Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli

Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli is a book I needed a long time to read and even longer time to think about it. It is also a book of many books into one: a chronicle of a marriage ending - as the own author´s - a book of loneliness, a book about catching memories, a book of the voiceless. The book was nominated for the Booker Prize 2019 and was the winner off the Dublin Literary Award in 2021.

A Mexican-American author based in the US currently, Luiselli herself is involved on behalf of children immigrants. Children of various ages, sent alone from Mexico, with a phone number sewed in their clothes hem, a number to be called upon arrival, upon survival. My son is much older than some of the children mentioned in the book, how would my sweet boy survive such an ordeal? It is a terrible thought, as terrible as the children from the Lord of the Flies, a book the protagonists may read to their children on their way to filling their working assignments. 

There are two main storytellers: the mother, working on a soundscape project, and the older son, who plans an escape with his half-sister on their own, up in the mountains, aimed at getting in touch with some of the lost children their mother is so much invested into that she is mostly not present when around her own children. 

Past and stories are what keep memories alive, and through sound, a sound archive, there are the emotional, contextual memories who are maintained. The wording of the book is beautiful, prose split in different small enchanting chapter, although not always necessarily part of the worded narrative.

´I suppose an archive gives you a kind of valley in which your thoughts can bounce back to you, transformed´.

´Stories are a way of substracting the future from the past, the only way of finding clarity in hindsight´.

There are many parts that at a close scrutiny weren´t maybe so enchanting, critically speaking. Although the story stops long before the separation took part, the fact is announced as a certitude and more than once it annoyed me, because sometimes, especially for few hundred pages novels, I don´t like predictable outcome. Also, the voice of the boy - recently 10 - was hardly recognizable from his mother´s, which was also not a pleasant experience.

What I also appreciates is the multimedia inserts, with photos, but only at the end of the book, although was feeling like it could have been used more boldly and extensively.

Lost Children Archive is an important book of our times and may open pathways to inspiration to keep exploring the topic, maybe also in a less personal key as part of a story of marital alienation. 

Rating: 3.5 stars

Corylus Books Tour: Black Storms by Teresa Solana translated by Peter Bush

Since their launch, only few years ago, Corylus Books maintained a very interesting line of authors whose works meet thriller investigations on the background of complex political contexts. Their latest, Black Storms, by catalan author Teresa Solana, translated by Peter Bush continue this trend, with a surprising story about wounds of events that happened almost one century ago.

When a sick, retired professor is killed, no one may have figure out exactly the reason of the crime. Tasked with solving the case, detective Norma Forester is challenged to focus her super power - and activate her family background references as well. Thus, she will be able to trace the roots of the crime to the Spanish Civil War, where her grandfather belonged to the International Brigades.

Short yet atmospheric and with characters of deep personal and sociological complexity, Black Storms was a fascinating read. I am passionate about how politics and history may alter our everyday lives therefore, the reading inspired me a lot to think about those fine borders when our lives may be shaped by other people´s decisions and histories. I particularly loved Norma, a complex character with a family story bigger than herself. 

For anyone interested about Spanish history, particularly the Civil War, Black Storms is a good introduction, adding that human layer of knowledge that we may miss when we are reading just cold historical facts and figure.

A recommended read if you love a good thriller written in a very smart political key. I am definitely interested in reading more by Solana.

Rating: 5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own

Rachel´s Random Resources: In Italy for Love by Leonie Mack

Broken-hearted and financially broken as well, Julia is just consumed by her Italian dream. As she arrived from Australia few years ago, and fell in love with Luca, she did not expect such a dramatic ending. She even bought together with him a B&B that right now is just another display of her failure. Having enough of still living with her ex, without any financial perspective in sight and very reluctant to ask for the help of her parents - she is 27, after all - she heads to an olive farm to start working and recover her self esteem. And, as expected, she is about to meet love again and perhaps start a new beginning.

In Italy for Love by Leonie Mack is as predictable as life can be. It is possible to meet love when you expected less as it is also predictable to head up for a change when everything you tried before proved wrong. Therefore, we are delighted with a relatable and emotional story, set in a delightful place on Earth.

Don´t take me wrong. There may be love stories leaving you completely destroyed and afraid to start anything anew. But for the average of people, life may just go on and on and being open for a new life is just the mindset that maybe, hopefully, will attract the right people around you. That´s the spirit of In Italy for Love and a reason why I am happy to recommend it to anyone looking to a soothing weekend read. 

Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own

Random Things Tours: The Peacock and the Sparrow by I.S.Berry

The end of the Cold War challenges not only the geopolitical balance of power, but also dramatically changes the literary spy thriller narratives. Decades after, the world, the literary one too, still tries to recover after the shock, but personally I see here a lot of positive influences.

The struggle between ´Bad Guys´ and ´Good Guys´ turned many of the thrillers into very predictable stories, although seasoned sometimes with some spectacular changes of perspective and defections. What the ´New World´ allows now, is a narrative beyond those stereotypical matrix which makes the reading so relatable and the creativity in so much demand. Also, very important, it focuses on geographical areas and countries that before were just used as an arena or pretext for loudly displaying the bipolar confrontations. 

And who else may know better those new perspectives than a CIA operative? I.S.Berry, the author of the stellar spy debut that I had the pleasure to be offered to read and review was, among others, in charge with clandestine service operations throughout the Middle East and South Asia. The Peacock and the Sparrow - a parabole which is explained in the book for those curious to grab the book and start reading it right now, you will not regret it - is a complex narrative, where spy life is revealed in its multi-faceted ways. 

