The Book Collector

This is a strange evocative novella with echoes of The Yellow Wallpaper. A tale of a series of fairytale inspired murders. As with Angela Carter however the heroine comes into her own power in a cataclysmic manner

Had its frightfully beautiful twisted moments, but the sum was not bigger than the parts. I was constantly waiting for that crisp bite and shaking clues to the human mind and in that respect I was let down. I keep hoping for another gem like Justine from this author. Funnily enough for anyone who's read it, for me this book is skin and broken bones... no flesh or lifeblood.

I cannot fault this book in any way; Violet's character builds to a superb climax as she suffers unjustly at the hand of a fairy tail nightmare. The clash of worlds intertwined with love and obsession form an explosive crisscrossing of fantasy and reality. Top marks, Alice Thompson; five stars!

Gift for our daughter.

This is a slim novel at just under 180 pages. However, I didn't find it a 'quick' read at all; it's a story to savour with characters who the reader would like to know more about and a twisty plot that conjures up a great dose of gothic horror.It's not a horror story, but it is filled with horror after horror. The story is seen through the eyes of Violet, and it's never quite clear how much of her tale is real, or imagined. Violet is one of the most unusual and compelling narrators that I've read for a long time, I questioned her and her actions throughout the story, but also backed her and wanted her to rise ceremoniously over her strange husband and their peculiar Nanny, Clara.Violet was young and quite innocent when she met and married Lord Archie Murray. He's older and his first wife Rose and their young child died, it's clear to the reader that Archie sees Violet as his wife's replacement, as he mutters, on their first meeting; 'Rose, Rose. By any other name.'We meet Violet properly as she waits at home for Archie to return. They now have a small son, Felix and Violet feels happy, but is not content. She is curious about the deceased Rose and discovers a book of fairy-tales in Archie's safe, that is dedicated to the dead woman.This seems to be a turning point for Violet and she quickly descends into what appears to be madness and Archie is quick to have her committed to the nearby lunatic asylum for treatment. Meanwhile female patients from the asylum are disappearing, with bodies of some discovered nearby.This is a creepy story, with more than a hint of darkness and suspicion. The author cleverly leaves most of Violet and Archie's back stories blank, giving them both an air of mystery that pervades the story. There's also Nanny Clara; a wonderfully drawn character who again we know little about but whose presence on the pages is perfectly done.A chillingly haunting story from a talented author. I will certainly be reading more from Alice Thompson in the future.

This was one of those books that I didn’t do much research into before buying it. I had seen it described as a classic and creepy gothic novel and that’s the only convincing I needed to get it. Unfortunately, this didn’t live up to my expectations. In the end, the cover was what I liked most about it.Personally, I found this novel was lacking something. There’s no doubt that it has beautiful gothic imagery and themes, and that’s all well and good, but when the story doesn’t flow and leaves you wanting more, the imagery means nothing. To begin with, I was really enjoying this novel and the story of Alice, her mysterious husband, and the book of fairytales. I did feel the chapters were a little all over the place but that was all part of the parcel and I was excited to see where the story was going next.Unfortunately, after a while, the story became a little bit lacklustre and I found my interest in the book slipping. The story was wide open, clear for you to see what was happening and what was going to happen next. Now I know with gothic novels it’s not about the twist and turns, it’s about the atmosphere, but even that wasn’t doing enough for me to fully enjoy this story. It just felt that with each chapter the story was skipping important parts of the development. In the end, I feel like I read a half-finished novel.The scenery and characters were well developed but the story left me wanting more.

In many ways this book is quite predictable and as the reader we can quite well see what is going to happen many pages in advance, and at only about 160 pages it also means this story is quite rushed. In ways an adult fairytale this book centres around a book of fairytales.From a chance meeting we see that Violet and Lord Archie have a whirlwind romance and in just over a year they are married and have a baby. But with Archie forbidding Violet to see his book of fairytales of course she just has to disobey him, finding only a book of Hans Christian Anderson’s tales. What is it that is so special about this book?With a nanny moving in to the home and Violet becoming hysterical there is a trip to an asylum in store. This takes in the tropes that we would expect from a gothic tale of this type, but as this is relatively short things seem to be rushed and where some realism could have been added this has been left out. Although set in the Edwardian period it has to be admitted that if we weren’t told this we would have been none the wiser, as all you can really say is that this is set in the past. Quite macabre with its descriptions at times we are reminded of the cruelty that went on in asylums and how people were quietly put away to keep them out of the way by the rich. Also with murder, mutilation and extra-marital relations this is quite entertaining, but as I mentioned earlier we are always ahead of what is going to happen here, meaning that we know how this will end long before the final page. If you are looking for something unassuming to pass say a quiet Sunday afternoon then this should do you, but if you are looking for something more thoughtful and with depth, then you won’t find it here.