do we protect ourselves from them?’
As a clinical and forensic psychologist, Dr Guha has had extensive experience in working with those who perpetrate harm – including stalkers, sex offenders, violent offenders, and those who threaten, bully and harass – and she has a deep understanding of the psychological and social factors that cause people to abuse others. In turn, her clinical work in the trauma treatment field has led her to recognise the enormous impacts of complex trauma, and the failures of systems when working with those who have been victimised.
By emphasising compassion above all, Dr Guha calls for us to become better informed about perpetrators and the needs of victims, so we might reclaim a safer, healthier society for everyone.
Sixteen year old Georgia knows she’s destined to be an Aspera girl. She’s known it ever since Michael Hayes found her three years ago on the road leading to Aspera, a 12,000 acre members only resort in the mountains he and his wife, Cleo, own. Georgia is determined to do everything in her power to make her dream a reality.
Georgia is on that same road when she discovers the body of thirteen year old Ashley James, the deputy sheriff’s daughter. Nora, Ashley’s sister, and Georgia begin their own investigation into Ashley’s rape and murder.
Based on the blurb, I expected there to be more of a focus on Georgia and Nora investigating Ashley’s murder. There’s some of this scattered through the book but really it’s the abuse of power and privilege, so much privilege, that abound here.
This book was … a lot. It’s motherless daughters and grief and kidnapping and murder and on page sexual assault and trafficking and grooming and incest and it’s all a case of wondering who’s going to do the next horrific thing. I feel like I need a shower to wash it all away.
Some part of me will always be finding her here. Some part of her will always be here, waiting to be found.
Content warnings include child pornography, grooming, incest, self harm, sexual assault and trafficking.
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
Once Upon a Blurb
All sixteen-year-old Georgia Avis wants is everything, but the poverty and hardship that defines her life has kept her from the beautiful and special things she knows she deserves. When she stumbles upon the dead body of thirteen-year-old Ashley James, Georgia teams up with Ashley’s older sister Nora, to find the killer before he strikes again, and their investigation throws Georgia into a glittering world of unimaginable privilege and wealth – and all she’s ever dreamed. But behind every dream lurks a nightmare, and Georgia must reconcile her heart’s desires with what it really takes to survive. As Ashley’s killer closes in and their feelings for one another grow, Georgia and Nora will discover when money, power, and beauty rule, it’s not always a matter of who is guilty but who is guiltiest – and the only thing that might save them is each other.
I’m the Girl is a brutal and illuminating account of how one young woman feels in her body as she struggles to navigate a deadly and predatory power structure while asking readers one question: if this is the way the world is, do you accept it?
Imagine a world where, if you’re female, you are only allowed to speak one hundred words a day. When you utter word one hundred and one, your wristband will shock you. The more you exceed your quota, the greater the shock.
Not only that, you are no longer allowed to work. You’re no longer allowed to read. You’re not allowed to own a phone, computer or anything that connects to the internet.
Your child’s education is no longer educational; they will learn how to become a submissive housewife but that’s about it.
Welcome to Jean’s world. Run as fast as –
And that’s already one hundred words. Now you’re silenced for the rest of the day. Your wristband’s counter will reset to zero at midnight.
I’ve become a woman of few words.
In Jean’s world, the word count may be small but the indoctrination is big. People saw this coming. Some protested. Others sheltered behind denial, sure that something like this couldn’t actually happen. It did.
They didn’t think it could get any worse. It could.
“This would never happen. Ever. Women wouldn’t put up with it.”
“Easy to say now,” Jackie said.
I was hooked for the first half of the book but the second half seemed to unravel. Some things were a bit too convenient. The ending was a bit too rushed and seemed to go against the message of the book up until that point. I didn’t connect with the characters.
Still, this book made me think about the things I consider to be rights and how easily they can be removed. It made me angry every time I thought about how easily this fiction, or something similar to it, could become fact.
Reading just a few reviews has made it obvious how divisive a read this book has been. It’s about as subtle as a sledgehammer but it made me think so it did its job.
Think about what you need to do to stay free.
Content warnings include mention of abortion, animal experimentation, death by suicide, homophobia, physical abuse and sexual assault.
