Geoffrey GirardReseñas

I was so excited when I read the premise of Project Cain. It sounded like it would be a cool and interesting read, sadly I was quite disappointed. The book isn't at all what I expected. I thought we'd have this cool main character who was essentially good but struggled with a darker side of himself since he's DNA is the same as Jeffrey Dahmer. I expected a lot more action and mystery and suspense. What I got felt like a huge history lesson. There was a lot of information about different famous serial killers, how they killed their victims, how they got their nicknames, and while some of it was interesting, I felt NONE of it was relevant to the story. There was also a lot of information about clones as well so it was a history lesson and a science lesson. How any of it is important to the plot of the story is beyond me. I also did not like that there was no actual dialogue in the book. The whole time it was he said this, he said that. This book did way too much telling and not nearly enough showing. The ending had quite a bit of action, which makes the book a tiny bit better but overall it was just way too much information and not enough of the actual story. This book had great potential and it's sad that it just wasn't executed well, 2 stars.

Anyone not expecting a book about serial killers, or in this case, clones of those serial killers, to not be sick and twisted is fooling themselves. What we have here is a solid first novel that is genuinely creepy and not for the squeamish.

What's also a little creepy is the encyclopedic knowledge about serial killers, their lives and their 'careers' demonstrated by (and freely acknowledged by) the author. He uses this knowledge to build a world where he can freely explore the issues of nurture vs. nature and the consequences of unfettered scientific inquiry and military avarice along the lines of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The characters and settings here are well-drawn. The prose is strong and the plot well-developed.

What knocked me out of the story from time to time were the glaring inconsistencies and implausibilities in the science. Is this about cloning and genetics and free will? Or is it about a nerve gas that overrides all three? It tried to be about both, using the latter to provide a (superfluous) ticking clock to add urgency to the story about the former.

It will be interesting to see what this author does in the future. He's already published a young adult novel that is a companion to this book.

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book for review.

Good premise, but the writing style was a bit strange, with sentence fragments and parts that I had to read a few times in order to figure out who was saying what.
The story also bogged down in the middle, and the appearance of the strange creatures towards the end just made it too unrealistic for me. I so wanted to like this book more, but could not.

Appeals more to guys; very interesting plot, but too much murder for me. Fortunately the gory details are most left to the imagination.

I had never heard of Yasuke before, and his life was fascinating. He was (presumed) born in Africa, stolen by slave traders, and eventually ended up in Japan in 1579 as part of a Jesuit missionary expedition. He attracted the attention of Nobunaga, leader of powerful Oda Clan. As Nobunaga’s retainer, Yasuke became samurai. Nobunaga bestowed honors and property upon him. Yasuke fought in series of battles with Nobunaga and (perhaps) witnessed his death. This book combines biography, history, and adventure.

The authors took license with parts of the narrative due to lack of documentation. They have made some educated assumptions. It gives the reader a “sense” of what life was like in Japan in the late 1500s. There are segments of fabricated dialogue and descriptions of what people are thinking, which contribute to a sense of adventure, but fall into the category of historical fiction. Samurai methods can be extremely brutal, so be prepared for horrific violence, including many beheadings and suicides by seppuku.

Brilliantly researched and depicted story of a (presumed) Sudanese native who found his way to Japan in the late 16th century and became a legend. The man known to history only as Yasuke, the name he acquired in Japan, is believed to have been born in what is now Sudan where he was captured and sold into slavery. From there he found employment with a high ranking Portuguese Jesuit at the height of missionary expansion into eastern Asia. In his company Yasuke travelled to several countries before arriving on the shores of southern Japan in 1573, 27 years before the more well-known William Adams. Shortly after arrival, Yasuke was introduced to Oda Nobunaga, the man who strove to unite Japan under one rule and end a hundred years of skirmishing among the provinces. And then, he became samurai.

This non-fiction work employs a novelistic style for most of its length, presenting its historical figures and scenes just as they would be portrayed in fiction. Speculation about thoughts and feelings, and many of the specific actions etc. are transparently fictional, but are used to set up the descriptive passages where the real meat lies and to alleviate the dryness. This is interspersed with considerable background information that interrupts the 'story'. I think it works for the most part, but it could be distracting and even disorienting until I was accustomed to it. This format made me especially curious about the sources, so it was very rewarding when Yakuke's story came full circle at the end to explore those in detail.

