Tag Archives: time

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton (2018) – BR00189 (2020) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸

The PolyBlog
March 22 2020

Plot or Premise

A woman dies at a party at a country resort, the solution obvious. But she was actually murdered, and a guest must solve the crime or never leave. Because the same day repeats each day, and each day the guest is in the body of someone else. He has seven chances to get it right.

** Note that when I bought the e-book, all the promotional material including the cover said “The 7 Deaths of…”. Now, a few months later, as I go to review it, the title has changed to the 7.5 deaths. I’m keeping the title I had initially. **

What I Liked

The Groundhog Day / time loop is rarely handled well in any genre (TV, movie, books), but Turton not only handles it expertly, he adds in a body jumping element that is brilliant. Each day he learns just a little bit more about the culminating murder, and about the reality he is trapped in, playing detective in a country resort. Some days he is completely new, other days he is locked into exchanges he witnessed the day before and must tweak them to ensure they end the same or differently. Can he prevent the murder? Can he solve the crime? And why does another guest seem to know he’s not himself? And who — or what — is stalking the guests?

What I Didn’t Like

It is a bit confusing at times, given the sheer complexity of the story. 

The Bottom Line

Expertly done — time jumps, loops, and body-hopping, oh my!

The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness (2014) – BR00171 (2019) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
November 16 2019

Plot or Premise

After falling in love (book 1), and hiding in the past (book 2), Diana and Matthew return to the present to start a family and figure out what is in the Book of Life.

What I Liked

This third book recaptures some of the mystery from the first book and tackles head-on the issue of the lineage of demons, vampires and witches. Gone are the long, loving descriptions of places, and instead, there are multiple action scenes, broad moving parts across multiple continents, confrontations with the Congregation, and a reckoning for some wayward players. More importantly, you get to see Matthew and Diana weave all of it into a family. It even rectifies one of the glaring gaps from book 2 regarding a young boy named Jack.

What I Didn’t Like

The true villain of the trilogy is revealed, as is a hidden hero. But while the villain is vanquished, the hidden hero who is around for most of book 2 and is revealed in book 3 ends up disappearing near the end. It left a feeling of incompleteness, as did two other villains who are not really dealt with at all, except politically.

The Bottom Line

An action-packed but not completely satisfying ending

Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness (2014) – BR00170 (2019) – 🐸🐸🐸⚪⚪

The PolyBlog
November 14 2019

Plot or Premise

A witch and a vampire hide out in 1590 Europe while she learns to control her powers.

What I Liked

After timewalking from present day, Diana has to learn to live in Elizabethan England, adapt to the customs of the day, and attempt to blend in. Lots of historical figures pop in and out, friends of Matthew in the “School of Night”, and she feasts on the living history. But it is only when she is at Sept-Tours that the book really brings the same sense of place that the first book did. She learns about the nature of her witch powers from a coven, and her family grows in size, including a nephew named Gallowglass.

What I Didn’t Like

The sense of place that was so common in each of the locales in the first book is not as vivid, except in Sept-Tours with Philippe (Matthew’s father). In addition, the book drags on and on in places with hardly anything happening relative to the mystery of magic, rather than just politics of the day, yet there are two fairly important events regarding children that are practically ignored as commonplace (with seemingly no emotional impact at all). There are also major happenings that happen elsewhere in time, and you only hear about them as throwaway news, including the death of a significant character.

The Bottom Line

A slow middle book with no ending.

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness (2011) – BR00169 (2019) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
November 13 2019

Plot or Premise

A witch who has ignored her powers feels them re-awaken in Oxford as she does research on alchemy and encounters a vampire interested in the same book.

What I Liked

The story is far removed from the world of young magicians or young love. Instead, we see a budding partnership, collaboration and even romance blossom between Dr. Diana Bishop, hidden witch, and Matthew de Clermont, vampire. But it is the richness of every place and event that overwhelms the senses…Oxford comes alive, his castle in France is a presence all on its own, the changing relationship between Diana the witch and Ysabeau the mother-in-law vampire, and even the life in America with Diana’s aunts. Each segment is visual, sensual, tangible to the reader. Yet at the same time, it combines all the magical elements with DNA tests and the use of science.

What I Didn’t Like

The sheer magnitude of the story is hard to keep straight with all the characters and the various histories that intertwine. There is also not enough info about demons, while an abundance for vampires and witches. And the ending is basically “to be continued”.

The Bottom Line

A fantastic start to a fantasy series.

The Clockmaker’s Daughter by Kate Morton (2018) – BR00124 (2019) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
January 26 2019

Plot or Premise

A house in the country has some hidden secrets as do some of the people who visit the house throughout 150 years of history.

What I Liked

The overall story is awesome, despite some accessibility challenges with the structure (see below). You get to see pieces of the long story in the 1850s with one character as a young girl and another as a young boy; period two is an outing a number of years later when a bunch of artists descend on the house for a seminal event in their history; later occupation of the house by a woman who runs a girls school there; transformation of the house into a museum much later, to honour one of the artists from the fateful summer; occupation of the house by a young family during WWII; a visit to the house by a man and a woman years later; and finally a visit by an archivist in the present day, trying to find out some of the history from those various periods. She has some of the clues about the various timeframes and is trying to piece together more information about the fateful summer.

What I Didn’t Like

I didn’t like the constant jumping around in time and point of view, which is the structural problem I mentioned above. There are at least seven separate timeframes for the house, and even a couple more in there that are alluded to through reminiscing, but some of the timeframes are not indicated very precisely. You kind of have to figure a couple out as you go. In addition, while the author is a master of lyrical prose, you know some of the story is going to be a bit weird when early on you see an event from the point of view of a satchel that is being opened. Yes, the actual satchel, as if it is alive. It is not the only fantastical element in the book, but the rest would be too much of a spoiler to reveal. A bigger problem I had was that in one timejump, the new PoV is in the head of a woman who has a name VERY similar to that of another character; so much so that I was ten pages into the section before I realized that it wasn’t the woman I thought it was, and the timeframe was VERY different as a result. I often read books that have timeline issues that are way more complex than here, but even I had trouble following some of the hops. I also found part of the ending left things a bit hard to understand with one person acting very out of character and the final piece being a bit open-ended.

The Bottom Line

Great prose, wonderful saga, but difficult structure.