Review: "Uprooted" by Naomi Novik

The Wood by Agnieszka's village is full of horrors. Over the years, it has swallowed up both peasants and queens, and its haunted trees grow over the ruins of ancient kingdoms as well as villages like her own. The Dragon keeps the Wood at bay with his wizardry as best he can. In exchange, he takes one girl from the village every ten years. After a decade in his service, the girl is set free--but she never comes home again.

Everyone in Agnieszka's village knows that her friend Kasia will be the one the Dragon picks: she is beautiful, charming, and brave. But to everyone's surprise--even to his own--the Dragon takes Agnieszka instead.

***

Uprooted by Naomi Novik (2015)

4 out of 5 stars 

Complexity of Writing: 4/5
Quality of Writing: 4/5
Strength of Characterization: 3/5
Logic of Plot Development: 4/5
Evocation of Setting: 5/5
Effectiveness of Pacing: 4/5
Resolution of Conflict: 5/5
Emotional Engagement: 3/5
Mental Engagement: 3/5
Memorability: 4/5
Bechdel Test: pass
Diverse Cast: pass
Content Warning: horrific imagery, attempted sexual assault
Overall Response: I really love fairy tales.

***

More Thoughts: I don't know what to say when people ask my favorite fiction genre. When I was younger, I would have said "fantasy" without hesitation. These days, my reading list includes very little fantasy. I eye airbrushed swords-and-sparkles covers with deep suspicion. Lists like "How To Tell If You Are In A High Fantasy Novel" make me cringe even as I laugh.

Naomi Novik's Uprooted (read on the heels of Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn) makes me suspect the trouble: I don't enjoy fantasy as much as I enjoy fairy tales.

Review: "Rose Madder" by Stephen King

In an instant of mad courage, Rose Daniels walks out of the house she has shared with her abusive husband for fourteen years. Fearful, unprepared, and desperate, she sets off for a place where Norman will never find her, where she can be Rosie McClendon once again.

With the support of other battered women, Rosie finds her footing. For the first time since her teenage years, she is free: to have a cup of coffee with her friends, to earn her own money, to close the door of her own home at night... even to carefully examine the idea of love and romance, and its place in her future.

But if the world is kinder than Rosie knew, it is more dangerous as well. Norman, a police detective, takes his wife's abandonment of him as an insult--and he is determined to repay. Every day that Rosie becomes stronger, Norman gets closer to finding her.

***

Rose Madder by Stephen King (1996)

4.5 out of 5 stars 

Complexity of Writing: 3/5
Quality of Writing: 5/5
Strength of Characterization: 5/5
Logic of Plot Development: 5/5
Evocation of Setting: 4/5
Effectiveness of Pacing: 5/5
Resolution of Conflict: 4/5
Emotional Engagement: 5/5
Mental Engagement: 4/5
Memorability: 5/5
Bechdel Test: pass
Diverse Cast: pass
Content Warning: graphic descriptions of physical and sexual abuse; miscarriage; stalking; racist, sexist, and homophobic slurs; murder of women
Overall Response: Half affirming, half screaming heebie-jeebies... in other words, King at his best.

***

More Thoughts: Of all the Stephen King novels I've read, Rose Madder is hands-down the scariest. No monster in the King of Horror's supernatural bestiary is as terrifying as an abusive husband hunting down his fugitive wife. The reader doesn't have to use their imagination for this one: the horror comes from our own everyday world.

Two-For-One Review: "Doc" and "Epitaph" by Mary Doria Russell

"He began to die when he was twenty-one, but tuberculosis is slow and sly and subtle. The disease took fifteen years to hollow out his lungs so completely they could no longer keep him alive. In all that time, he was allowed a single season of something like happiness.

"When he arrived in Dodge City in 1878, Dr. John Henry Holliday was a frail twenty-six-year-old dentist who wanted nothing grander than to practice his profession in a prosperous Kansas cow town. Hope--cruelest of the evils that escaped Pandora's box--smiled on him gently all that summer. While he lived in Dodge, the quiet life he yearned for seemed to lie within his grasp.