While the book is ostensibly about Yasuke, it is just as much a biography and history of Oda Nobunaga and all that he accomplished towards achieving a united Japan after a hundred years of chaos, prior to the Tokugawa Shogunate completing his work. I was more than happy when it did so, and anyone who wishes to learn Nobunaga's story would actually do well to begin here. There are so many other sidebars that go deep into exploring other elements of Japanese history and the period, I think this is a credible gateway to the subject in general. Even burdened with an enormous subtitle, this book's content is still far more than what the cover promises. Rarely does one of my spontaneous buys pay off this well.

The premise was so promising but the style just didn't do it for me. A number of problems with the book could all have been helped by one simple thing. The Golden Rule of Writing: Show, don't tell.

The book was filled with info dumps. About characters, about real life serial killers, about conspiracies... There are multiple occasions when this actually happens:
"About [character]." followed by a page or so of facts about said character. Don't tell me "[Character] had horrific nightmares that woke him a couple of times each month." before I've even met the character. Show him having a nightmare or two, then say that.

The narration was written in a detached, flat sort of way that left me not particularly caring about the characters or what was happening to them. "So, [this] happened, then [this], oh, and I didn't know it then, but I now know that [character] thought [this]." There was no immediacy. Even when the bad stuff is happening, it's told from such a distance that you just kind of don't care. It doesn't hit home.

Others have already pointed out the lack of proper dialogue. I know the author was going for something here, but for me, it only added to the detachment. The author may have been going for "This kid is clearly traumatized" but I was feeling more like "This kid is kind of boring."

Mary Rose by Geoffrey Girard is a gothic tale of a young girl who, at the age of 6, disappeared for 33 days, only to reappear in the exact same place with no memory of where she had been. As her fiancé turned husband searches for the source of her increasingly bizarre behavior and artwork, we are drawn into a tale that is never quite a love story nor a ghost story, but rather a blending of the two that while skillfully told, ends with questions left unanswered. Perhaps that was the point to add to the mystery of the tale.

In the 1960’s, Alfred Hitchcock attempted to bring the story to the silver screen. He never succeeded, but a Scottish script was written and the play was a success in Britain in the 1920’s.

If you like books about history in which the author(s) do historical investigative work to weave a rich story, this book is for you.

Is everything in its pages 100% fact? No, but the authors admit to that and even spend the last section going over all the possible things Yasuke could have done once history lost track of him.

Yasuke's story aside, the context the authors give of life in Japan during the 1500s, as well as the small window they give into the complicated history of warfare in Japan, is alone worth the read.

Story of a young 6 year old girl, Mary Rose, who disappears on an island off the coast of Scotland for 33 days and returns, supposedly unharmed. The story picks up at about the time she is to be married. You do have to suspend reality to read this book, that is billed as a paranormal thriller. It is light on the thrills, and light on the paranormal, until the last few pages. There is little action in the book, but a lot of character development, or attempted character development. According to the 26 page prologue, this is a book written as a take of off a J.B. Barrie play and the idea for a movie based on the same by Alfred Hitchcock; which he couldn't get funded. I must have missed the word "paranormal" when I read the cover, because I had read that word, I would not have read the book. Read the last chapter twice and still not sure what happened! 272 pages½

Simon Blake is about to marry the woman of his dreams, but when they travel to England to visit her parents, they tell him a bizarre story from her childhood. Mary Rose went missing while the family was vacation on a remote island in Scotland, and then reappeared a month later with no explanation of where she had been. Now adult Mary Rose is showing signs of PTSD, as if she might be recalling some trauma from her childhood.

This was an engaging and compelling read as a modern re-working of J.M. Barrie's play of the same name. Having not read the original, I cannot compare the two. However, this one was well-written, with good pacing as the story starts off with everything seemingly normal and ramping up the pacing of eerie/weird/macabre things happening. A lot of that is kind of vague, so if you like tidy stories with definitive conclusions, you might not like this book. However, if you like your horror more spooky than terrifying, this is the book for you.

