Description:  Eight months ago, Sherlock’s love, Molly Hooper, disappeared. Months later, she’s found him, but things have changed. She’s carrying their child and is on the run from his newest adversary. Now, he must protect the woman he loves and their child while bringing down his new foe. Because no one messes with Sherlock’s family. 

It took weeks of secret planning. Her closest friends had risked everything to ensure her safety. The servants, those who loved her, ensured her secret escape. It was dangerous, but with only a month left until her child was born, she had no choice. She refused to allow that man to take her child away, claiming it was his, taking the last foothold against Sherlock Holmes. She refused to allow the product of hers and Sherlock’s love to be tainted by hatred. So, now she was here. She just wasn’t sure how long before he found her.

She only hoped Sherlock would not turn her away. Even though he loved her before, who was to say he still did after she was gone for nearly eight months. Out of reach from his network and friends. Out of reach from him. It was no wonder her friends believed she was dying. She was without love, except for the child within. It was the promise of seeing him again that kept her going. The promise that he would find her or she would find a way back to him.

She felt him before she heard him. The door to his flat opened after hurried footsteps outside climbed the stairs. Mrs. Hudson probably contacted him. Maybe Mrs. Hudson’s phone wasn’t tapped, but now, it didn’t matter. Molly knew Sherlock would try to protect her, even if he hated her for leaving. She held her breath, refusing to turn around. It was now or never.

He stood in the doorway, gripping the handle until his knuckles ached from the strain. She was here. He couldn’t believe it. He blinked a few times in order to ensure that he wasn’t dreaming, and relief overwhelmed him when she continued in his sight. All those months spent searching, hoping, and now, here she was. The woman who haunted his dreams. The woman he loved more than anything. Molly Hooper.

His feet dragged, propelling him to ensure that he wasn’t dreaming, as he slid off the Belstaff and scarf, dropping them on the floor. He had to physically touch her, not just blink, and see if she remained in his vision. He had to hold her, kiss her, touch her. He had to know she was there. He stopped in front of her, watching her with her eyes closed. Her long hair was as he remembered, falling delicately down to her waist. The baggy clothes did nothing for her. Even sitting, he could tell they just fell on her, not accentuating the curves he remembered so well and dreamed of for months.

Her eyes fluttered and time seemed to stand still as he stared into her brown orbs. She breathed his name and his heart nearly made him fall on his knees, giving thanks that she was here.

Molly was feeling the same as she held his gaze. He was just as she remembered. His curly hair was still straggly but still cut to perfection. His body was lean and the shirt he wore pulled in all the right places, like the purple shirt she loved so well. His face was smooth and his eyes. Oh, his eyes were the same heterochromatic color as she dreamed. He was still so handsome, and her heart tightened. Her hands twitched in her lap, aching to touch his face and hair.

“I searched for you.”

Four words that held the world. She tried to smile but failed. “I tried to get word to you,” she returned. “Michael found out.”

His jaw clenched. So, it was true. His adversary had discovered Molly. “He had you.”

She nodded. “I tried to fight him, but he knew what to say to keep me.” She inhaled deeply, squaring her shoulders. “But thankfully, I made a few friends. They helped me escape, and find my way back to you.”

His arms jerked, wanting to hold her, but something held him back. There was something she wasn’t saying. Something he needed to know. “Why are you here?”

Molly’s eyes closed, briefly praying that he would understand when she revealed everything. “Because I need you, Sherlock.” She inhaled, rising to her feet, with a mild struggle. She straightened watching his expression change to disbelief. “I need your help for our child’s sake.”

Find the rest here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13966422/1/

Star Ratings:

Characters: *****  (5 stars)

Character Development: ***** (5 stars)

Plot: **** (4 stars)

Writing: ***** (5 stars)

Overall: ***** (5 stars)

Age range recommendation: 16+ (language, violence including sexual violence)

Review by Morgan.  Originally posted on Navigating The Stormy Shelves on July 31, 2014.