Thank you so much to NetGalley and HQ, an imprint of HarperCollins, for the opportunity to read this book.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
Once Upon a Blurb
Set in an America where half the population has been silenced, Vox is the harrowing, unforgettable story of what one woman will do to protect herself and her daughter.
On the day the government decrees that women are no longer allowed to speak more than 100 words daily, Dr. Jean McClellan is in denial – this can’t happen here. Not in America. Not to her.
This is just the beginning.
Soon women can no longer hold jobs. Girls are no longer taught to read or write. Females no longer have a voice. Before, the average person spoke sixteen thousand words a day, but now women only have one hundred to make themselves heard.
But this is not the end.
For herself, her daughter, and every woman silenced, Jean will reclaim her voice.
Lila’s mother, a famous artist, keeps her past a secret from her daughter.
Tell me. Tell me about before.
Thirteen year old Lila wants more freedom but her mother refuses to give it to her.
Caroline is haunted by her past. She’s convinced that The Cur is back and wants to protect her daughter from experiencing what she has.
“There are things that I’ve seen … Things I can’t ever forget.”
Told by Lila in 2019 and Caroline in 2004, this is a story of fear, nightmares and accidental art. It’s the past intruding on the present, it’s patronising men, it’s equating being good with being safe, it’s about what happens when we refuse to be silenced.
I was interested in the relationship between this mother and daughter. I wanted to find out what had happened in Caroline’s past. Some of Caroline’s art fascinated me.
As I read about Caroline’s sculptures, I could see them. There was some repulsion attached to them due to some of their components but I could imagine myself finding treasures from nature, random leaves and branches (not some of the other objects Caroline uses), and attempting to create art from them.
I expect this will be a polarising read. I finished reading this book over a month ago and still don’t really know how I feel about it. Where this book lost me was the ending. After having me hooked until that point, I just didn’t buy the explanation. Maybe I missed something and a reread will fill in some blanks for me.
Content warnings include mental health, murdered and mutilated children, mutilated dog and sexual assault.
Thank you so much to NetGalley and Titan Books for the opportunity to read this book.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
Once Upon a Blurb
There’s something out there that’s killing. Known only as The Cur, he leaves no traces, save for the torn bodies of girls, on the verge of becoming women, who are known as trouble-makers; those who refuse to conform, to know their place. Girls who don’t know when to shut up.
2019: Thirteen year old Lila Sawyer has secrets she can’t share with anyone. Not the school psychologist she’s seeing. Not her father, who has a new wife, and a new baby. And not her mother – the infamous Caroline Sawyer, a unique artist whose eerie sculptures, made from bent twigs and crimped leaves, have made her a local celebrity. But soon Lila feels haunted from within, terrorised by a delicious evil that shows her how to find her voice – until she is punished for using it.
2004: Caroline Sawyer hears dogs everywhere. Snarling, barking, teeth snapping that no one else seems to notice. At first, she blames the phantom sounds on her insomnia and her acute stress in caring for her ailing father. But then the delusions begin to take shape – both in her waking hours, and in the violent, visceral sculptures she creates while in a trance-like state. Her fiancé is convinced she needs help. Her new psychiatrist waives her “problem” away with pills. But Caroline’s past is a dark cellar, filled with repressed memories and a lurking horror that the men around her can’t understand.
As past demons become a present threat, both Caroline and Lila must chase the source of this unrelenting, oppressive power to its malignant core. Brilliantly paced, unsettling to the bone, and unapologetically fierce, Such a Pretty Smile is a powerful allegory for what it can mean to be a woman, and an untamed rallying cry for anyone ever told to sit down, shut up, and smile pretty.
Violet’s father is appalled by her behaviour (climbing trees is most inappropriate) and is threatening to send her to finishing school so he can marry her off to an eligible young man. Violet wants to be a scientist. She would also like to be allowed to wear trousers. No one understands her “insect obsession”.
‘Is there something wrong with me?’
Kate – 2019
When Kate leaves her abusive relationship, she goes to Weyward Cottage, which was owned by her great-aunt. It is here that she will come to terms with her past and discover her heritage.
I am the monster.
The first Weyward child is always a girl. This is the story of three of them, centuries apart yet connected.
Although each Weyward is given a voice in this story, Altha’s is the only one told in first person. I found something to like about all three women. In particular, their affinity with nature endeared them to me.