For audiophiles, narrator Henrietta Meire did a superb job of bringing out a large cast of characters with a variety of accents, ages, and genders.

The book's afterword goes into details about the J.M. Barrie play, as well as Alfred Hitchcock's failed attempts to turn it into a movie. There's actually a surprising amount of biographical information about Hitchcock included here, which is a neat addition.

Started out great, awesome thought provoking concept interesting plot, then it went down hill and got stupid.

A scholarly dissertation re-worked to read like an adventure story filled with cultural tidbits and Japanese history. This is the true--to-life story of a kidnapped boy who becomes a bodyguard to a Jesuit missionary and is then gifted to a Japanese ruler. Set in the times just prior to _Silence_, prior to the expulsion of all foreigners from Japan, this story is equally cinematic and very readable while affording lots of notes and even an index for the more scholarly. With battles and lots of fighting, the detail is exciting and even alludes to some sexual dalliances. I understand the book is being made into a movie starring an actor from _Black Panther_.

This book is based on a ghost story written by J.M. Barrie in 1920. It was also Alfred Hitchcock's dream project for more than 50 years. Unfortunately, the subject matter was too upsetting for Universal Pictures and they wouldn't allow him to make it. I didn't know any of this when I started reading this book last night. I couldn't finish it until this afternoon because it scared me after my husband went up to bed! And I read Stephen King and Dean Koontz with no problem! It's the story of Mary Rose Moreland and her fiancé, Simon Blake, both successful professionals living in Philadelphia. When they go to England so that Simon can ask her parents for permission to marry Mary Rose, he finds out that she had disappeared when she was 7 years old and reappeared 33 days later on the exact spot where she had vanished without any memory of the missing days. Once Simon hears this, he wants to find out what happened hoping to help her after her behavior becomes stranger and stranger.

Scott Wallace prefers to live life in a fog. Alcohol, drugs, and conspiracy theories fuel his existence, and his daughter, Katie, has had to be the responsible adult in their two-person family for far too long. At seventeen, Katie should be worried about things like prom and her grades, but when her dad is hospitalized after freaking out at work, Katie is placed in foster care and visited by government figures who are obviously hiding things from her—as is her dad.

When Katie tries to find a lawyer who will help get her dad out of the institution where it appears he is being heavily sedated and perhaps tortured, the only one who will take her seriously gives her the task of researching her dad’s situation and his claims that the US government was behind 9/11. The best path to secure his release is to prove that 9/11 conspiracy theorists (Truthers) are not insane, and that their beliefs are plausible.

Katie’s search for answers—or at least a legal path to getting her dad released—takes her from a law library to interviews with men who served in the military with her dad and even to a Truther convention. Along the way she meets a helpful (and cute) genius, and she enlists the help of an odd assortment of characters including her best friend and the other girls in her foster home. Katie is a likeable character, and her adventure reads as surprisingly realistic. Although there is a lot of necessary explaining throughout the book, there is also plenty of action to balance that, and the plot will keep readers wondering and flipping pages. My only complaint about the book is the occasional perspective shift that--though I understand the reason for it--disrupts the flow of the book. Fortunately those interludes are brief, they serve their purpose, and I was able to recover and quickly immerse myself in Katie's story again. I found myself taking the book with me everywhere I went so that I could tear through pages with every spare moment.

Geoffrey Girard has put together an interesting YA novel that has history, mystery, romance, action, and intrigue. I think teens will really love TRUTHERS, and the book will prompt them to question (and hopefully research!) accepted explanations for everything out there.

My thanks to the publisher for an advance copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.½

The concept for this book is what drew me to it. I was curious about what theory Katie's father had about the true events of 9/11. After reading to the half way mark it was evident that this book was written more for the younger juvenile audience. Not that there is anything wrong with this. This just means for the older audience, like me, this book may not be appreciated. The theories being thrown around were unbelievable. Also, the intensity levels seemed to be muted for the younger crowd. Had these factors been improved on for all reading audiences, this might have been a pretty good book.

I sat down to read a story, or two, and then get on with my day. Next thing I knew, I had read *several* stories. Some of them are easier to read than others, Mr. Girard's writing style gets lost in itself occasionally, but all are worth the time. But warning, though, these are dark tales and not for the light of heart.

