Random Things Tours: Service by Lauren Mooney

I am very honest with my reading lists, and no matter how FOMO I am - answer: a lot - there are specific genres I am usually avoiding, unless are recommended by people of high literary taste. Hence, I ended up spending some time with a Gothic novel of workplace inspiration: Service a debut by Lauren Mooney. 

To be fully honest, the workplace part weighted the balance in favor of this book. I am my own employer for ever and used with the duress, but from my memories of working in an office, no matter how fancy it looked and was described, the horror genre comes very close. 

Danielle, the main character of Service is in her 30s, broke, hating her job and just broke up with her boyfriend. This may lead to a romantic entanglement, or to some journey of discovering herself or who knows what other positive thinking magic. Danielle of Service though is invited by her glamorous boss, Jeannie, to spend some time in the noble mannor in England. 

But the next step isn´t a kind of countryiside romance or not even an entrepreneurship plan, but a couple of interactions and there is Jeannie, who seems to literally own her. The workplace drama continues, but with a moderate taste of horror. An old mannor will stay an old mannor, after all.

The whole story is a chain of unexpected situations, some explained in a humoresque vein, some just creepy, some both. There are expectations and laugh and mystery too.

There is a certain theatrality of both the setting of the book and the dialogues, which may be because the author herself is a dramaturg as well.

I´ve read the book over the last torrid weekend and it was the most inspired literary choice in a while. It is a debut novel to remember, and hopefully it will not take too long until Mooney will be back with a new novel. The waiting will be worth it, anyway.

Rating: 5 stars

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

Orenda Books Blog Tour: Catherine by Essie Fox

 

I am generally very careful with the retold novels I chose to read, as I always prefer original versions. But  two trustworthy sources - an author that I´ve discovered one year ago and really appreciated, Essie Fox, and an edition house that cannot be wrong, Orenda Books - changed my mind.

Essie Fox´s latest, Catherine, is a retelling of the iconic Wuthering Heights, a novel I´ve read in my teenage years. I also watched the movie - the 1939 version -, that at the time left me a stronger impression.

Catherine has however a different spin and perspective. The ambiance is eerie, very visual and with strong correspondences with the events related in the story. The storyteller is Catherine herself, who 18 years after her death, she is returning to the places of her ultimate love. Many of the landscape descriptions may stay with me for a very long time.

Personally, I´ve found the relationships between characters emotionally deep, facing a strength going beyond life and death. Similarly with the blind irrationality of nature, humans themselves seem to be possessed by passions beyond their own power and understanding.

The book is very well written and for someone who never read Wuthering Heights it may sound as a standalone, original writing as well. In the end, what really matters, is the story, no matter how often and the angle it is written. 

Rating: 5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchange for an honest review