Set in Bahrain, during the latest times of political unrest, it features Shane Collins, a CIA-case officer caught in the net of intrigues, bureaucratic opportunism and professional habits that may shape his personality so strongly that even when he is dreaming of love, is thinking about the object of his love in terms of ´target´. 

The Peacock and the Sparrow is a spy thriller that although priviledges the action and spy challenges, allows a generous space to psychological introspection and the myseries - without a ´t´ - of secret agents. There are no heroes or villains, rather doing a job sometimes bigger than life.

This is a recommended book for anyone looking for a well-paced, extremely insightful thriller set in Bahrain, eye-opening in a very different literary way.

Rating: 5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usuall, my own

The Apartment on Calle Uruguay by Zachary Lazar

A - relatively short - novel about love, acceptance and reinventing yourself in exil circumstances, The Apartment on Calle Uruguay by Zachary Lazar is beautifully written. It is not easy to define what really means a beautiful prose, as the tastes may differ from one person to another, but for sure one knows how to recognize it. In my case, beautiful writing means a story that reminds us about the importance of humanity in us all, particularly kindness.

Christopher Bell, the narrator, is a painter fighting creative block, self-refugiated in a house near the forest, meets Anna, a journalist who fled Venezuela occasionally in the US, looking for some job opportunities. As she will return to Mexico, where her family took refuge, they realize, both of them, that they can give a chance to their story. 

It is a love story that grows slowly, but who was not meant to be exactly a love story. It is one of those random encounters that are able to be born only when both participants do give love a chance. Stories that in normal circumstances may sound impossible, they are happening under specific conditions. Exile, for instance, make as feel different. From outside, as a reader, you feel as you are the companion of the characters for a short amount of time, being left behind as soon as the story advances and eventually ends.

Both Christopher and Anna do try to accept their new identities, or are already familiar with the change of them. Christopher, for instance, is born in Israel and childood memories do return in his present life, he is but not one in ´the right way´ (whatever it may mean): ´I wouldn´t be alive if there wasn´t such a thing as Israel (...) But I´m not Israeli in a way anyone there would even recognize´. 

As he decides to follow Anna in Mexico, starting anew without necessarily a plan, he is facing his own choices, trying to find way to organise the past while distantly making sense of his new realities: ´Sometimes my life in Mexico didn´t feel real, just as mypast life in the US seldom felt real anymore´.

It was my first literary encounter with this writer, and I am sure not the only one. The Apartment on Calle Uruguay is a very fine kind of writing, kind and elegantly emotional. I wish I can write more such books.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Orenda Books Tour: Dark as Night by Lilja Sigurðardóttir translated by Lorenza Garcia

 

Lilja Sigurðardóttir is an author I had the chance to get to know via the fantastic book tours for Orenda Books and the series are just getting better and better. The continuation of Cold As Hell, Red as Blood and White as Snow, Dark as Night translated by Lorenza Garcia features again characters like detectives Áróra and Daniel, but the story takes a very unexpected turn.

Detective Áróra is still looking to find out what happened to her sister Isafold, while trying to have an active life which includes some bodybuilding side activities as well. But out of nowhere, a child claims being her sister´s incarnation. Daniel, on his side, is finding out that his neighbour may need to leave the country in a hurry, but as a professional, he simply cannot accept that it is not something more hiding in the lines of the intempestive departure.

Told from four perspectives, the story is unexpected and delving deep into the darkness of human life and brain. Well-paced, it allows the reader to get used with the characters and the many details of the story, through short chapters and a clear story line.

From arm deals to reincarnation and drag queens, there is hardly something that really escape the careful construction of the story. Personally, I felt fascinated about the narrative, and very curious to see where and especially how it ends. The characters are very relatable, with the mixture between good and evil that characterizes every one of us, but the measure of their difference is how they react in real life, especially in very difficult situations.

I don´t know if the series will continue, but I wish it will, because after reading the books from the series, you may really feel invested into the characters. 

Dark as Night is another extraordinary example of the strength of Sigurðardóttir´s writing. 

Rating: 5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own.

Rachel´s Random Resources: The Honeymoon by Gemma Rogers

Planning your honeymoon after a much awaited wedding day, makes you think about a world of dreams and fairy tales. Ignorance is a bliss, until your world is shattered into pieces, in a fraction of a second. 

The storyteller of The Honeymoon by Gemma Rogers is catching her soon-to-be-husband busy with his best friend´s wife. She may run away, on that much awaited honeymoon, trying to start again, while enjoying the beautiful Creta. But how she was thinking everything will go as planned? As her ´husband´ arrives, it is not only the denial of everything that happened that shocked her, but the revelation that he may have much more to hide.

Given my previous reading experience with Gemma Rogers´ books I don´t hesitate any single moment when she publishes a new title. The Honeymoon takes the reader to unexpected places, highly emotional and thrilling. As expected, it builds an ambiance of fear and mistrust, with some very surprising twists.

I loved this book and refused to do anything until I reached the end of the story. I liked especially how it explores the issue of trust and accountability, but also how complicate it is sometimes to spot sociopaths and why it is risky for your mental and even pyhsical integrity to do so.

A recommended book to anyone looking to explore a very human topic in a very eventful thrilling story setting.

Rating: 5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own