"At thirty, he would be famous for his part in the gunfight at the O.K. Corrall in Tombstone, Arizona. A year later, he would become infamous when he rode at Wyatt Earp's side to avenge the murder of Wyatt's brother. To sell newspapers, the journalists of his day embellished slim fact with fat rumor and rank fiction; it was they who invented the iconic frontier gambler and gunman Doc Holliday. That unwanted notoriety added misery to John Henry Holliday's final year, when illness and exile had made of him a lonely and destitute alcoholic, dying by awful inches and living off charity.

"The wonder is how long and how well he fought his destiny. He was meant to die at birth. The Fates pursued him from the day he first drew breath, howling for his delayed demise."

***

Doc by Mary Doria Russell (2011)

4 out of 5 stars 

Complexity of Writing: 3/5
Quality of Writing: 5/5
Strength of Characterization: 5/5
Logic of Plot Development: 3/5
Evocation of Setting: 5/5
Effectiveness of Pacing: 3/5
Resolution of Conflict: 3/5
Emotional Engagement: 5/5
Mental Engagement: 4/5
Memorability: 5/5
Bechdel Test: pass
Diverse Cast: pass
Content Warning: character deaths, racism, misogyny, mention of child abuse, mention of sexual assault, chronic illness

Overall Response: I bought a copy immediately.

***
More Thoughts: Here I break my rule about writing my own summaries. Russell's opening paragraphs convey the sense of the novel better than anything I could scribble. Doc doesn't follow the classic novel format with a central conflict, confrontations, and all the rest; instead, it is a character piece. And not just one about Doc Holliday. It is a portrait of a time and a place, and about the types of characters that inhabited it.

The words "character piece," uttered about a lesser book, would ordinarily make me run in the opposite direction. Trust me, dear reader. Presumably, I have been right about a book a time or two before, or you wouldn't still be here.

Review: "All The Rage" by Courtney Summers

No one in Grebe believes Romy Grey about the sheriff's son. Her former crush on him, her willing presence at his house, her family history of alcoholism, all add up to one thing in the eyes of her peers: she is a liar who would say anything for attention. Telling the truth has cost Grey everything.

After the traditional high school lake party, Penny Young, Grey's onetime best friend, goes missing. The police searchers who look for her find Grey instead, wandering in a daze on a country road. Grey's rescue gives her peers a new reason to hate her: if the searchers hadn't split their forces to help her, they might have found Penny by now.

In the face of her classmates' resentment and the Grebe sheriff's accusations, Grey joins in the search for Penny. Despite everything, she thinks that Penny would have done the same for her.

***

All The Rage by Courtney Summers (2015)

4 out of 5 stars 

Complexity of Writing: 3/5
Quality of Writing: 4/5
Strength of Characterization: 4/5
Logic of Plot Development: 4/5
Evocation of Setting: 4/5
Effectiveness of Pacing: 4/5
Resolution of Conflict: 2/5
Emotional Engagement: 5/5
Mental Engagement: 4/5
Memorability: 4/5
Bechdel Test: pass
Diverse Cast: pass
Content Warning: graphic description of rape, suicidal thinking, bullying, drug use, racism, misogyny, character deaths

Overall Response: I'm almost glad the ending flopped because otherwise this book was almost too intense to handle.

***

More Thoughts: Generally, I don't like talking about books by comparing them to other books, but I can't discuss Courtney Summers' All The Rage without bringing up Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak.

Review: "The Girls of No Return" by Erin Saldin

Lida has nothing in common with the other girls at the Alice Marshall School for Girls, the camp where troubled teens are sent to resolve their problems with spirit-enhancing nature hikes. Their wounds are superficial and their stories of woe too rehearsed, too tidy, to be genuine. She won't tell them so, of course. Lida won't say anything at all. 

Her infatuation with an elegant new girl draws her out of her silence, and puts her in the line of fire. The camp's resident hooligan, Boone, is as offended by Gia's prideful grace as Lida is enchanted by it. Rumors fly about Boone's murderous temper. As Boone and Gia's rivalry builds to violence, though, Boone offers Lida her friendship--a dangerous gift that Lida is afraid to reject.