The Lobster Kings is set somewhere between Maine and Nova Scotia, on an island which falls through the cracks of jurisdiction and remains very much its own world.  Cordelia Kings is a lobster boat captain, like her daddy, and all the Kings back to Brumfitt Kings.  Brumfitt was a painter who turned the island into a home way back in the 18th century, and the inspiration behind his mythical works can be seen near every nook and cranny of Loosewood Island.  His stories and images haunt Cordelia’s family, too.  The Kings’ pasts and futures seem bound up in the legends he created: they are blessed with the sea’s bounty, but that blessing comes with a curse as well.  Or so Cordelia’s Daddy says.  Given her family’s history on the island — their immense successes and devastating tragedies — it’s not hard to see why she might believe the stories herself, sometimes.

You might be able to tell from the narrator’s first name that The Lobster Kings is inspired by Shakespeare’s tragedy King Lear. (Sort of in a similar way to Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres, but I liked The Lobster Kings a whole lot more.)  It’s not a complete re-telling of the play, but the parallels are obvious, giving the story some sense of inevitability and poetic justice; even irony when some twists take an unexpected course.  At one point Cordelia does read the play in high school, and she realizes that her namesake doesn’t have a very happy ending.  Aside from the big themes: three very different sisters; the powerful father; the contested borders; and the howling storms, little allusions to the play create a nice treasure-hunt for Shakespeare fans.  (The meth-dealing jerk Eddie Gloucester, for example, isn’t nearly so eloquent as his wicked Elizabethan counterpart.  There’s also a line about eyes and jelly which winked at the reader…no ocular pun intended.)  

It’s not necessary to have read or seen King Lear, though, and when a parallel is extremely important the characters are good enough to discuss it plainly.  The tragedy and exhilaration in this book springs from more personal wells than royal legacy and misspent loyalty, though both of those subjects come up again and again.  This book focuses on family pride, on one woman’s intense desire to prove herself worthy of a name that has kept a whole community thriving for centuries.  Cordelia is an excellent lobsterman and a strong main character.  She loves her father and her sisters, and wants to do right by them as the eldest Kings child.  If that means pushing herself on dangerous waters, or stating the hard truths no one else wants to acknowledge, then she’s prepared to do the work. 

I liked reading the story from Cordelia’s point of view, and thought that Alexi Zentner did a marvelous job of getting into a 30-something woman’s head and heart. She’s got a forceful will, but isn’t nearly so hardened a captain as she’d like Loosewood’s tight-knit community to believe.  Between persistent romantic feelings for her married sternman Kenny, a strained sense of competition with her sisters, and the added tensions when hostile boats start encroaching on their territory from James Harbor on the mainland, Cordelia’s having trouble weathering all the storms inside of her.  She’s an unapologetic narrator but has moments of uncertainty, especially when it comes to her father.  He’s a loving parent and an inspiring figure on the island, but won’t back down or shed his pride, even against his daughters’ caution.  He’s a Kings. He’s the father of Kings, and even the darkly ominous fates Brumfitt painted — fates which can seem like a warning to later generations — won’t keep him from giving every ounce of energy to Loosewood Island and and to his family.  The family tension and the dramas within Loosewood’s community all affect Cordelia and keep her mind churning, until her own struggles start to resemble the tumultuous sea where she feels so at home.

While I don’t know too much about the lobstering life, Zentner’s descriptions of it were so detailed, and functioned so effortlessly, that I’m sure he captured the essence of that livelihood pretty well.  Each boat and crew had such a distinct personality that I felt as though I’d been hanging around those docks my whole life.  The anger whenever men from James Harbor would cut a Loosewood Island buoy became my anger.  The warm camaraderie between Cordelia’s fisherman friends made me see how such a hard life could be full of rewards.  And then the bouts of misery on board — the freezing mornings, fatal accidents, and grisly injuries — reminded me that I’m not nearly brave or devoted enough for such a line of work, no matter how much I like salt air on my face and the sight of weather on the horizon.  I would have been one of the tourists who come to Loosewood Island every year to see the scenes that Brumfitt painted, but I would want to be made of sterner stuff like Cordelia and her friends. (Oh drat. Sterner stuff. Forgive the unintentional fisherman puns.)