Be aware that on page violence against women is part of the story in every timeline. The graphic nature of some of this abuse may be triggering for some readers. Thankfully, women reclaiming their power and having the courage to be themselves was also part of the story.
Favourite no context quote:
Perhaps one day, she said, there would be a safer time. When women could walk the earth, shining bright with power, and yet live.
Content warnings include abortion, domestic abuse, mental health, miscarriage, physical abuse of an animal, racial slur, sexual assault, stillbirth and suicidal ideation. Readers with emetophobia may have trouble with some scenes.
Thank you so much to NetGalley and The Borough Press, an imprint of HarperCollins UK, for the opportunity to read this book.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Once Upon a Blurb
Kate, 2019 Kate flees London – abandoning everything – for Cumbria and Weyward Cottage, inherited from her great-aunt. There, a secret lurks in the bones of the house, hidden ever since the witch-hunts of the 17th century.
Violet, 1942 Violet is more interested in collecting insects and climbing trees than in becoming a proper young lady. Until a chain of shocking events changes her life forever.
Altha, 1619 Altha is on trial for witchcraft, accused of killing a local man. Known for her uncanny connection with nature and animals, she is a threat that must be eliminated.
But Weyward women belong to the wild. And they cannot be tamed…
Weaving together the stories of three women across five centuries, Weyward is an enthralling novel of female resilience and the transformative power of the natural world.
I’m fascinated by why humans do the strange things we do. This book answered some of the questions I’ve had, as well as some I didn’t have until I started reading.
While I have an interest in neuroscience, I don’t have a scientific background so am usually hesitant to dive into books that explore it. The blurb made this one sound like it would be accessible without a bunch of prior knowledge so I took a chance. I loved it so much that I practically inhaled it.
I have so much more appreciation for the complexities of the brain and how much we still don’t know about how it works. Given how many of its parts are involved in tasks that we often do without a second thought, it’s astounding that we function at all.
Just speaking a simple sentence, for example, requires the successful execution of operations such as word retrieval, the application of syntax (i.e., the rules used to properly arrange words in a sentence), coordinating the activity of the muscles involved in speech, sprinkling in appropriate changes in tone and pitch, and so on. Each of these tasks might require the contribution of different parts of the brain, causing language to be reliant on a large number of functioning brain regions for it to be fully operational.
This book explains how the different parts of the brain work but I’m also much more aware now of the many ways that things can go wrong. Illness, trauma and other unexpected bumps in the road that affect even one part of the brain can have life changing consequences.
Each chapter covers a different area of behaviour: identification, physicality, obsessions, exceptionalism, intimacy, personality, belief, communication, suggestibility, absence, disconnection and reality.
There are so many disorders and syndromes covered in this book, some I’d already heard of but others that were new to me. There’s Cotard’s syndrome, where you’re convinced you’re dead or have lost organs, blood or body parts, and Capgras syndrome, where you believe people close to you have been replaced by imposters. There’s clinical lycanthropy/zoanthropy, pica, hoarding, objectophilia, dissociative identity disorder, the placebo effect, folie à deux, agnosia, alien hand syndrome, Alice in Wonderland syndrome and more.
Despite how strange some of them may seem, they often just represent the extremes of the spectrum of normal human tendencies – and they are not completely foreign to us.
A lot of the stories will stay with me but probably none more so than that of Kim Peek, who had a condition called an encephalocele, “where an incompletely developed cranium allows part of the brain to bulge outside the skull – potentially twisting, distorting, and damaging brain tissue in the process.” Despite considerable brain damage, Kim was able to do something extraordinary.
He eventually could read a page in 8 to 10 seconds while memorizing all the information on it. He even began reading and comprehending the right and left pages of a book simultaneously (with his right and left eyes).
By the time he died in 2009 at the age of 58, Kim had read – and memorized – more than 12,000 books.
Morbid curiosity may make you want to read this book but, thanks to the author’s approach, you never lose sight of the fact that these are real people you’re reading about, people who have often suffered greatly as a result of what’s happening in their brain.
This book did what I’m always looking for in non-fiction. I learned plenty of interesting new things. It held my attention. It made me think. It made me want to learn more.