The Girls of No Return by Erin Saldin (2012)

4.5 out of 5 stars 

Complexity of Writing: 3/5
Quality of Writing: 4/5
Strength of Characterization: 5/5
Logic of Plot Development: 5/5
Evocation of Setting: 5/5
Effectiveness of Pacing: 5/5
Resolution of Conflict: 5/5
Emotional Engagement: 5/5
Mental Engagement: 3/5
Memorability: 4/5
Bechdel Test: pass
Diverse Cast: pass
Content Warning: violence, description of self-injury

Overall Response: Brrrrrrrr.

***

More Thoughts (But First, An Aside): 

My friend Della just launched her own book blog, The Gorgonist, which you should visit at once. In one of her inaugural posts, she produced a book rec for every one of Taylor Swift's recent hits. I promptly put a half-dozen of them on hold, because Della likes fun books. (On the other hand, Della is also responsible for me reading Code Name Verity, and for that I may never forgive her.)

The book which Della associated with the song "Bad Blood" settled right down into that carved-out hollow within my heart where wilderness adventure stories live. Erin Saldin's The Girls of No Return, picks up the torch dropped by Hatchet, Downriver and My Side Of The Mountain. Then it tosses that torch into the puddle of gasoline that is mental health and queer issues. It's everything that The Miseducation of Cameron Post failed to be. Reading The Girls of No Return was like having a nightmare, but waking refreshed and ready to face the day.

Series Review: "Foreigner" by C.J. Cherryh

Humans and atevi are incompatible: That is the message everyone learned from the War of the Landing, when human refugees from the spaceship Phoenix tried to settle on atevi lands. For peace to exist on the planet, the two races must be strictly segregated.

Bren Cameron is the paidhi, the sole translator between the atevi mainland and the surviving human contingent on the island of Mospheira. It is an unglamorous and steady job: signing off on cargo shipments, perhaps writing a dictionary entry or two. But when the long-lost Phoenix returns after two centuries of silence, the fragile peace maintained by Bren's predecessors is shattered.

Half of the human population sees this as their chance to return to power. More than half of the atevi see it as evidence of a centuries-long human plot to betray and exterminate the atevi. Suddenly Bren, the maker of dictionaries, must stand in the gap between the species--and negotiate with powers who consider assassination a perfectly acceptable legal recourse.

***

Foreigner (series) by C.J. Cherryh (1994 & onward)

3 to 4 out of 5 stars 

Complexity of Writing: 4/5
Quality of Writing: 4/5
Strength of Characterization: 4/5
Logic of Plot Development: 3/5
Evocation of Setting: 5/5
Effectiveness of Pacing: 3/5
Resolution of Conflict: 4/5
Emotional Engagement: 4/5
Mental Engagement: 5/5
Memorability: 4/5
Bechdel Test: pass (in later books)
Diverse Cast: pass
Content Warning: description of torture (first book)

Overall Response: It's not for everyone, but if it's for you, it's SO FOR YOU.

***

More Thoughts: Dear reader, this once, I'll have to spoil plot developments in order to give this series my recommendation. C.J. Cherryh's Foreigner books are so dear to my heart--and so familiar--that I forgot how unsteady it is at the start. I recommended it to certain of you without preface, and was disappointed when the series didn't arrest you as it did me. I wondered how other readers could not have delighted in gauging alliances based on number theory, or in lethal applications of the word "finesse."

Then I reread it myself, and remembered that the first book is a bit... impenetrable.

Review: "The Scar" by China Mieville

When her beloved city of New Crobuzon turns dangerous, linguist Bellis Coldwine lies her way aboard a ship bound for the distant colonies. Unlike the other passengers, she has no desire to make a new life anywhere new--only to lie low until the threat passes. But all hope of returning home is brutally ended when pirates attack the Terpsichoria. The ship and its passengers are forcibly integrated into the floating pirate city of Armada.

While Bellis rages at the loss of her way home, others of the Terpsichoria's passengers find Armada to be an unlooked-for reprieve. The convict Tanner Sack, cruelly surgically altered as punishment for his crimes, was destined to a life of slavery in the colonies--but Armada welcomes him with open arms. In a floating city, Tanner's amphibious modifications are a gift, rather than the curse the New Crobuzon judges intended.

But the rulers of Armada have set their sights higher than mere piracy. A tangled web of secrets, absurd myths, and arcane research surrounds their purposes. Willing or unwilling, Armada requires Bellis and Tanner's skills--even if their service could mean the end of everything they know.

