Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
“We spend our youth building sandcastles of ambition, then watch as life blows sands of doubt over our carefully crafted turrets of wishes and dreams.”
Daisy Darker is about a very dysfunctional family and the secrets they have kept hidden. It takes place in a seaside house that becomes an island at high tide. This is a locked room mystery in the vein of And Then There Were None. It is told from the point of view of Daisy who is the youngest child of the main family. The story has flashbacks to when the girls were young. There is a storm outside with rain and wind lashing at the house which helps create an atmosphere. It follows the night of the matriarchs 80th birthday where she is found dead then one by one things devolve. Who is a suspect and will it be solved before the tide goes out?
This was the first novel I have read by Alice Feeney and I started out liking how each character was introduced. It seemed like they were walking onto a stage as they were brought in one by one. I did like when the author talked about books and how important they were to several characters. I do love books and reading. Writing was also a key component and I liked how it was interwoven through the family and plot. I had high hopes as I love locked-room mysteries and stories that take place in one location like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and several books by Agatha Christie. This particular story was fine albeit a little contrived. Alice Feeney had some home runs with the writing but then also some strikeouts. Not sure why I resorted to baseball metaphors just now but there were several quotes and ways that Alice phrased things that I did truly love like “Some people drink to drown their sorrows; others drink so they can swim in them.” There were some great life lessons and ways of thinking of things. However, there were times where I think the author went overboard. There were too many platitudes and cliches though and some were forced in which made it sound pretentious for its own sake. I also found only 1 semi-likeable character in the entire book. The family was despicable and had very few redeeming qualities. For most of the book, I was wanting to find out what happened but when I did, I was fully disappointed. There is a twist but it does not pay out. It left a bad taste in my mouth. I had to reflect on the whole story to think about what I missed and things just didn’t add up. I know that it is fiction but this to was just too out there. I felt blindsided and not in a good way. I don’t want to ruin anything but I will say that I don’t like the type of story that it turned out to be. “Doesn’t everyone wonder who they might have been if they weren’t who they were?”
View all my reviews
Tag: rain
The Devastation Of Nature And The Hubris Of Man
Isaac’s Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History by Erik Larson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
“This is the story of Isaac and his time in America, the last turning of the centuries, when the hubris of men led them to believe they could disregard even nature itself.”
Isaac’s Storm is about the deadly hurricane that hit Galveston, Texas in 1900. It recounts the days leading up to it and the aftermath. It adds in a bunch of accounts from people but focuses on Isaac Cline, who was the resident meteorologist in the city. The storm hit without warning and devastated the area. Thousands of people died and very few buildings were left standing. There are some chapters dealing with the science behind it as well. The author did a lot of research and it shows. The failure of people in charge is evident.
I could tell that this was one of Erik Larson’s first books as it was not as polished as his others. I found this story to be more bogged down in the minutiae of unimportant details which affected his ability to create an exciting story that really moves. He also spent a lot of time trying to explain the science behind weather including clouds, winds, and pressure. It numbed my mind a little and did not contribute to the overall book. His other books utilized historical information and events to create a compelling narrative. Now, I am not saying that this was unreadable and like it was trying to hike through molasses. I am merely stating that I felt I could tell that he shows growth in his writing ability in his later novels which I enjoyed. I also did not feel as much emotion when reading this as I thought I might have, especially with the loss of life and the struggles that people had to go through. I think it came across more straightforward information than people focused. This story was fascinating to me because I love storms. I grew up watching Twister and when I was younger, I wanted to be a storm chaser. I know this took place over 120 years ago, but I wish more detailed information existed to fully understand what happened. There were so many frustrating things that occurred that contributed to the overall devastation of the disaster. Men were playing politics and thought themselves infallible which had them do a lot of guessing or just plain lying. “No cyclone ever can move from Florida to Galveston.” It just shows the destructive power of nature and how it could be made worse by mans sense of infallibility. This book was decent and I liked it overall. A couple quotes that I enjoyed are “Time lost can never be recovered…and this should be written in flaming letters everywhere” and “If I owned Texas and hell…I’d rent out Texas and live in hell.”
Affiliate Link:
https://amzn.to/43VMQdB
View all my reviews