The Lobster Kings is a unique new novel with a wonderful descriptive voice.  The Kings family, at the heart of the tale, seems truly real despite the Shakespearean bent to their lives and relationships.  Loosewood Island could be a character in its own right, especially when we see it through the artistic viewpoint of Brumfitt Kings’ fictional legacy.  I don’t know much about art or fishing, but Zentner writes with such vivid detail that I fell completely in love with each subject by the end. 

The mythical properties of the unforgiving sea, which makes up a huge part of the Kings family history, was mesmerizing to me.  It may, however, get old too soon for readers who aren’t so keen on selkie stories and elemental curses.  I don’t think those moments of unearthly imagery ever overshadowed the very human pulse which kept this story alive, though. The sense of place never faltered, shining through the atmosphere and characters of The Lobster Kings on every page. 

Read it if you’re ever homesick for the sea, if you like stories about art and hard work, or if you love novels about close towns and complicated families.  Don’t wait until it comes out in paperback, either. (And please buy from an independent store if you can!!)  This book is too good to miss, and it’s hard to leave Loosewood Island once the story ends.

Bernard and Pat by Blair James Review

I can’t quite capture what drew me to this book so strongly.

It’s simple title that gives nothing away, the promise of childlike eyes and interrogating content. It called to me as soon as I saw it.

My expectations were high, and I set out into the relatively short novel not entire sure where it would take me. It did not disappoint.

Playing around with fragments of memory and childhood interpretation, Blair James has crafted a novel that will sit with you and gently feed you a subtle sense of unease. I was struck by the writing style, both concise and evasive, that made me constantly want more.

Bernard and Pat is the story of a young girl, Catherine, who has found herself in the care of childminders after the untimely death of her father. Her mum is constantly working to keep the family afloat, and Catherine as a result feels abandoned and isolated. The novel explores how a child interprets the world around them, at times of distress and grief, and how the time put between ourselves and our memories can both help us understand our trauma and cause us to question our recollections.

When I started reading the book, I was immediately struck by the claustrophobic atmosphere. ‘I always seemed to have to do things on my own. The kind of things that are only fun with other people.’ Catherine’s memories focus on the visual and sensory recollections of childhood, the texture of a sofa, or the colour of a carpet. The small things that are the centre of a child’s experience that adults soon begin to fail to notice. This small world is reinforced by the repetitive nature of Catherine’s day. She is left to colour on her own, the youngest of a collection of children in afterschool care, and she dwells on the small things around her. Moments such as her description of the feel of painting her fingertips, and how that was how you imagine a cats tongue to feel until proven otherwise, stand out to me as beautiful vignettes of childhood experience.

Contrastingly, the structure of the novel was carefully crafted, weaving around to give us slight insights into the characters and dynamics, the settings and ultimately the consequences. This swaying narrative filled me inexplicably with an overwhelming sense of dread, which came into fruition at the climax of the novel.

As the plot heightened, and we slowly realise the truth of the dynamics that were in place inside Bernard and Pat’s house, the adult voice of Catherine begins to come through. Still written in the simplistic and observation style as her childhood, we see the impact these traumatic years have had on her life from the way that her perspective on it is still seen in childlike ways. I thought this was so subtle, and so incredible, that I found myself immediately wanting to go and search through the beginning of the novel for hints and clues. The use of adult language, specifically the expletives, came as a jarring shock when placed next to accounts of fighting with her brother over their favourite toys. The real childlike anger has manifested into adult rage, and we see how Catherine has gone from being controlled by the adults around her through rules and caring roles, to being controlled by them through her emotions. And she resists against it.

I loved this book so much, and cannot wait to see more from Blair James in the future. Bernard and Pat was a carefully crafted and perfectly executed insight into the way we interpret and understand our childhood through an adults eyes.

5/5 stars

If you want to buy this book, you can find it here: X

Bernard and Pat

Courtesy of Grant Snider and capturing my feelings exactly. Never let a brand die. Word on the street (see: my girlfriend) is that the Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage is better than 1Q84, so whether that means more weird sex and vanishing cats or less weird sex and vanishing cats, plan your bingo moves accordingly. 

-Hal-