*** 

4.5 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Review: "Alphabet of Thorn" by Patricia McKillip

McKillip's covers are so alarmingly twee.

A labyrinthine library tunnels through the cliffs beneath the castle of Raine, overflowing with the written flotsam and jetsam of lost civilizations. The foundling Nepenthe has spent her whole life translating these ancient texts. 

When one of the castle's mages delivers a puzzling new book in a new language, somethings in its twisting script speaks to her. Rather than turn the project over to her superiors, Nepenthe hides the book and translates it on her own.

While Nepenthe sinks further into the curiously unfinished record of an ancient conqueror-king, real conquerors threaten Raine's security. The squabbling lords of the realm view Raine's absent-minded young queen as no impediment to their ambition.

But the queen seems more inclined to hide from the threats than to deal with them.  

*** 

3.9 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Anthology Review: "Alternate Realities" by C.J. Cherryh

I have always found it tricky to recommend the novels of C.J. Cherryh to other people.

Previously, I've given high marks to her western frontier/sci-fantasy/horror duology Rider At The Gate and Cloud's Rider. On the other hand, I've mentioned her problem with fuzzy climactic moments (see the review of Peter S. Beagle's The Innkeeper's Song.)

Cherryh's most famous work, the "Foreigner" series, is my favorite "culture clash" tale...  and a very hard read for people who expect a little more blazing guns and a little less diplomacy in their sci-fi.

But Cherryh's anthology Alternate Realities is an absolute gift to the science fiction genre.

I cannot speak as to the quality of the anthology's third story, "Wave Without A Shore." Every time I try to read it, my eyes slowly close and the book slides from my uninspired fingers. (I suppose that's a comment on quality after all.) However, the first two--"Port Eternity" and "Voyager in Night"--are the most delicious sci-fi novellas ever put to paper. The stories are so rich, so complex. They play in my brain like half-remembered movie clips when I'm awake too late at night.

Now, 66% success is still a failing grade by the reckoning of most American school systems. For fiction, however, that's two amazing books for the price of one, plus a bonus paperweight.

My usual "summary followed by critique" format doesn't work quite as well for anthologies as for novels, when I have only a single plot to describe. Instead, I'll break both stories down beneath the cut.

Review: "Imperial Purple" by Gillian Bradshaw

Even slaves are honored to work with Tyrian purple, the rarest and most expensive of dyes in Byzantium. Demetrias, who weaves silk tapestries for the emperor, is luckier than most. But the honor turns to danger when Demetrias is secretly ordered to weave an imperial cloak in dimensions she knows are not the emperor's.

The secret commission is evidence of treason, and Demetrias wants no part of it. As a slave, though, she has no choice but to follow orders. After the conspirators escape with the finished cloak, Demetrias herself is seized as evidence of the plot and dragged a thousand miles from home to the court in Constantinople.

Her husband Symeon, a state slave himself, fishes for the murex shells which give the dye its hue. When Demetrias is kidnapped by the investigators, Symeon sails his tiny boat across the sea to follow her and force the powers of the state to return her home. But it was Symeon's well-meaning attempt to protect Demetrias that revealed the conspiracyand endangered her in the first place.

*** 

4 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Review: "The Queen of Attolia" by Megan Whalen Turner

(The Queen of Attolia is the second book in a series. I reviewed The Thief, the first book , here.)

"My" cover of The Queen of Attolia,
which apparently other fans despise.

The Queen of Attolia has not forgiven the thief Eugenides for outwitting her and escaping her judgment. When she captures him a second time in her own megaron, she invokes the historical punishment for thieves and orders his right hand be cut off before sending him home to his people.

The maiming of the thief becomes the catalyst for a war between three countries. The invading Mede Empire waits to overrun the first one weak enough to allow them a foothold. And Eugenides, one-handed and shaken, is called upon once more to snatch an impossible victory.

*** 

4.5 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Review: "The Patron Saint of Ugly" by Marie Manilla

When stories come pouring out of the tiny town of Sweetwater, West Virginia, about the miraculous healing powers of Garnet Ferrari, the Vatican dispatches an investigator to determine the truth of the so-called saint.

