That Which Shiri is Reading

image via goodreads.com

There’s someone worse than Jack the Ripper.  Yep, you read that right.  Worse.  Than Jack.  The Ripper.

So, so much worse.

Digging the story and the style — flipping back and forth between third and first person isn’t always the way to go, but Ms. Pinborough gets it right in Mayhem.  She has a great sense for which tense/person will ratchet the tension up to the absolute perfect level.  Dr. Bond’s voice flows in and out nicely and his tone and diction are spot on for literature of the novel’s historical era.  Without the really boring exposition. Or the monster reading Ptolemy.  Or the letters with absolutely no point.  Period novel with modern sensibility as regards plot and character development.  Two great tastes etc… Huzzah!

The supernatural/mythological elements, at least thus far, are well placed and sitting just over the horizon, which is keeping them suspenseful and scary instead of lame and overdone.  Bravo again!

Excited to see how this one ends and for Murder, the second of the duology, scheduled for release early next year.

image via danicanovgorodoff.com

I’m also throwing in a graphic novel this week; ’bout time I hopped on the pretty picture wagon.  And The Undertaking of Lily Chen really is gorgeous.  The backgrounds are complex water colors with absolutely miraculous shading and gradation, juxtaposed really nicely with much simpler figures and text.  Each chapter heading comes with a sort of graphic wood cut, all bright red, that I wouldn’t even begin to be able to visualize in my head.

Lily Chen is an excellent example of the comic book as a medium that goes beyond capes and spandex: this is a story about the lives and loves of everyday people; about politics, gender roles and expectations, the eerie (I know, cultural relativism) and oddly moving (and creepy) tradition of the corpse bride still being practiced in rural China, and the force of will it takes to change the course of one’s life.  I am definitely grabbing the rest of Ms. Novdorodoff’s books.  I advise you to do the same.