Girard really shows his ability to explore different genres of short stories, science fiction, dystopia, zombies, ghost stories and more. Each story included its own surprises. Girard was able quickly establish the feeling of the story; you knew right away about suspense, drama and evil. The evil was rarely graphic; he left us to our own imaginations. Only rarely did I think he was playing with the reader, but be careful, because that's when you're in for a surprise. Many times the character is not complete until the last paragraph.

Girard helped remind me how powerful short stories can be. These stories may be too much for some, but they are a treat for those who enjoy a good thoughtful scare.

Note: I received a copy of this book through the Early Reviewer program of LibraryThing.

After I had requested this book to review, I had forgotten this was a collection of dark fiction. When I started reading it I just approached it as a 'regular fiction' collection, so the stories really gripped me in unexpected ways. Normally I read a lot of science fiction (also a lot of short stories, novellas, novelettes), so to have those elements included in here was a nice bonus.
This is a collection of dark fiction stories. Not all are straight up horror, and like I said, some would even qualify as science fiction. These is also a nice undertone of humor.
I really liked this collection, the stories were original and just long enough. I previously didn't know Geoffrey Girard but would certainly pick up his work again in the future. Recommended for readers of dark fiction, horror, dark fantasy, science fiction and zombies. Four stars.

I was a bit disappointed with this anthology of dark horror. I found the stories to be a little discombobulated and confusing. I also didn’t feel as though the stories were that dark compared to other books I have read. The notes at the end of the book would have been nice if placed at the beginning of each story. Maybe I am not used to reading anthology and therefore did not get the full experience I should have, however I did find some of the stories entertaining.

I’ve had trouble with this collection of short stories.
It’s not that they aren’t well written or diverse. It’s just that they don’t appeal to me at the moment. I guess that some books grab you and some don’t and this, for me, falls into the latter category.
I’m glad that I’ve dipped into what is for me a seldom explored genre and will try again with these stories another time and maybe with a different result.
I do however urge you to at least download a sample and decide for yourself whether this type of fiction will appeal to you.

I received a free copy of this book through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.

This is a nice mix of dark, short stories. All have an element of horror, but some incorporate humor, others mystery, gore, adventure, mysticism, etc. Not all of the stories were to my taste, but they are diverse enough that I think at least a couple would resonate with any reader. The ones that I liked really stuck with me. My favorite, and the scariest for me, might be Not Fade Away, where you get to contemplate the horror of your own mortality.½

Geoffrey Girard has collected in this volume a range of dark stories each of which has that knack of putting the reader on edge in very short order. His imagination covers dark in a number of ways and his grasp of form is excellent: most of the classic dark short story forms are worked through with powerful effect. One or two of these stories are great originals and I recommend this collection to anybody who likes their short stories dark and gripping.½

This is a book of excellently imagined & written dark short fiction. If I hadn't received a review copy there's absolutely no chance I'd have read it-- 'dark short stories' is something I never seek and rarely even remember exists. And if I hadn't received that review copy my life would be the poorer because there's some wonderful stuff in here.

One even more unexpected, delightful thing about this collection is the title's interplay in the stories. Our author provides his working version of the first definition as "the sharing or exchanging of intimate thoughts and feelings, especially when the exchange is on a mental or spiritual level." The stories in this book show the author proudly wearing his influences-- influences in many cases I suspect were early, deep, and lasting. The kind of influences he might feel a sense of communion with. I'm sure I missed most but I did detect Lovecraft, Tolkien, Charles Dickens, Poe, the movie Poltergeist, and a tv show that may be Buffy or a predecessor. There's also at least one influence with a wicked but wonderful sense of humor; my guesses are George Bernard Shaw, Ambrose Bierce, or Twain. And the band Rush whose influence is in a whole bunch of places.

Finally, I would like to note that it's my guess this is the only work of fiction in this or any universe to reference Geddy Lee's playing of Taurus pedals.

Intriguing stories with a nice twist. Normally, I'm not so fond of darker fiction, but some of the stories were too short to really drag you in which works just fine for me. 'What You Know' was definitely my favorite, but there were also some stories which were a bit too abstract to be understood.
All in all, quite a nice collection of stories, but not good enough for me to read again.