Garnet herself denies all claim to sainthood or miracles, but she cannot deny that something strange has been happening all her life. From the day she was born with a birthmark of the world covering her entire body, she has been set apart, marveled over by superstitious grandmothers and reviled by her peers. Only her mother, a blue-blooded runaway from Virginia's highest society circles, is determined to adore her map-stained daughter.

The Vatican's investigation follows Garnet back through time to the miracles she performed and the ones she failed. Was there ever really a Santa Garnet del Vulcano before her, or is Garnet truly the rebirth of a long-lost Sicilian saint? It's a legend the world has never heard before, but one which in Garnet's memory has been told a hundred times and more. 

*** 

4.5 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Review: "The Goblin Emperor" by Katherine Addison

When the emperor and his chosen heirs are killed in a fatal airship accident, the elven crown falls to the last person anyone considered: his youngest, least-favored son, raised in exile and all but forgotten by the court.

In the blink of an eye, half-goblin Maia becomes the Emperor Edrehasivar VII. He would be the first to agree that he has no allies, no proper training, and a rather short life expectancy.

But when there are only two paths open to him--to be emperor, or to be dead--Maia chooses to repair the devastation of his father's legacy, and to leave his own.

And for all his lack of polish, Maia is no fool--and no stranger to living in a den of vipers. Those who expect Maia to be a simple puppet to be manipulated and replaced have a nasty surprise in store.

*** 

  4.9 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Bonus Review: Karen Russell's Short Story Anthologies

I had so much fun reviewing Karen Russell's Swamplandia! that I picked up both of her short story anthologies: St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves and Vampires in the Lemon Grove. Over the weekend, I tore through them both. As long as I can spend this summer lying by the pool with good books like these, I won't complain about the heat.

Russell is climbing swiftly in the ranks of my most esteemed modern writers. She has a thoroughly unique viewpoint on both the everyday and the paranormal, one which at times even reverses the two. At the same time, her writing is so grounded in earthy and unvarnished settings that the reader never senses when their feet have left the ground. There is no need to suspend disbelief when reading her tales. Russell does it for you. It's quite the optical illusion.

Most importantly, against these surreal stages--both the ones that exist in our own world, however unfamiliar they are to the reader, and the ones that require a little loosening of the seatbelt of reality--Russell sets very simple, very true characters. They grip the reader's heart with a familiar and possessive hand.

Reading through both of these anthologies at such a fast clip, I did notice a recurring weakness when it comes to endings. Over and over, Russell seems to conclude the tale five minutes too soon, stopping on a point that feels neither cliffhangerish nor resolved. It may be intentional, but I would love to see the author follow through at least once.

Every anthology has a few duds, but Russell knocks it out of the park with so many of these tales that I recommend both books as highly as Swamplandia! itself. I look forward to her other works.

Review: "The Princess Curse" by Merrie Haskell

The princesses of Castle Sylvian are under a curse, and young Reveka, the herbalist's apprentice, intends to be the one to break it. With the reward the king is offering, she could run her own herbary--and not have to listen to Brother Cosmin yelling anymore.

But breaking the curse is no simple matter, with a tower full of enchanted sleepers who failed to break the curse, and the princesses themselves poisoning those who try. It's for their own good, they tell Reveka. Better to be poisoned, than to follow the cursed princesses to the Land of the Dead where souls wander and fade, and where a monster hunts for his bride.

***

4.5 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Review: "Swamplandia!" by Karen Russell

Once upon a time, Hilola Bigtree, the Swamp Centaur, wrestled alligators before cheering crowds at Swamplandia!, the Bigtrees' family-run theme park. Her daughter Ava wanted nothing more than to be just like her. But Hilola is dead and the tourists no longer flock to the island, preferring the gimcrack attractions on the mainland. Swamplandia!, like surviving Bigtrees, is abandoned.

While Chief Bigtree vanishes for days on end--supposedly raising money to save Swamplandia!--his children are left to fend for themselves. The traitor Kiwi runs away, working at a rival hell-themed water park to earn a normal life for himself and his sisters. Dreamy Osceola holds seances, talking first to her mother and then to a succession of ghostly "boyfriends." When one proposes to her, Ossie boards a derelict ship she believes will drift to the Underworld, leaving Ava behind.

