WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING, TRULY MADLY GUILTY & FLOWERS FOR THE DEAD.

 Today on Pen and Paper what have to be three of my least favourite reads of 2023.

WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING by DELIA OWENS.

For years, rumors of the “Marsh Girl” haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet fishing village. Kya Clark is barefoot and wild; unfit for polite society. So in late 1969, when the popular Chase Andrews is found dead, locals immediately suspect her.

But Kya is not what they say. A born naturalist with just one day of school, she takes life's lessons from the land, learning the real ways of the world from the dishonest signals of fireflies. But while she has the skills to live in solitude forever, the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. Drawn to two young men from town, who are each intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new and startling world—until the unthinkable happens.

I can remember my thinking when this book first came out in 2018 that I'd wait until all the hype had died down before I read it. I'm so glad I did as, totally underwhelmed by it, its bad enough some five years on admitting that I didn't enjoy it, back then I think I'd have been lynched.

Seriously though, it was disappointing that that the author seemingly couldn't quite decide what the book was, a fairy tale for Young Adults?; a murder mystery?; a coming of age story?; a courtroom drama? {Heck, there's even some poetry thrown in for good measure}. 

Whatever its genre{s}, full of cliches, the characters flat and stereotypical, the dialogue, painful, the sex scenes, laughable and awkward, the mystery, not much of a mystery.

Even more disappointing was that as a character driven reader I didn't buy into Kya. Supposedly a person who has been totally isolated, I  saw her as merely a loner who was somewhat lacking in socialisation skills, no doubt due to her not having been privy to them in her formative years. 

OK so that's what I didn't like about the book, now for what I did like ... 

I enjoyed the vivid descriptions of the biology of the US marshlands; presumably something that the author felt comfortable with given that, whilst this is their first work of fiction, they have been published in several nature journals. At a loss to think of anything else, I was obviously in a good mood when I rated it as I did.

TRULY MADLY GUILTY by LIANE MORIARTY. 

This is a story which begins with a barbecue ...

By the end of it a lifelong friendship will be in tatters, a marriage on the rocks and an innocent bystander dead.

In just one evening six lives will change forever ...

{Sigh} It isn't very often that I struggle to find anything positive to say about a book so I'm going to go with at the time of typing, 51,229 readers posting on GoodReads rated Truly Madly Guilty ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ... proof that there are those who enjoyed it.

Anyway! OK, I get it, something awful happened at this barbecue ... but what? If nothing else I'd like to be able to say that it was the desire to find out that kept me reading but the truth of the matter is, any curiosity as to what had happened that fateful day long since gone, it was only the stubborn streak that sees me having started a book having to finish it that actually kept me reading until the bitter end.

What of the characters though?

That between all of the infertility, the alcohol abuse, the hoarding etc, etc, the characters got kind of lost. That we were privy to their inner voices; thoughts that they wouldn't dream of voicing, was an interesting ploy but alas I just didn't connect with any of them.  

 FLOWERS FOR THE DEAD by C.K. WILLIAMS.

I am the reason girls are told not to trust strangers. I am their cautionary tale.

Nineteen years ago Linn Wilson was attacked. Seventeen-years-old and home alone, she’d been waiting for her friends to arrive when she heard the doorbell ring. But when she opened the door, Linn let in her worst nightmare. The culprit was never found.

It was someone I knew.

I am going to find out who did this to me.

'A totally gripping crime thriller that will keep you in suspense!' according to the book's header on Amazon.co.uk.

Sounds promising, yes? 

Its just a shame that in reality I found the book to be too long, the chapters, mind numbingly so. As for the  characters, to say that I found them all pretty much 'meh' about sums it up.

That there's a good chance you'll have worked out pretty early on who the perpetrator is, disappointing. However for all of that, the author manages to bring the novel to a  unpredictable, rather shocking conclusion. 

On the plus side though, there's the bell. Put to good use throughout the book, I loved how the ringing of that bell created such a sense of foreboding, upping the tension in such a unique and unexpected way.

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