Content warnings include domestic abuse, gun violence, mental health, self harm, sexual assault and suicidal ideation. Readers with emetophobia may have some trouble.
Thank you so much to NetGalley and Nicholas Brealey Publishing, an imprint of John Murray Press, for the opportunity to read this book.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 5.
Once Upon a Blurb
The human brain is an impossibly complex and delicate instrument – capable of extraordinary calculations, abundant creativity and linguistic dexterity. But the brain is not just the most brilliant of evolutionary wonders. It’s also one of the most bizarre.
This book shows a whole other side of how brains work – from the patient who is afraid to take a shower because she fears her body will slip down the drain to a man who is convinced, against all evidence, that he is a cat, and a woman who compulsively snacks on cigarette ashes.
Entertaining though they are, these cases are more than just oddities. In attempting to understand them, neuroscientists have uncovered important details about how the brain works. Bizarre will examine these details while explaining what neuroscience’s most unusual patients have taught us about normal brain function -ideal both for readers seeking a better appreciation of the inner workings of the brain and those who simply want some extraordinary topics for dinner party conversation.
Tyson Parks, once upon a bestselling author, is struggling both creatively and financially. He’s already spent the advance he received for the book he was supposed to be writing and his agent isn’t exactly thrilled that the work in progress Tyson presents to him doesn’t even remotely resemble the pitch. Sent away with an impossible deadline and strict instructions to write the book he was supposed to be writing, Tyson feels defeated.
Sarah, Tyson’s partner, goes all out for his birthday, buying him a one of a kind antique desk. They both hope this will give Tyson the boost he needs to get back in the game.
Now, instead of completing the historical horror novel he wanted to write, Tyson finds himself embroiled in a real life historical horror, one that’s almost three hundred years in the making.
I found this book easy to get into and I was keen to see how the history of Tyson’s desk impacted on his present. Almost immediately I started comparing Tyson to Jack Torrance. It was hard not to. The author even references Jack, and adds a few other King references in for good measure.
I was completely on board until the on page rape scene. I love so many types of horror: body horror, slashers, supernatural horror, gore, psychological horror, monster horror… This rape scene, though? It seemed to me that it was only there as a plot device, showing the reader that the desk is influencing Tyson to act in a way that he never would without it. There are so many ways you can show me that someone is morphing into a bad guy without using rape to do it. Sexual assault has its place in fiction but not when there’s no sensitivity given to the material.
But here’s the reality: when you are joined with someone for over a decade of life, and when that decade has been a good decade – a litany of loving moments, shared compassion and consistent, unflagging support – you build a level of trust, a balustrade of understanding, of love.
Of forgiveness.
This just made me mad. Oh, and then there’s this.
It was up to Sarah to decide now. Was their story over, or had the future already been written? Sarah let out a held breath, her shoulders slump and she leans forward, her forehead to his chest.
She allows him to give himself back to her, and she to him.
Tyson, Sarah might forgive you for brutally raping her but I don’t.
If it wasn’t for this scene, I probably would have continued to enjoy this read. It coloured everything I read after it, though, and I never made it back to my initial enjoyment.
Because I really liked the way this novel started, I’d be interested in trying another book by this author. I’d definitely check out the reviews first to make sure I chose one that’s right for me.
Content warnings include domestic abuse and sexual assault.
Thank you so much to NetGalley and Cemetery Dance Publications for the opportunity to read this book.
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 2.5 out of 5.
Once Upon a Blurb
On his 59th birthday, Tyson Parks – a famous, but struggling, horror writer – receives an antique desk from his partner, Sarah, in the hopes it will rekindle his creative juices. Perhaps inspire him to write another best-selling novel and prove his best years aren’t behind him.
A continent away, a mysterious woman makes inquiries with her sources around the world, seeking the whereabouts of a certain artifact her family has been hunting for centuries. With the help of a New York City private detective, she finally finds what she’s been looking for.
It’s in the home of Tyson Parks.
Meanwhile, as Tyson begins to use his new desk, he begins acting… strange. Violent. His writing more disturbing than anything he’s done before. But publishers are paying top dollar, convinced his new work will be a hit, and Tyson will do whatever it takes to protect his newfound success.
Even if it means the destruction of the ones he loves.
Schizanthus Nerd 