Guided by the mysterious Bird Man, Ava plunges into the treacherous labyrinth of the Everglades, searching for Ossie. In the wake of Hilola's death, someone has to save Swamplandia! and the Bigtrees, even if that someone is the youngest of them all.

***

4.5 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Review: "Breath and Bones" by Susann Cokal

The nuns at the Danish convent always knew young Famke would fall into sin. Such a pretty girl would never stay on the path of righteousness, they said. She was born for rebellion--and for ruin.

Aspiring painter Albert Castle sees Famke's beauty as his means to join the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood of artists. His painting of Famke as Nimue cursing Merlin is a masterpiece. But when Albert goes to make his fortune, he takes only the painting and leaves behind the naive girl whose reputation he has destroyed. 

Too fallen to be afraid of God, too sheltered to be afraid of the world, Famke sets off on her own pilgrimage. She follows Albert's wake across the ocean to the American frontier, through brothels and Mormon communes and all the wild places of a new and chaotic country. She has one shining purpose: to find her artist and be his muse again.

*** 

4.5 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Review: "Feed" by Mira Grant

The zombie apocalypse has come--and stayed. Twenty-five years after the initial outbreak of the virus, the infected continue to shuffle hungrily after warm flesh. Worse, every single living person is a carrier for the dormant virus, which could claim them at any time.

Even in the face of the undead, however, life goes on. Bloggers Georgia and Shaun Mason are selected to cover the presidential campaign of Peter Ryman, the first candidate to have been a teenager during the first horrifying outbreak.  Few have trusted the official media since censoring and misinformation led to the (un)deaths of thirty-two percent of the population--leaving bloggers in the position of viral truth-tellers for the world. Ryman hopes the presence of the Mason team will give his campaign the legitimacy and the popular support he needs.

Georgia and Shaun, poster children of the apocalypse generation, are prepared for cross-country travel through a zombie-filled wasteland. But even the living dead aren't as lethal as ordinary humans with an agenda. Political schemes escalate from sabotage, to murder, to biological terrorism. The Masons were hired to tell the world the truth--and someone doesn't want it told.

*** 

  4 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Review: "Revelation Space" by Alastair Reynolds

The first book in the Inhibitor Trilogy

Humanity has entered interstellar space to find itself strangely alone. The galaxy is littered with life-supporting planets and the ruins of alien civilizations, but of extant peers--none.

Dan Sylveste is singleminded to the point of monomania in his pursuit to understand the extinction of the alien Amarantin. As he gathers evidence that the birdlike race achieved starflight before their demise, his research team mutinies. Meanwhile, the ghostly simulation of his dead father taunts Sylveste with the secrets he has hidden.

Aboard the Nostalgia for Infinity, Triumvir Ilia Volyova has a quest of her own: to find a cure for the virus which slowly dissolves her Captain. The computer program containing the memories of Calvin Sylveste may have the answer. But a spectral entity lurking in the ship's weapons cache works against Volyova, driving her fellow crew members mad and twisting the ship to its own sinister purpose.

Ana Khouri, an assassin-for-sport on the planet Yellowstone, is blackmailed by the mysterious Mademoiselle into taking an illegal commission: to find and kill a man who has not paid to die. Haunted by the phantoms of her soldiering days, and the far more literal phantom of the Mademoiselle implanted in her brain, Khouri searches for her target--Sylveste.

Across the vast realms of space and time, the three converge on the planet Resurgam, where the Amarantin race died. And where, if they are not very careful, humanity will soon follow.

***   4 out of 5 stars (grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Review: "The Thirteenth Tale" by Diane Setterfield

The famous writer Vida Winter is renowned for the outlandish histories she makes up for interviews. Each one has been a lie. Now an old woman, dying of cancer, she wants to lay certain ghosts to rest before she joins them.

As far as Winter is concerned, biographer Margaret Lea is a blank slate: unfamiliar with her works, untouched by preconceptions. But while Margaret listens to the old novelist's confession, she finds that not all of the ghosts are silent--and that some are calling her own name.


***   4 out of 5 stars (grump below the cut) ***