Wednesday 3 October 2012

Cornelius Harker


This third book in the continuing Gothic Saga is the best yet.  It's revelations are amazing.  What an imagination and what skill in the telling!  Utterly Brilliant!



Words to the Wise Book 3: Sirrenvaag (Part 1)

Link for Amazon.com  Words to the Wise Book 3: Sirrenvaag Part 1

My review -

If you are reading a review of the third book in an on-going series then I am preaching to the converted.  Nevertheless I can assure you that you will be astonished by this latest volume.  At last we follow The Wanderer and his young and impetuous friend Rickard into that town of which we’ve heard so much.  It is macabre in the extreme, both in the architecture and in the construction of the houses, being the product of a group of people obsessed with death.  The revelations in the first day shocked and amazed me.  I realised I had made assumptions about the creatures which share the human soul and they were incorrect.  It was like looking through a kaleidoscope, when the shifting of one or two little pieces completely alters the picture.  This is such brilliant writing.  I knew I’d been cleverly misled but the fault was mine; the clues were there. 
We learn about Sirrenvaag from the keeper of the House of Litithius and we also learn, through a narration by the Lighthouse Keeper, a Simeon-like figure, of the history of the town and its inhabitants’ belief systems.  At this point a lot fell into place for me.  I realised how many assumptions I’d made and I now understand a great deal more.  I was fortunate in receiving a preview copy of this book and in fact I have read it all again in the light of what I had discovered by the end; I’m so glad I did.  Parts of the story now come together and demonstrate that Cornelius Harker has not only created a wide story arc but has given it depth too.  
The story is faultless, the writing, as ever, combines that 18th century Gothic flavour highlighted by the author’s own distinctive, creative approach to prose.  Altogether this book is a Wonderful Thing and its author is a Class Act!

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